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Lucas Formula + Biofilter. Safe?

M

Mistadobalina

Member
Do these bio-bag filters fuck with ppm/ec levels in DWC?

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2753028

I'm very new to Lucas Formula and when i initially made my 15 gal, 0-5-10 mixture, the water was quite red from the micro nutes. Now it looks like the pigment pigment is totally gone. Possibly due to my plant eating nutes? not 100% sure where my ppm/ec is right now because my meter busted and a new one is in the mail.
 
FreezerBoy

FreezerBoy

Was blind but now IC Puckbunny in Training
Veteran
Probably. The description is hardly descriptive but, if it's a standard fish tank filter then removing chemicals from the water is it's function. Why are you using one?

At 0-5-10, at worst, you may be over-feeding a bit. I'd worry more about pH.
 
M

Mistadobalina

Member
understandable. I dont actually have a working PPM meter yet, but i will in 2 days. Nonetheless, I was using the standard fish tank filter just to try to lengthen the life of my pumps/airstones/chiller. I thought that i read somewhere that they dont fuck with EC levels, and only capture bacteria. essentially its just a charcoal filter. I'm prob gonna take it out for now and see how things shape up, unless anyone has had success with dwc+fishtank filters.

my pH is at 5.6-5.8, which has always worked for me in the past
 
FreezerBoy

FreezerBoy

Was blind but now IC Puckbunny in Training
Veteran
Airstones are cheap. Air pumps would be unaffected. Never used a chiller but GH is pretty clean stuff. I still use the powerhead that ran my E&F for 14 years.
 
M

Mistadobalina

Member
true dat.. though I'm not at all worried about the nutes damaging my gear.. i was mainly talking about all the organisms/protein buildup that gets in my chiller and hoses... and just in general i've noticed my tubs get pretty gunky. last time i grew, the gunk dried up inside the chiller, died, then when i flipped it on again.. tons of papery crusty boogers came out into the water.

As soon as my PPM meter is here, i'll set this filter up in a bucket.. measure the ppm before/after running it and report wtf i find. I'm guessing it only filters bio-mass... but we'll see

Cheers
 
One Love 731

One Love 731

Senior Member
Veteran
Leave the bio filter in your system. I am not as experienced as FreezerBoy but have been running Lucas for some time with a bio filter with great results. When I started using the bio filter I was running Dutchmaster nutes and could not get pH to stabilize and I had to change rez way to often due to smell and pH and cleanliness. As well yesterday at the hydro store they had some discounted flora bloom that was clear, I don't believe the actual nutes are responsible for the color as much as added color. Rather than take my word, as I am still a newbie check out this link http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=32458 Any questions should be answered along with the added bonus of algae prevention by adding barley to filter bag by reading above link. Karma, One Love
 
M

Mistadobalina

Member
One Love 731 said:
I am not as experienced as FreezerBoy but have been running Lucas for some time with a bio filter with great results. When I started using the bio filter I was running Dutchmaster nutes and could not get pH to stabilize and I had to change rez way to often due to smell and pH. As well yesterday at the hydro store they had some discounted flora bloom that was clear, I don't believe the actual nutes are responsible for the color as much as added color. Rather than take my word, as I am still a newbie check out this link http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=32458 Karma, One Love
Click to expand...

Hell yah man, Thanks a million for that thread. I tried searching a bunch of different queries and couldn't pull that up. I think you're right about it removing the foodcoloring/pigment but not the nutes. Nonetheless i'm really happy to see how squeaky clean my rez is. I took the filter out the other day to look at it and it captured quite a bit of trash/junk that was floating around. Hooray! I am still going to do a before/after test in a seperate bucket to see if carbon filtration filters salt content as well as organics.. this is an interesting read for all DWC growers also:

http://www.hagblomfoto.com/article_spongefilter.htm
 
One Love 731

One Love 731

Senior Member
Veteran
Carbon will only be affective for a certain amount of time. I take the filter bag out and wash it with high pressure water that way the carbon, If it does remove nutes, is not new, therefor removing less of the good stuff. as well you can add a small amount of barley flakes (one of the main ingredients that Hygrozyme is derived from) to the bag to help with algae. I hope all this helps and would like to hear FreezerBoys opinion after reading the whole link. I wonder if it would be a good idea to add some orgonism xl or similar product to the bag for beneficial's? Karma, One Love
 
M

Mistadobalina

Member
Funny you say "I wonder if it would be a good idea to add some orgonism xl or similar product to the bag for beneficial's"... I dropped a few pinches of Beneficial funghi (AN terrantula) into the filtration zone to hope that it colonizes the biofilter bag. I'm hoping that they will colonize on the filter. It seems that these biofilters might even be just as effective(if not more) by taking out the carbon from the filter and replacing it with lavarock for the bene's to grow on. Mainly i like the concept of filtering out big particles like junk and dead roots, the occasional fly etc.

Dunno though, what do you think about swapping out the carbon for lavarock?
 
FreezerBoy

FreezerBoy

Was blind but now IC Puckbunny in Training
Veteran
One Love 731 said:
I hope all this helps and would like to hear FreezerBoys opinion after reading the whole link
Click to expand...

It's been years since I've played with fish tanks. What I remember is the two most common forms of filtration were Mechanical and Chemical (leaving UV, biological, kelp beds etc aside for the moment). Mechanical would be angel hair or floss, to remove solid particles. Chemical filtration was provided by carbon and it's purpose was to remove chemicals from the water; Chemicals like nitrogen, as an example.

I used to lay an inch of peat moss under the gravel of my Amazon tanks (Cichlids, tetras etc from the Amazon basin) pH levels were lethally acidic for a few days until carbon lowered them into safe levels.

I can see the idea behind mechanical filters. Flora Micro can fall out of solution but, you have to abuse it pretty badly to see it happen. I can't imagine any benefit to chemical filtration. Note, I don't have one of these so I don't know that they even use carbon.

On the other hand, if you're concerned about gunk growing in your chiller, I'd think biological additives would be the first thing to avoid. Feed a stray, you have a pet for life.
 
M

Mistadobalina

Member
yeah i'm starting to think against the carbon.. basically take out the carbon flakes and put lava rock chunks in it just for particle filtration and a medium for beneficial organisms to grow on. Will post soon. cheers!

p.s. feeding strays isn't all that bad after all ;) throw some good karma back in the universe eh?
 
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