Bioremediation of nutrients using live microalgae

[FuEl]

I think this might apply to systems running without a protein skimmer.

If you dose enough live microalgae in the tank on a daily basis and they stay in the tank, could they produce the same effect as an ATS or a refugium?

Of course you'll need to add in some filter feeders to keep the microalgae in check so you do not end up with a green aquarium.

I'm trying at the moment in a 5 gallon SPS tank. The system is skimmerless, I do 2L water changes once every 1-2 days (depending on my schedule) and I have 2 Tridacna clams and a small dendronephthya frag to consume the live microalgae. Currently I'm adding 2.5ml of Phycopure per day, I might up the dosage to 5ml.

Could this work?

 

[ryanuuy]

Keep us posted on the results. Sounds promising but might need a lot of fine tuning to keep the system in check.

 

[mscarpena]

Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. You will just end up with greenwater in your tank. Also in order for phyto to grow you will need nitrate and phospahtes in your tank. Once those nutrients are gone the phyto will stop growing. I dont think those kritters will eat enough phyto to do anything. Also if you are performing 2 liter water changes every day or two those should keep your parameters in check anyways. This project will actually prove nothing. You would have to know what your parameters were before just performing 2 liter water changes every 1-2 days then perform this experiment to see if there is a difference. Also if the phyto runs out of food it will die and pollute the water. And really if you do not remove the phyto from the system you are not really removing any contaminates from the water. Over the long run this will pose to be more time consuming and more expensive than regular tank maintenance and a protein skimmer.

 

[norskfisk]

FuEl: I guess the answer is no, because you don't have an export mechanism for the algae without a skimmer. So the nutrients would build up (without the water changes).