# can this remove plant waste?



## RisingSun (18 May 2015)

I live in an area that's going through a severe drought so changing water in my 48 gallon frequently is not an option.  I'm on a CO2 setup with medium light (a single ray 2 fixture mounted 3 inches above the rim. It should be producing about 40 par). I use pps-pro + flourish root tabs for fertilization. Unfortunately reducing the lighting is also not an option because I depend on speedy plant growth to remove nitrates from my high bio load (turtle).

I read this post by ceg 4048:


> Aquatic plants fed with CO2 enrichment therefore leach massive quantities of detritus out into the environment. This can be seen by shaking the plants and observing the cloud of "dust". Also, it can be seen by the level of dirt in the filter. These are all organic waste products. The detritus that coats the leaves acts to block nutrient and CO2 absorption. So plants can become suffocated by the level of waste. Does this always happen? No, because there are other factors, such as the lighting, the nutrient and CO2 levels, the flow and distribution and so forth.



I was wondering if I could use the eheim battery siphon: http://www.amazon.com/Automatic-Gra...id=1431969607&sr=1-10&keywords=battery+siphon to "fluff" the plants and remove the organic waste / dust produced by plant metabolism.

I also read some people put 50 micron filter pads in the siphon, will this catch the plant waste?

Is there any other means of removing organic waste without wasting a lot of water? Thanks!


----------



## Edvet (19 May 2015)

For particles a filtersock can help (https://www.google.nl/search?q=filt...=X&ei=WSFbVdumJ8PxUPrsgPgO&ved=0CCAQsAQ&dpr=1)
For excess ferts a helophyte filter can help (emersed plants standing in the waste water while under a lightsource will use ferts not being limited by CO2)


----------



## ian_m (19 May 2015)

This regularly comes up, especially from people not based in rainy United Kingdom with water everywhere....

Unfortunately no one has found a simple and cost effective way to remove the dissolved plant waste organics from a high-tech tank. Visible detritus is easily removed with fine filter floss in a standard filter. People have tried super fine filters, activated charcoal, pumped RO systems, marine protein skimmers and all types of tech, but in the end only chemical (flocculating agents and other bleach based) or biological (helophyte filter) is likely to work. Activated charcoal filters was promising, if I remember right, but cost of the filters foams was many times the cost of even bottled water, as the filters quickly became "used up" due to the amounts of waste.

So, unfortunately fresh dechlorinated tap water is likely to be best. Could you not use the waste water to water plants, lawn etc ?  My front lawn is really deep green due to 90litres a week being watered on it (+ its p**sing it down as I write...).


----------



## RisingSun (19 May 2015)

Thanks for the advice. I have a question about the helophyte filter. Do the roots of an emersed plant not release any waste into the water when the plant grows?

I might give emersed water sprite a shot. What's a good way to determine if I'm doing a good job getting rid of the plant waste? Maybe I can see if there's any oily surface film build up?


----------



## zozo (19 May 2015)

RisingSun said:


> Thanks for the advice. I have a question about the helophyte filter. Do the roots of an emersed plant not release any waste into the water when the plant grows?
> 
> I might give emersed water sprite a shot. What's a good way to determine if I'm doing a good job getting rid of the plant waste? Maybe I can see if there's any oily surface film build up?



Helophytes as filter plants are commonly swamp plants that only grow emersed and develop large root systems, so the water colum is not affected by melting leafs etc. It's only the root system taking firts from soil and water the rest it takes from and leaving in the air. A quite effective plant for an indoor helophyte filter would be Hippuris vulgaris, it's relatively easy to maintain with cutting to make it spread is fast growing and has a large creepy root system. you could combine this with other relatively fast growing plants which do not typicaly need very moist air and are also often used in Paludariums and terrariums llike the Spathyfillum. There are a number of plants you could use for that and make something nice looking as well.. 

The soil is mostly, inert substrate like bims, sand or gravel etc.. This also will filter it's fair share as biofilter and leave all the food in the fore for the hylophyte.

There is a little danger when working on the filter like exchanging plants or disturbing the soil. This could suddenly release a large amount of stuff you rather not have in your aquarium. It's best to keep it as undisturbed as possible. So easy plants that are multianual and so..

Search google and youtube for indoor aquaponics and you'll a;ready get some ideas..


----------



## RisingSun (21 May 2015)

Hmmm before I give helophytes a try, has anyone achieved minimal water changes in a high tech tank using a helophyte filter? I think an example would help me understand the quantity of helophytes I would have to grow to balance out the waste.  It would also give me more faith that this method can truly remove organic plant waste.

I guess one solution would be for me to raise the light, as well as grow helophytes. The helophytes should still keep my nitrates in check, and the low lighting would keep waste released by my submersed plants minimal.  The only thing is, I would probably have to give up my dwarf hairgrass carpet as I'm not sure if it'll still grow under low light.


----------



## zozo (21 May 2015)

There is a video on youtube from an eco farmer about aquaponics with a very large aquarium with a bunch of quite large massively pooping fish in the garden, more like a wooden box with a glass front. Whit a aquaponic filter filled with clay balls, gravel and sand on top of it, growing vegtables. In the interview he stated never to do water changes and the water coming out of the filter was even drinkable according to the tests he did. I noticed he didn't use plants in the aquarium, only large fish. So his tank isn't that heavy loaded as our high tech aquariums.

But thats'about aquaponic and farming fast growing vegtables, like tomatos, cucumber etc.. But actualy the principel of the helophyte is the same, the only differnce is your goal is not to eat the plant but only to clean the water. In ponds the helophyte filter very common easier to build and more popular than in the aquarium branche. Even the water purifiers instalations often use helophytes to provide our households with clean drinkable water.

The plant waist of an high tech planted tank is what the plants secret in the water with it's leaves when it's metabolising his food like firts and co2. It doesn't only secret oxygen but also protiens and oils etc. That's what those skimmers are for to suck this layer of the surface in heavy loaded setups. You will need a biofilter large enough to store all that waist so the bacteria in that filter has time enough to brake it down and make something usefull of it again.. I guess, to find people with more experience in that you rather have to talk to pond owners, farmers or people who work at water purify instalations. I guess it al comes to how loaded is your high tech aqaurium and how big a biological filter with helophytes do you need to take that load. And which kind of plants are suitable for that in an indoor setup. To make helophytes grow, so they can take the load out of their substrate they need light as well. So indoor you need to build a sufficient system for that as well, i guess the technical aspect about that is the reason why it isn't that popular in the aquarium branche.. What are the costs to build an maintain it and how does it comapre to the profit. I guess there will be your fall..

I'm already walking around some time with the idea of doing something decorative with that aquaponic principel, but my point of interest is not preventing water changes. So i never did put my focus on those numbers. But still i'm planing to build me somthing decorative in that direction, because i like plants and the techinal aspect behind it is fun to build.


----------



## zozo (21 May 2015)

I like to elaborate a bit further on the technical aspect..  Maybe you find it interesting and can give you an idea if it is achievable in your setup. You can do it in 2 ways. A constant flow filter like a 3,4 or 5 stage biofilter setup under the aqaurium like many of us have. And fill this with substrates and plants put light above it, but because it's a constant flow trough, the water will sifon in or is pumped in and you have to pump it up/out again. you need to take the load more in account, if you put in more in there than the bacteria can handle in the given time the filter will finaly spit out what you put in. Before the reach of that point you already need a water change.

To give the bacteria and plants in the filter more time you could use a bell sifon system. In this system you put a timer on the pump and pump water in say 4 times an hour. The filter will fill up to the top of the bell sifon. Then the sifon will drain the filter again, this will give the the bacteria and plants in there more time to work more efficently with the waist provided. The down side is if you like this to be combined with an aquarium. You drain your aquarium with the amount of water needed to fill the filter. And when the filter is full it will drain again back to the aquarium. If you need a filter about as large as your aquarium you can imagin what will happen. So in this more sufficient system you cant use a that large filter. You can only use a filter volume as large as the acceptable amount of water you can drain from your aquarium. A filter like that can be a little help but that possibly will never be enough to take the load.

The guy in the video from above had a constant flow filter above the tank and that one was as large as the tank. I guess if the tank and filter both are loaded with plants you need a twice or three times as much bigger filter to make it do what you want. But for an proper answer for that you maybe need to talk to someone working professionaly in the water purify bussines..


----------



## ian_m (21 May 2015)

None of this helps in removing the settled detritus that collects on substrate, under your nice piece of rock, in the roots of your Anubias, on the leaves of the plants etc which if left lying around in the tank is far more detrimental to water quality (think nice algae food) than the dissolved organics. This is why you should vacuum your high tech tanks regularly to remove all the settled detritus.


----------



## EnderUK (21 May 2015)

The only real way of reducing the need for water changes in a high tech tank is to reduce the light and therefore reduce plant growth. You are using the  PPS-Pro system that limits growth through limiting CO2 and nutrients so you could possibly reduce your water changes and get away with it. Maybe not you'll have to see.

Best option would probably be switch to low tech. Reduce the lights and CO2 over a month period with the CO2 reduction lagging by about a week. You're low tech tanks will mop up nitrates from the high bioload just as well as your high-tech setup. Throw in some duckweed or other floating plants the turtle won't eat they will love the nitrates.


----------



## zozo (21 May 2015)

Yup such an aquaponic filter could be a fun play to have and can look nice with intersting plants in it.. It will help your canister filter a bit as extra biofilter, but don't expect wonders to happen with small ones..


----------



## RisingSun (21 May 2015)

ian_m said:


> None of this helps in removing the settled detritus



Am I correct that the settled detritus will still be a problem even in a low tech tank? I thought the nitrifying bacteria would combat this.

Seems like reducing light + growing emergent/floating plants is the consensus here for my situation.


----------



## EnderUK (21 May 2015)

RisingSun said:


> Am I correct that the settled detritus will still be a problem even in a low tech tank? I thought the nitrifying bacteria would combat this.
> 
> Seems like reducing light + growing emergent/floating plants is the consensus here for my situation.



Not as much as in low tech tanks it's the beginning of soil and bacteria will break it back down into elements the plants can use. MTS help turning your new soil over. Unless the mulm gets really bad or you dislike looking at it then it's not that much of an issue in low techs.


----------



## RisingSun (21 May 2015)

EnderUK said:


> Not as much as in low tech tanks it's the beginning of soil and bacteria will break it back down into elements the plants can use. MTS help turning your new soil over. Unless the mulm gets really bad or you dislike looking at it then it's not that much of an issue in low techs.



So is the key difference that low tech tanks use soil, which has more bacteria?


----------



## zozo (22 May 2015)

RisingSun said:


> So is the key difference that low tech tanks use soil, which has more bacteria?



Maybe yes, maybe no.  Thats not the point.. The point is a low tech aquarium gets less fertilization, you don't put in extra Co2 it only takes the co2 which it gets from the water surface or what is left in the water from the air stone (if you use one). So the plants grow less faster and need less food, so you put in less food, so they also produce less waist. So the water colum, which obviously also affects the soil, is less polluted by plant waist.

Because everything is slower in low tech, the bacteria get less to work with and there for have more time to break down and make something usefull with what's on and in the soil.

In high tech tanks you put in extra Co2 and there fore the plants want to grow faster and ask for more food to metabolise the co2 into oxygen and sythesising carbonhydrates. So you have to add extra building blocks for that. And then there is so much waist production by the plants that the bacteria doesn't get the change to even the score on time, becaus you are already putting in so much, they need a helping a hand by doing water chances.

A high tech tank surpasses mother natures ballance. You could compare it with body builders on steroids. 

It's not the number of bacteria  it's the time you give them to do something with it. Compare it with roasting a turkey, that will take you about 90 minutes. Even if you call your neighbour to help you, but that still doesnt get the turkey done in 45 minutes..


----------



## ian_m (26 May 2015)

This is why auto water changers won't work.

The picture below is the detritus vacuumed/syphoned off the substrate and plants from my 180l tank during a 50% water change. All off this stuff was in the plants, on the plants, in the carpeting plants, in little piles under the wood, trapped in corners etc and vacuumed up by me. None of this was from the filters. This amount only exists due to the tank running high tech.

A continuous water replacement system would not shift this stuff.




I vacuum/syphon into a yellow bucket, before pumping out onto the front lawn so I can see things I shouldn't have sucked up...like fish...


----------



## Edvet (26 May 2015)

Syphon a lot of water with detritus out of the tank, let it sit (and sink) for a night an put it back next day? Do it with two alternating containers and you can keep the tank filled. BUt low tech is easier if you want to spare water.


----------



## RisingSun (27 May 2015)

ian_m said:


> This amount only exists due to the tank running high tech.



Thanks for the pics.  That stuff actually looks like it can be picked up with the eheim vacuum+50 micron filter pad presented in my original post.

But anyways, would you say that organic waste impacts the health of fish and plants?  I'm familiar with ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and their impacts on fish. So long as those levels are in check, would you say having the brown detritus in your pic affects fish and plant health?  My intuition is that so long as your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are low, it means your nitrifying bacteria + plants are soaking up the organic waste fast enough for it to not be a problem, but I may be mistaken - perhaps there are other compounds outside of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate that hurts fish.

I've read ceg's arguments about how organic waste blankets plants, reducing their photosynthesis capacity.  I would think that in this case, you would see an increase in ammonia/nitrite/nitrate as the plants break down and stop consuming the nutrients.

What I'm trying to figure out is if there is a good metric for "organic waste".  I feel this is an important metric to have before I start working on reducing organics - it's difficult to know you've reduced something if you can't measure it.  Plus, if ammonia/nitrite/nitrate is the end all be all of fish health, and I have those in check, maybe I shouldn't even be worrying about organics.

Let's discuss an extreme example to better illustrate my question. Suppose I make a tank of a bunch of rotting plants and lots of fish poo. However, I cover the surface with duckweed. The ammonia/nitrite/nitrate reads 0 despite all the decomposition happening below because there is enough duckweed to soak it all up.
Question 1: Would you say this hypothetical tank is a healthy environment for fish?
Question 2: Would you think this tank would get all kinds of algae?

Let's discuss


----------



## zozo (27 May 2015)

Fish waist and other organic waist are also a excesive phophate provider  and guess what, and exces of that will trigger algea to grow..


----------



## ian_m (27 May 2015)

RisingSun said:


> I feel this is an important metric to have before I start working on reducing organics


Very very very easy to do reducing organics and collected detritus, just run with considerably lower light levels (and fewer fish). Job done.

Any waste/detritus that collects in such a low light slow moving tank will be decomposed slowly by the flora and fauna present and not be an issue. This is how people can go for months/years without a water change, just run low light.



RisingSun said:


> have those in check, maybe I shouldn't even be worrying about organics


Yes you should, the presence of organics in the water are perfect food for algae, even more so if running at high tech light levels, algae have everything theyneed to take over your tank.....lots and lots of nice organic of food....lots and lots of light....bingo algae farm....



zozo said:


> phophate provider  and guess what, and exces of that will trigger algea to grow


There is no connection between phosphate levels and algae....you have been sucked in by the Matrix to believe this, especially by shops who will sell you phosphate remover. I had a pump failure and pumped 1litre of double strength EI solution into my 180litre tank giving phosphate levels of 80ppm. Nothing happened...fish swam and fed, plants just there...no algae zilch, zero in the couple of days this level of phosphate was present.


----------



## zozo (27 May 2015)

ian_m said:


> There is no connection between phosphate levels and algae....you have been sucked in by the Matrix to believe this, especially by shops who will sell you phosphate remover. I had a pump failure and pumped 1litre of double strength EI solution into my 180litre tank giving phosphate levels of 80ppm. Nothing happened...fish swam and fed, plants just there...no algae zilch, zero in the couple of days this level of phosphate was present.



That's also what internet is for  "make believe" that's where i did read it somewhere about algea prevention. waist and phosphate levels.  Thanks for correcting that..


----------



## ian_m (27 May 2015)

zozo said:


> That's also what internet is for  "make believe" that's where i did read it somewhere about algea prevention. waist and phosphate levels.  Thanks for correcting that..


Waste will cause algae, phosphate won't.

Phosphate gets such a bad name from excess phosphate from fertiliser run off causing algae blooms in lakes. Again this is not quite true. A farmer adds (too much) fertiliser to field, plants have a wonderful time and leach acid into soil in order to access insoluble phosphate in the soil. This now soluble phosphate (from the soil) runs into rivers and lakes. In UK, in non polluted areas, not a problem as the phosphate does cause algae to grow, but is kept in check by organisms further up the food chain and is basically scoffed, result no a lot visible happens. In the US lakes (and in China), where algae blooms are very common, the water is polluted by industry and the next set of organisms up from algae do not exist, thus algae grows un checked.


----------



## zozo (27 May 2015)

The fun part is, i believe it was a site with title something like aquarium expert i found in my search for info about hair algea..  
Than the expert writes an article about how to deal with and prevent algea growth.. And somehow the self proclaimed expert is misinformed as well and makes other poeple do things that actualy wont do good nor harm.

Isn't it so that the biochemistry of the water in uor tanks can be a very complex chain of different formes of cycles. Where i little bit more of this can trigger a little more of that. For expample i read that people use Vodka to succesfully fight cyanobacteria in their tank, and recomend others to do a treatment with this. Now recently i used a in Ethanonol deluted medication for some fish and 3hours later i see my water turnig milky and 2 days later i get i uge diatoma and hair algea explosion i've never seen before. I looked it up and did find topics where people experienced about the same effect with putting alcohol in the tank.

I come to believe that a lot of these theories are developped by a sertain  amount of chance with just having the right cocktail in the tank. That if the cocktail is slightly different it can trigger a totaly other chain of events to the contrary of what is believed. 

It only makes it more interesting actualy..


----------

