Control Plankton Blooms
You've bought an aquarium, furniture, and all the equipment you think you'll need to operate and control it, but there's one thing that only an expensive filter will control, or you want zooplankton, too.
Steps
These are in a rough order of preference. If you will not immediately establish plants, or you do not know which plants your fish will not eat, then try step two.
- Grow-Freshwater-Aquarium-Plants (two kingdoms are better than one).
- Vacuum silt off bottom with a siphon.
- Build-a-Filter-of-Moss-(Biofiltration-for-Aquaria) to remove soluble nutrients.
- Turn off your light.
- Cut a bale of barley straw for your filter, or make your filter pour on some straw. This Works on some types of algae.
- Use algicide in the temporary way.
- Use reverse osmosis. (It's not for everyone however.)
- Put a dead sponge in the stream of your filter. It's washable, and it keeps particulates from jamming a filter, even downstream.
- Add Zooplankton and shrimp to increase precipitation rate.
Tips
- If precipitation does not occur in the filters, then it will occur on the floor of a tank. Either one can be used for planting.
- Collecting silt for planting in vases or candle holders with a siphon (gravel vacuum), or by decanting rinse-water from filter maintenance lets you move things around.
- Mix silt with peat and cover it with sand.
- More expensive fish are more demanding of water quality.
Warnings
- Biofilters (plants, moss or nitrification microbiology) should reduce micronutrient levels as well as the NPK (nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium) levels in a tank that are necessary to support plankton.
- A dirty but oxygenated sponge of any kind can, in time, contain microbiology that converts ammonia to nitrate, which is "safer" for fish. An overly dirty sponge can increase ammonia levels.
- Reverse osmosis might remove or concentrate small animals.
- Algicide, like barley straw, of any kind has toxicity drawbacks or limits for something.
- Turning off your light can raise ammonia levels in relation to nitrate by reducing oxygen levels and rate of metabolism.
Things You'll Need
- A body of water in your domain.
- If you don't have fish, then you might want micro-nutrient based fertilizer.
- Anything but phosphate or ammonium.
- Moderation in anything else that decays, except plants, especially if it decays quickly.
