Phyto to control PH and Oxygen (?)

[NeveroddoreveN]

Just thought of this about an hour ago. 50-90% of earths oxygen comes from phytoplankton. Why not utilize that for aquariums? My idea is to have a closed air loop between a phyto culture and a portion of the sump. Have a PH and oxygen probe controlling the light to the culture to turn it on if oxygen or PH drops below a set point. A water pump in the sump would help a lot also. The aquarium water would release carbon dioxide and take in oxygen; the phyto culture would do the reverse (photosynthesis vs respiration.) Carbon dioxide decreasing in the water would raise the PH. It seems like that would be honky-dory for everyone involved.

1- air pump
2- phytoplankton
3- sump
arrows are the path of air, please excuse the sloppy MS paint work

So, why doesn't this work? If it did, someone would be doing it; or I haven't heard of it.

Let me know your thoughts.

 

[tmz]

The phyto if overdosed will add nutrients( nitrogen, phosphorous and organic carbon) to your tank when it decays. I believe the decaying process will also acidify the water .

 

[photokid]

its a good idea but i have to agree with tmz about the increase of nutrients and lowering the ph.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Doing it in the reef tank water system with macroalgae in a refugium not only has that pH effect, but it removes nutreints from the tank water itslef.

 

[CLINTOS]

Possible doing it under experimental condition's might give some good result's if you can balance a realy low amount of phyto continously inside the display using consumer's while controling inorganics in the display I can't see why it would'nt work but would be risky

 

[tabwyo]

From the looks of it the phyto system is completely seperate from the tanks system.

 

[CLINTOS]

I was thinking of doing something simular but to culture phyto on the side then I would put into a bubbling container seperate from display and dose it with a dosing pump or just as a drip

this way you would know when you added a 1/2 cup daily for a month then later as things grew you could increase it safely by 1/8 cup daily the following month then before you knew it in 3 plus month's you are up to a cup a day on a 20G

you could probably add more in the long run but everything would have to be managed and tested

I think consistency in the inorganics and the density of the phyto would help

 

[CLINTOS]

I also came accross this a while ago but doesn't seem like it would work as good as a
20G plus but something like a 20G with tank water going realy slowly threw it maybe?

maybe a low powered uv would help control the phyto population but at the same time maybe it would just turn the phyto into inorganics?

 

[TheH]

I think you'll need to pump a lot of CO2 into the phyto chamber, i.e. at a higher concentration than what is found in the air above your tank to get a significant oxygen production. Don't forget that you need pretty much one CO2 molecule for every O2 molecule you hope to generate.

Also, phyto cultures aren't very stable. If you're not moving any phyto out, the concentration will quickly buildup and result in a large die-off.

 

[Maivortex]

TheH is correct, you need to bubble CO2 into the culture to obtain high growth rates at high density for good productivity. The Co2 bubbling into the culture will help control the pH as the algae growth consumes H ions and drives the ph high. you would also have to keep the lights on in the phyto tank on 24/7 cos they will consume O2 and release CO2 during dark periods. The oxygen from the culture would also return to the culture from the air pump in the sump. There is no way to control which way each gas is going to flow.

 

[Takara]

It's cool that you are thinking outside the box, but when I got into reefing, someone told me, less is more. More systems mean more, stuff to watch, and more stuff to go wrong. It would be a very difficult setup to perfect. But once again, cool thought!