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<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13175768#post13175768 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SantaMonica
scifi: As for turf not being currently popular, think about this: What if someone patented bubbles going through a vertical tube of water. Then he decided to sue anyone who tried to sell any such device, and, he decided to not make and sell them himself. You would not have your current skimmer today. What then would you use to skim? Would you build one? How many people actually have DIY skimmers, much less good ones? What would a newbie do, who's putting together their first or second tank? This is exactly what happened to turf. Now, if this did happen to skimmers, someone eventually would come along and say, "Why do you have to pump air through a water column? Why can't you just..." And boom, you'd have some other version that makes an air-water interface occur, but does not violate the patent by using a pump to push air through a water column. Luckily, however, nobody has a patent on the pumping of air through a water column, like they do with turf:
Algal Turf Scrubber, United States Patent 4333263:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4333263.html
Sooooo, you could actually ask, if skimmers are so good, why is there not a patent on the design? After all, the manufacturers want to make money right?
As an aside, yesterday the nano hit zero P for the first time.
interesting-the patent you reference is Adey's :lol:
he did NOT patent turf scrubbing:
"Studies in algal turf production are well known and reported in the literature" (from his very own patent application/abstract)
there are plenty of skimmer design patents out there-some are even listed on teh boxes of the repective companies that market their respective designs
FYI BOTH turf scrubbing AND skimming were being used for commercial wastewater treatments long before people were keeping marine ornamentals in any appreciable numbers
huh? where on earth do you get your information from ? there have been dozens of alga scrubbers marketed for the hobby over the past 50 years, with their respective design patents, too.
i think you're just as confused about what different types of patents there are, what patenting actually means, what one can or cannot do with/due to a patent, as you are about NO2 and PO4 being the only things needed to measure to make a claim of 'perfect water quality'