The sponge is just to catch some of the detritus that happens with hornwort
and get it broken back down so it can be reabsorbed. It's a "nutrient
recycler" in the Farmertodd world.
There is a return down to a sump, but there isn't anything in the tower (no
mechanical, no bioflaws). Don't need the sump really. I'm running it for
two reasons:
The first is for convenience. I've sealed the top, so it makes it easy to
get water to soak the plankton, top off, refill, whatever. I plan on
getting magnetic scrubbers for each viewable wall to further the
convenience.
The second is... It's another experiement with deep sand. I want to see how
much CO2 blows off and if it's enough to hinder the plant physiology. I
have a hypothesis that the extra respiration from the sandbed is another
benefit of the deep sandbed aquarium, because you don't need all the
expensive CO2 stuff or play the Karen Randall game of making sure every
little bit generated by fish gets uptaken by the plants... With all the
"mouths breathing", it's just there on it's own in good supply.
However, I would like to get a better idea of the amount created, and if
it's even possible to keep up with a sump return, which seems to be a big no
no in fw planted aquaria, because it _does_ blow off a lot of CO2 that you
may have paid big bucks to have, or went through a lot of trouble to assure.
So eventually, this would be an optimization to help balance the CO2 load
during the dark phase of the photoperiod if it works out... Which _does_
have an effect on the system chemistry (suppressed pH perhaps the most
noticeable) and _may_ have an effect on the animals as the CO2 is not
subject to the same uptake as during the light phase of the photoperiod. IE
the accumulative CO2 level during "lights off" may be a stressor if
dissolved O2 levels are only generated by the plants.
In my experience, the stress, if present, goes away within 20 minutes of
"lights on" because you can watch the pH shoot up (the plants "kick on" that
fast!). It is measurable. Maybe someday I'll have all sorts of toys to
prove my annecdote. For now, I just have to live with observation and the
couple digital probes I do have, when I actually feel like calibrating them
:)
Todd
----- Original Message -----
From: "matt ashton" <ashtonmj2003_at_yahoo.com>
To: <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 5:15 PM
Subject: Re: NANFA-- Here's the tank...
> whats that filter set up on that todd? i see a sponge with a powerhead but
is there some kinda of below canister or wet dry too?
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