Best thing I EVER added to my res...

[Crusader Rabbit]

I run coco dtw... I use heavy 16 nutes and they say it shouldn't be too aerated. I'm interested in some of these filters you guys use, would this work as a filter and a littel aeration?

http://www.amazon.com/AquaClear-Powerhead-Gallons-Hour-Listed/dp/B001EUL5OA

with this http://www.amazon.com/AquaClear-Filter-Powerhead-Attachment-Powerheads/dp/B0002566L0

Customer Review, Bold emphasis added;


"The AquaClear Quick Filter is a pretty effective water polisher. There isn't much else that you can say about it. That is what the Quick Filter was designed for and essentially all it does.

The AquaClear Quick Filter Refill Cartridge filter sleeves have a fine mesh that prevents all but the most minuscule particles from passing through; great for polishing water but because of this, the AquaClear Quick Filter clogs fast. I use the filter only after gravel vacuuming or any disturbances in my substrate. It will clear my 150 gallon tank in about 12 hours with an AquaClear 70 Powerhead on full.

The filter comes with two plastic media cages that the filter sleeve wraps around. These cages also serve as a place for carbon, peat or zeolite to be added, but because the filter clogs quickly, these media baskets are fairly pointless other than to wrap the filter sleeves around.

The upside of The AquaClear Quick Filter is that it is exactly what it says it is, a 'quick' filter, and as a quick filter, the AquaClear is perfect. As a biological or chemical filter, the AquaClear Quick Filter is essentially useless. But that is what other filters are for, right? "

 

[cravin morehead]

i just lost a reply that took me forever to type. shit. basically, all these filter types will be beneficial. the differences come with efficiency. my only advice would be to add a colonizable media to the root zone.
seamaiden- using aeration to 'clean-up' water is awesome. it is used alot in sewage treatment facilites as one of the treatments used.
sorry this is short, but losing that last response relly bummed me out.

cm

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

You've got it a little switched. NH4 --> NO2 (nitrITE) --> NO3 (nitrATE)

Believe it or not, the anaerobes are beneficial, too. They take that NO3 and further break it down into its constituent components of oxygen and nitrogen.

I'm not sure what it is you're asking.

In aquariums, fish shit, and that shit (and leftover food) becomes NH4, a toxic form of ammonia. That must be oxidized, eaten if you will, in the two steps I show above by different species of bacteria. The filters are homes for the bacteria. An undergravel filter is a biological filter; i.e. its best use is when it is well colonized by bacteria that can convert/oxidize the wastes generated by the biological load. In some tanks, plants are used to help take up these nutrients. In other tanks, the water column is loaded up with nutrients to grow plants, but they still require biological filtration for any fish kept in the system.

Those spikes, first NH4, then NO2, and finally NO3 are how one knows that they've got an active, well populated filter, and it's usually called "cycling." If someone's started up a new tank and they've got problems, first question fishkeepers will ask is, "Has it finished the cycle?" When they ask that, they want to know, have all the toxic forms of N been converted to the least toxic form of NO3.

I hope this is answering your question, I'm not really sure.

That's where I'd hit cravin.

you did in a manner of speaking, what your talking about is marine/fish life in regard to all the breaking down and what not NOW my question pertains to aquatic plant life OR plants in DWC. would the "plant shitting" and the "plants food" be broken down in the same way?

which brings me to ask the question this way: with regard to benefical bacteria is it more about "whats in the water"(plants or fish) or "the water itself"?

can or do these reactions happen with or without any manner of life in the water as long as there is a filter in the setup for the beneficial bacteria to collect on?

is the beneficial bacteria different for fish and marine life than it is for plant life (ie cannabis plant) in the same setup?

I know that plants shit one way and fish shit another, so does that mean that the beneficial bacteria collected is different? those spikes that you speak of are for marine life sitting in the water, would those same spikes happen in a DWC situation where the plants are sitting in the nutrient water?

as I mentioned before im looking at it a lil more and I really don't think I would need a whisper type filter for a 5gl DWC setup. now I could be wrong but it just seems that an airfilter setup would serve my needs with more than enough efficiency.

It also got me to thinking about what a store clerk told me about organic DWC just as a conversation suggestion about dry organic nutes in hydro. what he suggested was putting a small burlap sack with the dry nutes in it so that the nutes would leech out and the plants would take it up that way. now at the time we were talking about a recirculating setup where there is constant water movement. so that leads me to think , what if I were to set up a fairly sized bottle as an air filter with an airtube, fiber material for filtration, bio filtration media mixed in with some dry nutes to measurement and run a organic hydro DWC that way?

maybe even decrease the amount of fiber material in a normal given situation or skip the fiber material altogether in order that the nutes can still leech through the filtration setup and still be beneficial. could the same setup be had using liquid organic nutes?


if I can bring it all back home to the organic side then i'll grow my cannabis that way. organic hydro, the best of both worlds!! lol

but please answer the Q's if you can, pick them apart, I love the learning and the dialogue!

EDIT: I just thought of another Q: if I were to use a bio filter/medium then what would be the best one to use? I know that there are various ceramic bio filter mediums and the ones made out of plastics and they are all good for aquariums but which one/type would be best to use in a hydroponics setup? OR does it matter at all

 

[gmanwho]

friendindeed. the filters are good to collect floating sediment. most likely broken down root or floating algae. they can build in the filter, then if there are bacteria are there to break it down in the filter, it then becomes food again to the plant.

bacterias will basically eat each other. when they shit out their enemy, it is usually a broken down food in which the plant root can consume " easier"


wonder if that made sense...burp

b-safe

 

[humanYoda]

you did in a manner of speaking, what your talking about is marine/fish life in regard to all the breaking down and what not NOW my question pertains to aquatic plant life OR plants in DWC. would the "plant shitting" and the "plants food" be broken down in the same way?

which brings me to ask the question this way: with regard to benefical bacteria is it more about "whats in the water" or "the water itself"?

can or do these reactions happen with or without any manner of life in the water as long as there is a filter in the setup for the beneficial bacteria to collect on?

is the beneficial bacteria different for fish and marine life than it is for plant life (ie cannabis plant) in the same setup?

I know that plants shit one way and fish shit another, so does that mean that the beneficial bacteria collected is different? those spikes that you speak of are for marine life sitting in the water, would those same spikes happen in a DWC situation where the plants are sitting in the nutrient water?

as I mentioned before im looking at it a lil more and I really don't think I would need a whisper type filter for a 5gl DWC setup. now I could be wrong but it just seems that an airfilter setup would serve my needs with more than enough efficiency.

It also got me to thinking about what a store clerk told me about organic DWC just as a conversation suggestion about dry organic nutes in hydro. what he suggested was putting a small burlap sack with the dry nutes in it so that the nutes would leech out and the plants would take it up that way. now at the time we were talking about a recirculating setup where there is constant water movement. so that leads me to think , what if I were to set up a fairly sized bottle as an air filter with an airtube, fiber material for filtration, bio filtration media mixed in with some dry nutes to measurement and run a organic hydro DWC that way?

maybe even decrease the amount of fiber material in a normal given situation or skip the fiber material altogether in order that the nutes can still leech through the filtration setup and still be beneficial. could the same setup be had using liquid organic nutes?


if I can bring it all back home to the organic side then i'll grow my cannabis that way. organic hydro, the best of both worlds!! lol

but please answer the Q's if you can, pick them apart, I love the learning and the dialogue!

Hi.
about your question on organic hydro i think its called bioponics.
GHE got a biofilter(can be a DIY) witch you have to have when in hydro and usein a organic nutrient like GO, and you add the subculture or the BM to the biofilter. I have not tried it yet.

HY

 

[-~Wind Walker~-]

i just lost a reply that took me forever to type. shit. basically, all these filter types will be beneficial. the differences come with efficiency. my only advice would be to add a colonizable media to the root zone.
seamaiden- using aeration to 'clean-up' water is awesome. it is used alot in sewage treatment facilites as one of the treatments used.
sorry this is short, but losing that last response relly bummed me out.

cm

Hmm,

I wonder if you could cut a section or slit into a sea sponge and insert an air stone into the sponge? Similar to the device CM shared earlier.

-~WW~-

 

[SeaMaiden]

Wind, I'm sure you could. You just need to ensure that water is passing through the sponge.

Friend, I'm not going to quote your whole post, but essentially I think you've got the idea now, it's an exchange, a loop, between plants and 'animals.' So... YES!

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

Wind, I'm sure you could. You just need to ensure that water is passing through the sponge.

Friend, I'm not going to quote your whole post, but essentially I think you've got the idea now, it's an exchange, a loop, between plants and 'animals.' So... YES!

ok so my train of thought should be that: it doesn't matter whether its plants or animals the beneficial bacteria is still the same either way.

well I feel a lil bit better in my understanding of what i'll be actually doing going forward and more confidence in what to expect.

im still waiting for the weather to get a lil bit less cold and because of new developments I may be getting some seeds from a new found cousin in the UK. was telling me about a strain called "playdough" so im hoping for good things.

thanks to all, i'll be getting things together later on tonight. fill the buckets with water and get them bubbling, still have to make the filters though but that's nothing to do. already got my aquarium tank going with a DIY bio filter set up.

 

[SeaMaiden]

Ah... I can't say it's all the same bacteria, but many of the same genera do cross spheres/environments.

Isn't finding new cousins fun? Happens to me every time I go to Puerto Rico.

 

[cravin morehead]

good advice here. the beneficial bacteria air in the air all around us. they just need a home with h20 and oxygen to flourish. once again, Seamaiden is absolutley correct, by my understanding of the process.
you guys are lucky finding cousins. especially cousins that grow! i've tried, my family is too small i guess. just the 4 of us left, it seems. i guess i should try to have kids, keep it going...

cm

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

My reservoirs recently went through an interesting change. I filled them , added maxibloom, epsom salts, and silica. Had an EC of 1.2. Three days later reservoirs were cloudy, with slimy goo particulates, and EC had dropped to 0.4. I guess there was a bacterial bloom and the bacteria had removed salts from the water.

I have small pumps working as powerheads to keep the water circulating. I think I'll hang half gallon milk jugs full of filter media along the reservoirs' sides and use these same pumps to push water up through tubing onto the filter media to drain back down and out through holes in the bottoms of the jugs. Guess I should try to colonize the media first with beneficials. I'll install these after a res change and cleaning.

 

[SeaMaiden]

Yup, sounds like the free-floaters gotcha. New tank syndrome is the same sort of thing. Even if you don't get the filters pre-colonized, they should end up becoming homes for the critters you want. I like your solution.

 

[cravin morehead]

sucks... your approach to fixing is a good one. i don't know how you grow. but, if at all possible, you should try to add some lava or grow rocks (not hydroton) to your root zone. your nute solution should pass through the root zone and the lava. this would colonize your root zone and provide 'shield of protection' and also help increase nute uptake.

i keep referencing this thread from big-toke, but its got tons of info regarding this subject.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=23357

this is from post #8:
Consider that when the bad guys find a plant, they use nutrients that the plant already immobilized. How ya like them apples!!!

Growing in a Recirculating DWC Bio-Bucket System of Hydroponics, the pathogens do not function to hold significant nutrients, because the good-guy bacterium compete with disease-causers, and prevent diseases and pests from being able to find or infect roots. The beneficial bacterium immobilizes a great deal of nutrients in their biomass, so that N, P, K, etc. Predators, such as fusarlum, pythium, rhizoctonia, phytopthera, sclerotinla; etc. feeds on dead pieces of root mass, pests and disease-causing organisms well inhibits the plants uptake of mobile nutrients. If the beneficial bacterium is properly managed (given a place to live) then they well aid in mobility of nutrients in the solution such as nitrogen (N) and potassium (K) should remain in the root zone to benefit the crop and yield. The beneficial bacterium keeps your solutions free from disease-causing organisms, thus creating a better echo-water environment, making nutrients more readily available for the plant mainly in the root zone.

i agree, a colonized material added to the reservoir would be best. there is a small chance the bad guys could set up in the filters before the good guys. otherwiswe, your treatment is sound.
let us know how your treatment works for you.

cm

 

[cravin morehead]

dbl post

 

[festerous]

Lot's of good info in this thread!

 

[Keep goin]

Ok, well all...I just finished my first all the way fully filtered, no dump.... just add backs res run.

Very happy with the results. Healthy, happy plants. Stable res...super clean.

Due to the advice of others here...I never replaced the filter media. Simply rinsed it along with the foam filter. Didn't seem to cause any problems. I now just rinsed it again as I exchanged to a new res for the next run.

Instead of all the improvised concepts being put forth...all great ideas btw. I would still recommend just buying a $20 "all in the box" filter and just plug it in. It's incredible.

I know I mentioned it before. But it bears mentioning again. The addition of the $11 smaller filter into my EZ cloner has completely changed my life!! Notably better results. Easier, faster, more robust growth. Again, notable!

Well, good luck all...I think anyone who try's this will love it!!

Keep Growin
KG

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

ok guys, I plan to use the bio filter media that ive seen in the aquarium vids ive seen. besides the lava rock is there any other type of medium that can be used as a bio filter.

one person in a vid used cut up drinking straws stating that all the bacteria need is surface area to colonize, does that sound viable to anyone?

 

[SeaMaiden]

You want surface area, Friend. Sponges, ceramic rings (that aren't glazed, made specifically as bio-media), porous lava rock--all kinds of things can serve as homes for microbes. The drinking straws would make one of the poorer media, IMO, because of their low surface area and no pores.

I pretty much agree with KG. While my ghetto 'filter' is working, a H.O.T. filter would work much better and more efficiently. All I'm using it for is to clean up algae-filled rainwater, and it's doing a decent job of that. Not great, just decent. If I could have found an inexpensive H.O.T. filter that had an intake that would reach closer to the bottom of the trash can I use, I would have gotten that. But, I already have the air pumps and couldn't find what I wanted, so made do.

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

Filter media can be cut up polyester blankets, polyester insulation batting from Walmart. Fibrous plastic dish scrubbers from the 99 Cent store. Open cell foam, diced plastic sponges. Lava rock would be great and easy if the weight hanging on your reservoir sides isn't a problem. Eventually pores get clogged and the ceramics and rocks lose some of their micro-surface area. Browse the aquarium suppliers and see what's for sale. Maybe you can come up with something cheap and easy. When dealers have sales on this stuff it becomes quite affordable. Just ordered two gallons of Bio-Balls which are plastic and clean easily, but lack porosity for maintaining the inoculation.

The nasty unwanted bacteria growths tend to be those that are free floating and those which thrive in low oxygen anaerobic environments. Beneficial bacteria tend to colonize surfaces and thrive in oxygenated aerobic environments. Ideally then a filter should run aerated water through a media which provides plenty of surface area for colonization. Even better is if this disturbs the water surface and prevents development of any surface film in the reservoir which could limit oxygen exchange.

There are a number of YouTube videos where people share their home made aquarium filter systems. I use multiple small reservoirs which can experience fourteen inches of vertical water change over a two week period. As a result my filter design requires a pump sitting on the bottom of the res.

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

Ok, well all...I just finished my first all the way fully filtered, no dump.... just add backs res run.

Very happy with the results. Healthy, happy plants. Stable res...super clean.

Due to the advice of others here...I never replaced the filter media. Simply rinsed it along with the foam filter. Didn't seem to cause any problems. I now just rinsed it again as I exchanged to a new res for the next run.

Instead of all the improvised concepts being put forth...all great ideas btw. I would still recommend just buying a $20 "all in the box" filter and just plug it in. It's incredible.

I know I mentioned it before. But it bears mentioning again. The addition of the $11 smaller filter into my EZ cloner has completely changed my life!! Notably better results. Easier, faster, more robust growth. Again, notable!

Well, good luck all...I think anyone who try's this will love it!!

Keep Growin
KG

at some point in time im gonna get those $11 filters your talking about. although im going with the DIY option I really think that that may be best not only for the 5gl DWC's. one day, one day

You want surface area, Friend. Sponges, ceramic rings (that aren't glazed, made specifically as bio-media), porous lava rock--all kinds of things can serve as homes for microbes. The drinking straws would make one of the poorer media, IMO, because of their low surface area and no pores.

I pretty much agree with KG. While my ghetto 'filter' is working, a H.O.T. filter would work much better and more efficiently. All I'm using it for is to clean up algae-filled rainwater, and it's doing a decent job of that. Not great, just decent. If I could have found an inexpensive H.O.T. filter that had an intake that would reach closer to the bottom of the trash can I use, I would have gotten that. But, I already have the air pumps and couldn't find what I wanted, so made do.

ok SeaMaiden I gotchya now, then that's what ill be using and its easy enough to find. don't know if I mentioned it before but I do have my 15gl fishtank up and running again with a DIY filter using the straws/filter fiber for aquariums/ carbon & zeolite and a 1" thick scrubbing pad cut to fit the bottle. I saw the bio-filter circle/tubes at the petsmart the other day so I may just use those in conjunction with the plastic scrubbing pads form the $1 store and let my buckets start to do their thing while I wait for my seeds to sprout.

I also saw those "inoculation globs" that are used to sort of "get the ball rolling" with the beneficial bacteria. I figure maybe a quarter of a sphere should do me justice for each bucket.

Filter media can be cut up polyester blankets, polyester insulation batting from Walmart. Fibrous plastic dish scrubbers from the 99 Cent store. Open cell foam, diced plastic sponges. Lava rock would be great and easy if the weight hanging on your reservoir sides isn't a problem. Eventually pores get clogged and the ceramics and rocks lose some of their micro-surface area. Browse the aquarium suppliers and see what's for sale. Maybe you can come up with something cheap and easy. When dealers have sales on this stuff it becomes quite affordable. Just ordered two gallons of Bio-Balls which are plastic and clean easily, but lack porosity for maintaining the inoculation.

The nasty unwanted bacteria growths tend to be those that are free floating and those which thrive in low oxygen anaerobic environments. Beneficial bacteria tend to colonize surfaces and thrive in oxygenated aerobic environments. Ideally then a filter should run aerated water through a media which provides plenty of surface area for colonization. Even better is if this disturbs the water surface and prevents development of any surface film in the reservoir which could limit oxygen exchange.

There are a number of YouTube videos where people share their home made aquarium filter systems. I use multiple small reservoirs which can experience fourteen inches of vertical water change over a two week period. As a result my filter design requires a pump sitting on the bottom of the res.

thanks crusader rabbit for the info/advice. ive been watching those youtube vids none stop for a good couple days now and pretty much have a good idea of what needs to be done and what I can use to do it.

just couldn't find anything that was answering my questions until (of course) I came on IC and bumped into everyone here. that whole thing with their being a possible difference between the kinda of bacteria plants deal with and the kind of bacteria fish deal with just wouldn't leave my mind BUT as I understand it really isn't about whats living/growing in the water its about the water itself and creating that enviorment of stability through biological filtration means/methods.

this shit is all soo damned interesting! god I love growing weed! soo many methods, ways, possibilities, angles avenues to choose from. I realize that smoking cannabis is a great joy but I think for me its 60/40 for growing

i'll try to make it back with some pics of what I setup. IMO that's the one thing the thread needs. im always thinking of my contributions to these threads along the lines of "what will those that read this thread be able to get from what I add to it?" since I consider this one a pretty important topic, i'd love to see it beefed up with a pic or two of what I/we've been talking about

later for now, gotta get to work . . .