Filter Flow Control

[ktrom13]

Ha! Nice product name you have come up with there Thanks for the compliments! I may do it to all of my HOBs but with screen only to lower the amount of surface agitation since all of my tanks are heavily planted. I don't want to lose all that valuable natural CO2 since they are low tech tanks without supplementation.

The 7th grade science teacher at the K-12 beside my business has some fancy probes to measure dissolved oxygen content, CO2, etc. I'd like to borrow. I am donating fish and plants to her class for an experiment regarding oxygen content of water in relation to plant density in fish tanks. Maybe I can also do a test regarding surface agitation and O2 + CO2 content using her equipment. It'd have to be on a tank first with the screen for say a week and then without for the same amount of time (or vice versa). Any thoughts on duration of the experiment times that would render the most correct results?

I would say to get the best results it would have to longer than a week. Probably a month and test every week to see the amounts then average it out. That way you would have more data to use compared to a weeks worth of data.

I do like the screen. If you can do the test and see which is better, id love to see one of these ZN screen-o-matics in my tanks.

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[pbeemer]

i agree that the experiment would probably take at least a month between changes to get stable and measurable data

i also suggest that you have 2 tanks as identical as possible and then move the plants back and forth between them every month. (try not to move any babies/eggs with them.) over the course of a school year you should see a sort of square wave pattern in the (weekly?) readings of what you are measuring.

snails in the tanks would probably confuse the readings; just don't over-feed the fish

 

[ZorroNet]

Well nevermind all that! I don't have a lab test setup. (No disrespect to your ideas at all.) I would think however that it wouldn't take long to see if it makes a difference or not. Maybe not even more than 24 hours because the gas exchange takes place all the time.

Day 1 - no filter on
Day 2 - filter without screen
Day 3 - filter with screen

Just to be sure there are no flukes do it all over again twice more for a total of 3 days each scenario.

The reason I think this would work is that I know CO2 builds up in the water when the lights are out because the plants aren't able to photosynthesize in the dark. That's why I turn my lights out for 4 hours in the middle of each day. It gives the plants a break and allows CO2 to build back up from a depleted state mid-day. It's low tech faux CO2 injection.


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[Pinkey]

If the kids are testing every day it will be obvious when the readings become stable. Two experiments in one. Please let us know how long it takes.