vac man
Member
I have a 150 gal aquarium. I just purchased a small 29g tank to use as a refugium. It has a strange "PLENTUM" filter in it. There are two rectangles of pvc pipe with hloles drilled in the bottom of it. It is inside of a mesh screen material and the tubing is packed in large crush corral. The guy i got it from built it. He maintains high end aquariums. He said to put it in the bottom of the aquarium and cover it with a deep bed of live sand. He said not to use and deep digging stars or pistol shrimp and it would control nitrate .. He had it up and running with a small reef and a few fish. He had test records and the levels were great. Rarely even changed water. He claims the air trapped in the tubing grows anarobic bacteria and it eats up the nitrates. I do not see how this works. How does the nitrate get through all that sand. Even if it did eat the nitrate. Also can it build up something? Maybe gases or nitrates and cause a sudden realease one day. I have set it up with some algae right now but have not hooked it into my big tank. Does anyone know anything about this type of filtration? Any opionions? The guy i got it from says it is not popular because it is so simple. It can eliminate the need for rock, sumps, skimmers. He had noting but a skimmer on a few hours a day timer and two rios for circullation. The rock in it was there just to give his coral a place to sit. He had four fish also. This amazes me and baffles me.
