75 gallon Planted Office Tank Journal

geekpryde said:
Regarding polishing the water, what is the current opinion regarding products like Purigen, for use in planted tanks? Would I be filtering out all the good with the bad?

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Purigen.html

I've seen plenty of the ads in TFH, but what got me thinking about it was this thread: click here
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i know some people use it and like it because unlike carbon it can be reused. personally i think it's not necessary.

geekpryde said:
Junk in My Water:

Everytime I move plants around, I stirr up a ton of fine substrate and algae powder and/or detritus. :yuck: Since I am not vaccuming the subtrate this makes sense, but I thought the plants are supposed to consume this mess? Maybe I should put on another filter with just a ton of ultra fine batting or whatever to catch this stuff? I need to get this stuff out of the watercolumn, but I dont know the best hardware solution for the job. Something I only use at water change, like a HOT canister, or a dedicated second filter that I will have to change the batting material out very often (which i dont mind). I dont even know if batting is fine enought to catch this junk, I need a friggin hepa filter!

Give me your ideas people!
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you also could try waving youre hand over the substate when you do water changes so at least some of the the detritus get gets sucked up. also extra filtration could help, for pure water polishing i would say a marineland magnum or magnum H.O.T. which a micron cartage is going to be your best bet. if you just whant another filter ans stuff it with filter floss that would work too, another eheim 2215 or 2217 would do it just fine.
 
I use a hob power filter on my 75 that is full of quilt batting and it does a good job of getting all of the fine debri out of the tank. Also making sure you have enough water movement from either your canister or a powerhead to keep all of the stuff moving towards your filters.
 
Ozymandias said:
you also could try waving youre hand over the substate when you do water changes so at least some of the the detritus get gets sucked up.
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:iagree:

It takes some practice, but skimming the surface of the sand to pull the gunk up. Is the best way to go. I take my time and do 1/3 of the tank at a time ie... one week i do the left side next week I do the center and the next the right side.
The tank looks great, keep up the good work.
 
a turkey baster is handy at getting the mulm and muck that builds up in the plants. for polishing you can just add polyfill or quilt batting as a stage in your filter. works great.
 
Ozymandias said:
i know some people use it and like it because unlike carbon it can be reused. personally i think it's not necessary. you also could try waving youre hand over the substate when you do water changes so at least some of the the detritus get gets sucked up. also extra filtration could help...another eheim 2215 or 2217 would do it just fine.
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Based on your reply and some others in this thread, I went ahead and pulled the trigger on another eheim 2217. Here is my reasoning:

(1) I get replacement media for my current 2217, which is probably worth ~$50.00 alone.
(2) I seriously need more water movement in the back left of the tank. There is just nothing happening there, even with the powerhead on 24/7. This new 2217 will have the feed in that spot, and probably a return way down low in tank.
(3) I am going to probably fill it in this manner, 1st Blue course pad, several fine white pads, and the remaining volume with quilt batting. Or maybe just 100% batting. Now that I think of it, the pain is really having to break the thing out of the system and break it down, so I guess cleaning the pads to try and save replacing batting so often in dumb, since this batting is so cheap. :idea: What you think?
(4) Even if this 2217 on my planted tank is overkill, I can always steal it for my bosses tank, if you really wants me to go ahead and start one for him.

I picked this all up at Kens, and also got more food, a replacement t5HO bulb, and some eheim pads as I previously stated. :headbang2:

I do wave my hand around to try and kick up some of the mulm into the water column during water changes, and I think I will get even more vigorous with it.
 
JimL said:
:iagree:

It takes some practice, but skimming the surface of the sand to pull the gunk up. Is the best way to go. I take my time and do 1/3 of the tank at a time ie... one week i do the left side next week I do the center and the next the right side.
The tank looks great, keep up the good work.
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Yeah, I am going to try that this time around, we'll see how that goes...probably suck up half the eco-complete :lol:.
 
FTS Day 30

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