![]() Well I could not find a single algae filtering device for sale anywhere, not even used. Then I learned that algae does lots of filtering too, and in 2007 I wanted to have an algae device that could filter and grow pods too. So I continued reading and decided I wanted to have seahorses with live food that I grew, and I found out I needed lots of algae to feed the pods for these horses to eat. So I started reading Wet Web Media and then Reef Central and learned that both fish guys had no idea how things worked. He re-did everything but within a year everything was dead again. And he did-but within a few months everything was dead. In 2006 when I hired a fish guy to set up a 90 gallon reef in our office, I wanted him to do everything, even feeding. What were the downsides of these designs? Other systems focused on raising algae in a refugium. Some designs required a lot of room and lighting to grow the algae. How did you get involved in algae scrubbing? Algae scrubbing has been around for over 20 years. As a matter of fact, if you set your system up properly and choose the right number, size and type of animals, you will never have to feed again-it will all be self-feeding and self-filtering. No other filter can be fed to your animals like algae can. Algae scrubbers maximize the growth speed of algae just like you can maximize the growth speed of tomatoes.Īlso of importance and interest is how you can feed your animals with the growth. ![]() The speed that the algae absorb the bad nutrients and grow in size determines how fast the nutrients are removed from the water this is what you know as "filtration." A tomato plant, for example, can have many things done to increase its rate of growth, but another way of looking at it is that the faster it grows, the faster that nutrients are removed from the soil and thus the soil is "filtered" faster. Once this is understood, the thinking can then turn to what is important: speed. The "bad" nutrients never have a chance to make it out to the open ocean, even though the water itself does. And the shallower the reef is, the more the absorption is done by benthic attached macroalgae (seaweed) than by floating microalgae (phyto). ![]() This is why reefs are "nutrient poor." O nce one animals makes ammonia it is almost instantly taken up by algal cells just millimeters away. This is part of the "microbial loop."Įven real reefs, which many people mistakenly think get constant natural "water changes" from the ocean, are actually filtered by a combination of micro and macro algae. Essentially all life in the water then feed upon this, creating more "bad" things which are once again absorbed by the algae. Algae then uses these "bad" things to make food (algae) for the base of the world's aquatic food chain. Marine biologists already know, but most aquarists don't, that algae is what absorbs all the "bad" things out of the water. Growing algae in your aquarium or pond duplicates the biological processes of oceans, reefs, rivers, and lakes. For those who are unfamiliar with algae scrubber theory, explain why growing algae in your aquarium is a good thing? ![]()
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