Water changes, Skimmer and LR

I would have gone for passive flow in a bag in the sump to be honest. The way you've done in may turn it into a particulate filter. Hey ho.

 

I'll keep my eye on that then, I've always just thrown it in a bag that goes into a bubble stop of the skimmer. For the last couple of years I've had a bag of purigen in there also (not sure that really does anything though - except turn red!)

 

Not a clue. Before the scrubber days I would have said when the water turns yellow, but since I've turned my skimmer back on, this doesn't seem to happen anymore.

Edit - thinking more about this, this non yellowing event also coincides with when I started to clean one side of the screen at a time. This may indicate evidence that the sugar production, bacterial growth and skimming process is effective after all.

Edit 2 - have removed purigen and carbon.

 

Revisit - went the whole hog and stopped skimming a few days ago, water going green/yellow without carbon or skimming (noticeable under blue light). Skimmer going back on, see if it improves.

 

I dont understand why man.. ive been running scrubber only for a year with no yellow.

 

I suppose what works in yours don't necessarily mean it'll work in mine, and vice versa. Also I have mainly softies, perhaps there giving off a load of "stuff".
Edit - plus I feed 10 metric cubes of food a day and they don't just contain N & P.

Floyd - that's about the same size as a rotifer sieve.

 

Oh.. i dont know anything about sofies... Maybe gac will fix it?

 

If the skimmer don't get rid, the GAC will be going straight back in.

 

Bit of a surprise. Have been running a GFO regeneration test. The green haze appeared when I put GFO in the tank (assumed it was the lack of activated carbon). Took the GFO out to regenerate and put the carbon back in, green haze disappeared. Today put the GFO back in, but also left the carbon in, green haze reappeared within 6 hours. Have read that iron can (maybe, nobody seems to have tested it!) leach from the GFO. I think my tank may be iron limited, whether this is yet another function of Allelopathy (nutrient uptake poisoning) is up for debate.

 

Except it did it first time when the GFO was new. The regenerant for GFO is just sodium hydroxide (same as for regenerating DI resin.)

Floyd - it's got something to do with binding to organics and phosphates and precipitating out. It's a bit odd I must admit. May explain why I don't get that green glass algae though. This is my tank 12 weeks not cleaned.



Cleaned the pink stuff off today (and the mushroom that was growing on the glass), so I can see if it gets worse (or better) or not.

 

Interesting stuff i also run a skimmer again because of yellow water and dom build up causes algae blooms i wish i could run a scrubber only but cant tried twice now. Another thing my phos was high so i put some gfo in and my alk dropped from 0 to 6dkh in 2 days.

 

9 to 6

 

What about water changes? If I make no water changes, what dosing if any? Some inorganic elements are bound to get depleted i would think. Could I be replenishing via food?

 

If these quotes are to be taken at face value, the water changes are actually necessary to REDUCE build up of trace elements;

http://algaescrubber.net/forums/showthread.php?2643-Elements-in-Foods&p=30620&viewfull=1#post30620

Now, algae does contain these in varying amounts, and therefore exported via harvesting but it seems almost impossible to work out which elements and how much of each are actually being exported through algae harvesting.