Lasses Dream Build

[Lasse]

As a not living in US I have been a little irritated by all adds at the site. However - there is a new way of be rid of them. If you become an ultimate supporter - there is a possibility to disable all ads. there is also possible to both edit and delete your own posts - among other things

Sincerely Lasse

 

[That Crusso Kid]

As a not living in US I have been a little irritated by all adds at the site. However - there is a new way of be rid of them. If you become an ultimate supporter - there is a possibility to disable all ads. there is also possible to both edit and delete your own posts - among other things

Sincerely Lasse

I live in the US and have been a little irritated by all the ads. Many others are too.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Reefering1]

Obnoxious.
If i wasn't half banned, I would pay to not have them.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

Obnoxious.
If i wasn't half banned, I would pay to not have them.

How do you get only half banned?

 

[Lasse]

I mostly use my PC and a web browser and I have not seen any commercials since I apply these settings in the reference section of my profile

Maybe is different with the app - I do not know

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Fudsey]

I live in the US and have been a little irritated by all the ads. Many others are too.

Thanks for the info.

Pie adblock blocks 99% and is free

 

[Lasse]

From another thread

Now I have totally rewrite my post @Dan_P your free to examine it again - I´m think that I am more near the truth this time

For the ones unfamiliar with formula - PO4 in weight is the weight of the molecule PO4-P is only the weight of the ingoing P in the molecule. The same for NO3/ NO3-N, C2H6O/C2H6O-C and so on. The first is the weight of the whole molecule the -x is the weight of the compound of interest in the molecule.

In order to test my theory that a slow and low addition of ethanol to a GFO reactor can affect the PO4 concentration in the water - start to dose 1 ml 40 % ethanol equal over the hours of the day. (in reality - I dilute 7 ml 40 % Ethanol to 1000 ml with help of RO water and dose 0.1 ml of this solution/minute)

1 ml 40 % ethanol/day correspond to 0.4 ml C2H6O/day. In g its density*ml - in this case around 0.36 g C2H6O. Hence C2H6O-C is around 0.16 g

For a long time now - 2.5 months my PO4 has been around 0.2 ppm (around 0.205 mg/L) As PO4-P is equal to around 0.07 mg/L PO4-P. My Aquarium has around 300 L water - that means an total amount of around 21 mg PO4-P

With the ratio used by @Beuchat for heterotrophic bacteria biomass - C:N:P = 60:7:1 plus an estimate of how much of the added carbon goes into the biomass (Bio-C) and how much goes out as CO2-C, it is possible to roughly estimate how much PO4-P 1 ml of added 40% C2H6O will lock into bacterial biomass and further calculation of how much it will impact my PO3 concentrations in my aquarium

-Molecular weight C ≈ 12 g/mol
-Molecular weight P ≈ 31 g/mol

Therefore: Ratio C2H6O-C: PO4-P ≈ (60 × 12) / (1 × 31) ≈ 23:1 ≈ 4.4 %

In ecological calculations it is normally assumed that under normal conditions about 10% of the "food input" is transferred to new biomass in warm-blooded animals - the equivalent ratio for cold-blooded animals is thought to be about 20% - a higher ratio because less energy is spent heating the organism. I do not know the equivalent percentage for bacteria, but in these calculations, I use the cold-blooded animals' ratio of 20%. This means that 20% of the C2H6O-C input goes on to bacterial biomass - the rest goes out as CO2-C, so 80% is waste.

In my case I add around 0.16 g C2H6O-C a day for bacterial growth in my reactor. If I now use the ratio for cold-blooded animals - 20% of the "food" input becomes new biomass - then about 0.032 g of C2H6O-C will be bound in new bacterial biomass per day.

Now the ratio 23/1 (≈ 4.4%) for C/P in g (the same as C2H6O-C/PO4-P in g) is used on these 0.032 g/day – this corresponds to an uptake of approximately 0.0014 g PO4-P a day (1.4 mg PO4-P a day)

Molecular weight PO4 ≈ 95 g/mol
-Molecular weight P ≈ 31 g/mol

Therefore: 95/31* 1.4 mg ≈ 4,3 mg PO4 a day

As mentioned before – my aquarium is around 300 l and the calculations above show that addition of 1 ml 40% C2H6O per day can decrease my concentration with around 0,014 mg/L PO4 – in ppm - nearly the same.

It’s a rather good figure – IMO – a little too good but I am following up the experiment with tests. One thing I can add already now is that the dirt I can see in my reactor (in my synthetic filter cotton) is more corresponding to ten days run than the present run for two days - something is happen

I will move my result of my experiment to my build thread but if any want to discuss this post in this thread - you are welcome.

Sincerely Lasse

I will continue to report about the experiment that started 2026-04-22 - it had run for 3 days now. Already know I can report that the bacterial growth seems to have accelerated since the start of the experiment.

This was how the synthetic filter wool looks after 9 days with no addition of ethanol

And here after 2.5 days with 1 ml of 40% ethanol daily - continuously and directly added

Here how the reactor looks like before and after changes of the synthetic filter wool- I add a little used wool as seed

Here is the PO4 concentrations for last months whit changes of the phosphate reactor. 1 red staple = change of both GFO and wool, 2 and 3 red staples = change of wool, 4 red staples adding 100 gr GFO and change of wool and 5 = start adding ethanol and change of wool. Today also change of wool - not seen in the graph.

The down going of the PO4 concentrations today is no sign that its working - need more samples the following days. However - the amount of bacterial biomass in the reactor is an indication that something happens. I will continue with reporting.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

If this work out good - my goal is to slowly dimmish the amount of GFO I use and replace it with synthetic filter wadding. When all GFO is phased out - I will test to control my PO4 concentrations only with my dosing of ethanol into the reactor

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

The slow dosing of ethanol in the inlet to my reactor pump has definitely changed the speed of the bacteria build-up in my filter wadding. Normally it is time to change it after 9-15 days and then it can sometimes be so dense that it is compressed by the water pressure of the pump. Now this has happened after only 2 days. However, I will not change the wadding yet - it will have to wait a few more days.

Regarding my phosphate content, the results are a bit - as usual - confusing. I do not know if this is due to measurement errors and poor handling of the samples or something else.

Yesterday the measurements showed an increase in the phosphate content from 0.19 ppm to 0.26. To be on the safe side and rule out the most common causes of measurement errors, I filled the sampling tube with citric acid overnight and changed my sampling routines a little.

The result was that the test today only showed 0.13 ppm - a halving of the value over 24 hours. This is unlikely but whether it is yesterday's or today's value that is more wrong I do not know. Since I changed the filter material two days ago (which reduced the bacterial biomass), I expected a stable value or a slight increase yesterday, but this roller coaster seems unlikely if you don't take measurement errors into account.

The filter 2 days ago

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

I have been absent in this thread some weeks now but I have continue to experiment with organic carbon and my GFO filter. After the dip 27/4 it has stabilize itself around 0.16 with a dip today after change of GFO yesterday

4/5 before I change the filter materia

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After changing and addition of Eheim fix

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and today 5/5

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The dip of PO4 today (confirmed with two measurements with a time span of 15 minutes) is probably due to addition of new GFO but my NO3 have drop too - without any changes with my nitrate eating DSB.

Today - I will clean up my refugium and my pump into the plenum of my DSB - interesting to see whats the reading of PO4 is tomorrow.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

I tested to combat some very stubborn reddish-brown cyanobacteria that had been present on sand and rock for almost a year - not a serious infestation but it was there - with "coral snow" soaked in bacteria from my skimmer cup - my "coral snow" was actually a fine powder of calcium carbonate.

Its more information here.

I have not dosed any CaCO3 for around 5 weeks now and the stubborn cyanobacteria disappearing more and more. There is a small patch in the sand - but for the moment let me quote The Beatles. Of some reason it works with this - at least for me. I can´t remember any other change I have done to my husbandry during this time. My latest experiment started 2 weeks ago but the improvements was seen much earlier.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

Todays report

The filter looks like this - still no visible bacterial growth in Eheim Fix but the wadding becomes browner and browner

The PO4 concentration was for the first time in many years below 0.1

​

The decline is probably due to new GFO media - below is my phosphate last year - red line - replacement or supplementation of GFO. But the effect this time seems larger.

Also ran some Lanthanum at the beginning of 2025 - blue marking - great effect at the beginning but not later. A subsequent ICP showed Lanthanum in the water (1.174 µg/l) so I stopped all Lanthanum dosing in May and have not resumed it. 3/4 years later it was reduced to about 0.031 µg/l. Note that it is actually only ICP-MS that detects Lanthanum at lower levels

​

I will of course monitor the phosphate level in the future, but it now seems that GFO lowers PO4 and my bacterial growth is sufficient to compensate for the addition. This combination of cotton wool, GFO and ethanol in the reactor is probably the most effective method I have tried so far.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Todays report

The filter looks like this - still no visible bacterial growth in Eheim Fix but the wadding becomes browner and browner

The PO4 concentration was for the first time in many years below 0.1

​

The decline is probably due to new GFO media - below is my phosphate last year - red line - replacement or supplementation of GFO. But the effect this time seems larger.

Also ran some Lanthanum at the beginning of 2025 - blue marking - great effect at the beginning but not later. A subsequent ICP showed Lanthanum in the water (1.174 µg/l) so I stopped all Lanthanum dosing in May and have not resumed it. 3/4 years later it was reduced to about 0.031 µg/l. Note that it is actually only ICP-MS that detects Lanthanum at lower levels

​

I will of course monitor the phosphate level in the future, but it now seems that GFO lowers PO4 and my bacterial growth is sufficient to compensate for the addition. This combination of cotton wool, GFO and ethanol in the reactor is probably the most effective method I have tried so far.

Sincerely Lasse

Thanks for sharing, Lasse.

 

[MBruun]

Very interesting outcome of experiment with carbon dosing the GFO filter :-)
There was a lot of filter wadding and now Eheim Fix, and a minor part with GFO. Do you know if the primary binding of Phosphate is in the GFO or by bacteria growth in the filter material ? or is the combination ?

 

[Lasse]

Very interesting outcome of experiment with carbon dosing the GFO filter :-)
There was a lot of filter wadding and now Eheim Fix, and a minor part with GFO. Do you know if the primary binding of Phosphate is in the GFO or by bacteria growth in the filter material ? or is the combination ?

If you look at this graph you can see a pattern. When I have change the GFO or put in more. Both the change (22/3) and the extra (11/4) the concentrations has decline some day and turn upward again after a few days. I start dosing 22/4 and after that - it has been decline and after the last change of GFO it decline again.

My thinking is - let the bacteria take care of most of the PO4 and the GFO will take care of the rest.

I hope that my GFO shall bring down the concentration to a level I want (around) there I am today (0,08 mg/L) and after that will the dosing of ethanol take care of the daily surplus

Its in Swedish - Byte = change of, vadd = vadding, påfyllning = addition (sort of) ökat = rise

Sincerely Lasse

 

[MBruun]

Its in Swedish - Byte = change of, vadd = vadding, påfyllning = addition (sort of) ökat = rise

Thanks for the explanation - As I'm Danish I have the privilege to understand your Swedish :-)

 

[Lasse]

First setback in this experiment - Eheim fix - wadding - GFO was not an optimal solution. The filter was already clogged with a weak flow this morning. Think again and do the right thing. I am now trying wadding (a lot), Eheim fix (a little) and GFO in that order

Today . minimal flow

New design

I also took the opportunity to remove a tap that was not used on my pump - now there is free flow into the filter

​

After several repetitions, I determine that the phosphate level was 0.09 mg/L – basically the same as yesterday.

​

Sincerely Lasse

​

 

[That Crusso Kid]

First setback in this experiment - Eheim fix - wadding - GFO was not an optimal solution. The filter was already clogged with a weak flow this morning. Think again and do the right thing. I am now trying wadding (a lot), Eheim fix (a little) and GFO in that order

Today . minimal flow

New design

I also took the opportunity to remove a tap that was not used on my pump - now there is free flow into the filter

​

After several repetitions, I determine that the phosphate level was 0.09 mg/L – basically the same as yesterday.

​

Sincerely Lasse

​

Excellent use of the local supermarket's sales paper!

 

[Lasse]

When I did the last rounds of filter media, I removed a thin layer of a 10 ppi filter mattress that normally sits between two plastic discs at the top. I kept the corresponding one at the bottom. This has meant that the upper disc combination has been pressed down with the filter wadding. There has been significant bacterial growth in the filter wadding – although not entirely evenly.

Backside

An interesting consequence of the now formed free water that has arisen due to the pressure compression over the filter material is that a white bacterial growth has now formed.

​

As for phosphate, it has risen a little further - probably due to the small amount of GFO having decreased in effectiveness. But it has rise from 0.08 to 0.11 mg/L and the accuracy of the measurement method is ± 0.02 mg/L. I will measure tomorrow too and see if the trend continue - but unfortunately I have to temporarily stop the experiment tomorrow because I will be traveling for 4 days.

The experiment will be run without GFO reactor and with organic carbon added during this time. It will also show if the PO4 will continue to rise if all treatment is halted.

​

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

New report

The filter clogged after 2 days - don't know why. I've now taken it out of use as I'll be away for a few days - this is what it looked like after 2 days - still lots of growth. I'm stopping the 2ml/day of ethanol too

​

Phosphate remained at 0.11 mg/L but I have had some trouble with the readings - have to do them several times with different samples - first reading is too low. New test - shows more realistic values. Arrow = change of GFO.

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Will be back in a week

Sincerely Lasse