Natural algae scrubber and another high 5 for WB

[crsublette]

Refugium: That's what all those Skippies are, with the green stuff growing on top! So I think people keeping Skippies should all have the top open and in the Sunlight.

That's what i've read about Skippy filters at the Skippy HQ website. Keeping good algae growth on the top of it is a major requirement when using Skippy as a biofilter.

Yeah, a big point of the Anoxic filtration as well is that it also acts as an algae refugium. The slow flow in the container is supposed to allow the algae spores to settle and to explode until the algae eventually crashes.

After reading that I also realized I've had that setup for years for my pond. I have a natural waterfall and a stream bed that's about 3 ft long. Even though the stream bed is partly shaded, it grows a lot of string algae during the growing season. When the algae gets too much, I pull it off the bed and dump it under the bushes for fertilizer. So that's my natural algae scrubber: water flowing over a flat surface with light shining on it.

It appears algae scrubbers are the more efficient, more foot print savings, versus an algae refugium except, from what i've understood, scrubbers require more maintenance than a refugium.

I've been doing a little reading about scrubbers and it appears the water is actually fertilized to ensure the scrub pads always maintain algae, after each scrub, and so to ensure the algae does not crash.

Makes me wonder if I could get better efficiency out of my stream algae if I scrape bits of it off on occasionally. Should be pretty easy to scrape it when I mortar it. I think I may put in a piece that acts like a drain for the stream; when not scraping it, then put a cover over it that is camo'd so ya don't see it.

 

[JohnHuff]

The algae in my stream is the string type. When there's a lot of it, I just grab it and a whole bunch comes off.

Re: Skippies, I didn't know that about algae growth on top because some people keep lids on them.

I just read the Skippy HQ website again. I think they've gotten algae and bacteria mixed up. And they said to put plants on top of the Skippy.

 

[crsublette]

I just read the Skippy HQ website again. I think they've gotten algae and bacteria mixed up. And they said to put plants on top of the Skippy.

Meh, plants vs algae. same thing. If filtering is the goal of the plant and not aesthetics, then I would choose algae over plants.

 

[crsublette]

Hmmm, a short stream with algae vs. a properly built skippy with algae. Seems a bit odd to suggest a short stream would win the contest considering the mechanics involved and of course it depends on if the filter in question is a true skippy or a better, improved, modern day hybrid skippy with aeration or venturi, which both are still static submerged filters regardless of what ya want to call it.

Calling a trickle tower a stream is not characterizing the trickle tower well at all; don't even see how you could stretch the definition of a trickle tower to call a trickle tower a stream or vice versa. A trickle tower more accurately would be compared to a waterfall, rather than a stream. A trickle tower is like a waterfall that flows down rock, as the one shown below at the head of my little watergarden, which is not like a cascade nor sheet type waterfall since the water literally trickles over those two huge boulders. (( for the flow in my stream, i have a secondary outlet below those big boulders that pushes tremendously more water out ))

A stream would more accurately be described as an algae scrubber.

Call them or describe them however ya want to win your argument ... regardless of how odd, yikes!

 

[Waterbug]

A trickle tower is water flowing over rocks. A water falls is water falling although obviously there's some structure. Many pond waterfalls are really more of steep stream. It's of course fine to call a steep stream a falls, people know what's being said. But when discussing the specifics of a something it helps to be more specific with terms.

Trickle Towers and Bakki Showers were inspired by streams. Both attempt to mimic the best qualities of streams, max O2, media kept clean, an environment for creatures we do not fully understand but have evolved to live off the wastes we'd have in pond water.

Whether or not a person calls something a stream or a falls won't change how these things work. I don't see the point of debating something that doesn't matter beyond typing practice.

 

[MitchM]

Regarding algae scrubbers I have found this to be an excellent site for DIY ideas:

http://algaescrubber.net/forums/

 

[crsublette]

Simply expressing how odd it comes across to me. Doesn't really matter how ya want to call it. Heck, I call almost any static submerged media a Skippy, since that is essentially what they are.

"water flowing over rocks". Could also call that a river as well I suppose, which would be a bit odd to me. Same as calling a water fall a steep stream or steep river; we would simply just call it a waterfall.

Bakkis/trickles have no significant depth of water in the systems at all, except the bottom collection basin, much like a waterfall where the surface of a waterfall as that shown in the picture I posted. Much more significant depth and tremendously more flow to streams. Sure, they eventually achieve the same purpose as well except most streams in the pond hobby are more covered in algae rather than biofilms, as we see them in our bio-filter, making streams to be much more like an algae scrubber.

Bakkis/trickles may have been inspired by stream, but the end result appears to be nothing like a stream, except for maybe in purpose the same as in a river.

 

[Waterbug]

Stream, river, rivulet, brook, rill, streamlet, runnel, creek or any other term you like. Still doesn't change how a Trickle Tower and Bakki work. And you can believe they don't work anything like a stream...still doesn't change how they work. I sure can't see what you're talking about.

 

[crsublette]

just pointing out how streams, even waterfalls, in our ponds act much more like a algae scrubber or refugium than a wet/dry filter like the trickle/shower towers. The wet/dry filters have no where near, not even close, to the algae volume that grows in our streams.

 

[callingcolleen1]

That's a very nice stream Charles, why don't you have some plants in there? Maybe just a couple would be nice, like a rush and maybe a small cattails? Then the alage would not grow so much?

 

[crsublette]

That's a very nice stream Charles, why don't you have some plants in there? Maybe just a couple would be nice, like a rush and maybe a small cattails?

Yeah, that's an old picture. Now, well before it got cold, I put all sorts of mint variety plants (mint, spearmint, chocolate mint, water mint) along the edges of the stream. They did quite well. I wanted something that would remain under 8 inches so the plants would not hide my boulder waterfalls when sitting at the porch. I still get really thick algae in the stream. While I am planning my pond rennovation, I'm going to put together a little diy drain so that all the algae bits are caught, when I clean the stream with a pressure washer, instead of the debris going into the main pond.

Then the alage would not grow so much?

Sure, plants help to limit the growth of algae, but algae can consume NH3 and other nutrients much better than typical bog plants (which consume NH4 more easily). Also, I think watching the algae growth can present warning signs of possibly something going out of whack in the pond that might need to be addressed.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Maybe you could get some natural snails from a natural pond in your area to help keep the algae down, but then you would need to run the stream and pond all winter to get a good population of them going to keep the algae down. I have these cone shaped snails in my pond that live in the sedge marshes. They do come out every now and then and climb up out of the water on the yellow flag stalks. They are good for the pond too, but you have to have places where they can hide from the big fish, as they like to eat the smaller ones. The fish take up little rocks in their mouth and pick up a snail and swish them in their mouth to break the shell with the little rocks, and eat them. I have seen them do this

 

[crsublette]

"natural ponds" hahah. My area here is pretty much a desert, that is semi-arid high plains. We don't get that kind of rain anymore. Back in the day when we foolishly used row water irrigation and there were low level areas that were built to hold the drainage. These row water resevoirs was the only thing to resemble what we had that could be called a natural pond. Once we started to use more water efficient irrigation, these drainage resevoirs dried up. Been a long time since we've had standing water to be seen anywhere here.

I did have some snails that eventually appeared, but they didn't last long. Come and go.

Haha, crazy about how the fish would eat a snail. Interesting.

 

[callingcolleen1]

The snails may have came with the water plants which is very common, and then the fish eat them. Goldfish and Koi love to eat snails, as this is a natural food for them, that's why they love to "sift" through the small gravel at bottom of pond, to find little snails and other things to eat.

 

[sissy]

wow just noticed the metal tires by the fence .