Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everything - Page 3

That's exactly what this fellow did who came by my place friday... he has an 800g with .5 P and he brought some screen over to seed it from mine. Another fellow somewhere has a 1500 shark tank and was going to put a 1500 sq in screen in a 72g tank, but then decided to just build a vertical acrylic box that's very narrow and tall. These tank and acrylic designs (which were my first attempt, before the bucket) are even more efficient/powerful because you can put T5's or halides along the entire side wall, thus getting uniform light to all parts of the screen. Do post lots of pics.

Like you, many others heard about them but did not pursue, due to the same lack of info, so that's why I thought some info would help. If you do run a turf-only setup, detritus is simply processed by one organism to the next to the next until there is no more organics left, at which time it just becomes inorganic dust (most living tissue is water anyways.) So no, it does not "build up"; instead the tank reaches a balance point (compared to skimming) of higher organics and lower N and P. If the organics increase (feeding, dead fish, etc), the snails/crabs/ministars/bacteria increase consumption to offset this. This is why you don't need to skim the detritus out (let's call it fertlizer). The "fertilizer" feeds organisms in the tank (from corals on down) until it's broken down into N, P and inorganic dust. Turf, of course, has nothing to do with replenishing elements, or dosing alk and ca.

cil: The bacteria level varies according to load, just like when you add more fish load. Also the the pods and ministars and whatnot have a mini-explosion since there is no shortage of food for them. Then the filter feeders take off, but also the other corals now have endless food 24/7. And the inorganic dust that settles on your rock and bottom is probably far less than just what you could see; after all, how much metal, etc., is actually contained in food and waste. It's really all C, N and P.

vayapues: Sounds exciting. This will be a closed lid? Pics and stories, please.

subie: Glad you like the info. Did take a while, which is why it's lumped together in one post.

joe: Correct about Aday. There have been some advancements on the technique of harvesting in the last couple years, so as to eliminate any possible "yellowing" of the water. And surges/waves are indeed important; Aday said it doubles effectiveness. My design has no waves, but does try to simulate surges by pulsing the pump with a wave timer. Fortunately, even with this limitation, my bucket has gone beyond my hopes of effectiveness: Feeding as "much" as I want, and still have zero N and P.

Daily: 2 pumps frozen plankton, 1 pump frozen phyto, two cubes mysis (unwashed), plus a silverside weekly for the eel. This is for a 90 gal.

Joe that's some good news to be added to the other good news on the yellowing front. I've been saying for a while now that yellowing has something to do with when and how the algae is scraped ("harvested"), and also what type of algae is growing. It's also something that folks years ago experienced, but most folks nowadays don't. I think it's the harvesting that is making the difference. It's pretty well known that if you just leave the algae to grow and grow, that you'll definitely get yellowing. After all, the yellowing is coming from the chlorophyll's which I believe are green-plant based. And if you don't harvest, the green algae will overtake the brown/red. But the actual turf we want is not green, it's brown/red, which would seem to impart less yellowing. So I believe this is why the current group of turf users get very high filtering (not needing any help), and no yellowing. I know I have zero yellowing in mine.

However your point of harvesting "in-tank" is a good one, because the old gigantic ATS's were so big I don't think many people removed the screen (could it be removed?) and took it to the sink, like you do with the turf bucket. So that would make sense that it would be a big factor in elimination of any (theoretical) yellowing, by just doing all harvesting in a sink with running tap water, which just so happened to be the way I describe to do it.

But if any yellowing ever did occur for whatever reason, a monthly dose of carbon (that you need anyway to remove allelopathics) will fix it up. About this Zehr study... do you have it?