Part 1 of 2
Ok here are the results of the 5 gal nano test. First, here is the tank, which has 3 pounds LR, a SSB, along with a purple lobster, a starfish, and a clown:
The tank has been on an office worker's desk (his first tank), with no water changes for about four months. The last change was done only to get nitrate down (a result of overfeeding of course), in order to keep the animals happy. Phosphate was not a concern since there were no corals, and thus there was no phosphate removal system in place.
As you can see, the light and most of the hood were removed, as was the little sponge filter. The remaining part of the hood has a compartment for the sponge filter, which is 2 X 3 inches, and it has a little built in pump to move water across this compartment. I started out by taking some tank-divider material and cutting it to a tight fit into the compartment:
Then I sanded it very rough on the top, and I "seeded" it by taking some green hair algea and rubbing the algae HARD into the sanded side. Then I pushed the screen into the sponge filter compartment:
The screen is only 6 square inches, single sided, and thus not enough for this tank according to the rule of thumb of one square inch per gallon (double sided), or two square inches per gallon (single sided). Thus for this 5 gal tank single-sided I should have 10 square inches instead of 6, but of course for simplicity I just used the compartment size.
Since we had already removed the original tank light, we were going to just use the light for the screen as the new tank light too. So I just took one of the same bulbs that I used in the bucket, a 23 Watt, 5100K compact fluorescents "full-spectrum" (125W output equivalent):
http://www.buylighting.com/23-Watt-R40-Compact-Fluorescent-Flood-5100K-p/tcp1r4023-51k.htm
...and set it directly on the plastic hood, which put it only a half inch from the flowing water:
Thankfully these CFL's run very cool, and you can put your hand right on them without burning. Of course if you try this light placement yourself, you'd want to test it carefully so that you don't melt anything, and won't knock the bulb over. I thought that the light might heat up the water, but it does not seem to. The light is on an 18-hour-on timer, and provides the tank itself with much more light than the original hood light did.
Results: Here are the measurements (Salifert) and pics taken over a period of days:
....................N...........P
.
day 0..........*............*...............not measured
day 1........(50)........( .5 )
day 2..........*............*...............not measured
day 3..........*............*...............not measured
day 4..........*............*...............not measured
day 5........(50)........( .5 )
day 6........(25)........( .25 )
day 7........(15)........( .13 ).........screen full
day 8........(15)........(1.0)...........screen full
day 9........(10)........(1.0)...........whole screen cleaned (mistake)
day 10......(10)........(1.0)...........growing back
day 11......(8)..........(1.0)...........growing back more
day 12......(8)..........(1.0)...........half cleaned
day 13......(8)..........( .5 )
day 14......(5)..........( .25 ).........other half cleaned
day 15......(8)..........( .13 )
day 16......(3)..........( .13 ).........other half cleaned; housing cleaned
day 17......( 2.5 ).....( .05 )
day 18......( .5 ).......( .05 )
day 19......( .2 ).......( .05 ).........other half cleaned (not much there)
day 20......(0)..........( .015 ).......green growing back over brown
Day 2:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay02screen.jpg
Day 3:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay03screen.jpg
Day 7:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay07screen.jpg
Continued....
