Questions: Nutrient Cycle and Freshwater Planted Tank application?

[kiddjam]

I love the efficiency and effectiveness of algae scrubber, it is a miraculous work of mother nature.

For the marine aquarium the algae scrubber is heaven send, I won't think twice to use it, since the majority of marine aquarium life we keep today are mostly "animal" by this i mean they aren't plant, so the nutrient are not going anyway except wait for the algae to grow in the display/main tank.

I have both marine and freshwater tank, I use algae scrubber for my saltwater and it works great, but I wonder would it work continuously great for my freshwater planted tank? So I do a search on the forum here and there and of course google the heck out of it before I manage to make another one.
Tom Barr on Barrreport.com has a thread started by a user whom has similar question (http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/8473-Algae-Scrubbers-wi-a-planted-tank), I think Barr said the result is not going to be good as the SW, since planted tank we want the nutrient to stay in the water for the plant to consume and grow.

I read ALL that massive thread of Santa Monica to learn a lot from him, I like the idea of he draw out the picture diagram for easy understanding of the food and nutrient cycle, I never knew there are organic and inorganic difference, and what the bacteria act as what role in the cycle...
but I sorta get confused later on because the bio filter we used to have some how seems blur to me:
Isn't the anaerobic/aerobic/beneficial bacteria we culture in the bio filter compartment is the thing that will remove the "inorganic" nutrient?


To better understand it myself, I draw a similar picture of the nutrient cycle Santa Monica did, but in freshwater style:
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Seachem flourish is inorganic nutrient, is it right?
http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Flourish.html
:confused::confused::confused::confused::confused: :confused::confused:


If I can put a algae scrubber to work in the freshwater tank, to remove excessive nutrient that the so called bio-filter(anaerobic/aerobic/beneficial bacteria) could not do the job right, that will be nice.
Here is the picture of Takashi Amano's one of many tanks in his office, awesome right?
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[SantaMonica]

Isn't the anaerobic/aerobic/beneficial bacteria we culture in the bio filter compartment is the thing that will remove the "inorganic" nutrient?

No. Mostly only anaerobic bacteria can remove the nitrate that algae eat. And bio filter compartments are not anaerobic because they are exposed to oxygen. You need a deep sand bed (no oxygen at bottom) or rock (no oxygen inside) or a sulfur reactor (no oxygen inside) to get the proper bacteria which will eat nitrate. Aerobically, there is carbon dosing (vodka, pellets) which grow the bacteria which do eat nitrate, and phosphate too, but I'm not sure of it's suitability with plants.

From the planted tanks with scrubbers that's I've seen so far, the trick seems to be to scrub enough to remove the algae in the display, but not enough to remove too many nutrients. You are kind of balancing one scrubber against the other.

Your pictures are correct.

[kiddjam]

No. Mostly only anaerobic bacteria can remove the nitrate that algae eat. And bio filter compartments are not anaerobic because they are exposed to oxygen. You need a deep sand bed (no oxygen at bottom) or rock (no oxygen inside) or a sulfur reactor (no oxygen inside) to get the proper bacteria which will eat nitrate.

I use Seachem's Matrix the regular one, not the pond one, and ADA's Bio Rio, are they sufficient enough for both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria to grow on?



Aerobically, there is carbon dosing (vodka, pellets) which grow the bacteria which do eat nitrate, and phosphate too, but I'm not sure of it's suitability with plants.

I carbon dose with excel and compressed CO2 injection only, I think vodka may drunken my dwarf cichlid :)



From the planted tanks with scrubbers that's I've seen so far, the trick seems to be to scrub enough to remove the algae in the display, but not enough to remove too many nutrients. You are kind of balancing one scrubber against the other.

Could you please post links of those freshwater/FW user who use Algae Scrubber to remove algae from their main display tank? Most of the time they are SW.
I just can't see enough of them whom will say his tank is freshwater and has a good result, I never sought one... make me very desperate.
The balance of two algae scrubber "algae re-position" and "plant" is very well described!

[SantaMonica]

Bio Rio and Matrix are aerobic only.

CO2 is not carbon dosing; it does not help bacteria to consume N and P the way dosing vodka, vinegar, or pellets does.

I don't know what Excell is.

I don't have links to the planted tanks; have not categorized them yet... there were only a few.

[kerry]

I have a scrubber on my 150G FW with 8 large fish in it. I never had an algae problem at all. The only reason I wanted to use the scrubber was to help with the nitrate. The levels get so high so fast I was doing two 40% per week. Now with the scrubber in place I am only doing one 40% change every 2 or 3 weeks. So it has a great advantage on the FW to. My set-up has two screens which are almost full size. They both grow a ton of algae and need to be cleaned every 5 days most times. I have not done much tweaking with it yet so I am sure I can get better results. I have no plants in this tank so I have no info on that part.

[kiddjam]

Bio Rio and Matrix are aerobic only.

CO2 is not carbon dosing; it does not help bacteria to consume N and P the way dosing vodka, vinegar, or pellets does.

I don't know what Excell is.


SM, thanks for replying, Bio Rio and Matrix are areobic only, so how do we produce and culture anaerobic bacteria?

What is carbon dosing? What is pellets(food for fish)? I know vodka and vinegar, but do you just pour them in to the tank?

Excel is from Seachem, Flourish Excel, liquid form of co2.



I don't have links to the planted tanks; have not categorized them yet... there were only a few.

So the practical use for freshwater planted tank is not a majority use right? but I still think algae scrubber had its place in FW planted tank, I think I will try it some time.

[SantaMonica]

Plants compete with the scrubber. So it becomes a balance that you control with the number of hours you have your scrubber lights on.

[kiddjam]

I have a scrubber on my 150G FW with 8 large fish in it. I never had an algae problem at all. I have no plants in this tank so I have no info on that part.

I think your fish-only tank really do need an form of nutrient export/removal mean, like algae scrubber, or you should change lots of water, just like you mentioned.

What I really want to see, is the people use algae scrubber in planted freshwater/FW tank.

I want to see the balance between plant(moderately planted) and algae, how they match up together, will algae eat more and faster than plant(same hr and light)? or the other way around.

Because aquascaping requires lots of time planning in the start, I really don't think I would like to maintain the planted tank too often due to feeding and algae problem....

[Floyd R Turbo]

What is carbon dosing? What is pellets(food for fish)? I know vodka and vinegar, but do you just pour them in to the tank?

Vingear, Vodka, and bio-pellets are all forms of adding carbon to the system. I don't know if these techniques for for freshwater or not. But 'pellets' is not referring to fish food, but rather a bio-degradable material that supplies carbon to the bacteria.