diatom filter fun

[artw]

What better way to pass time on a rainy weekend than spend hours and hours playing around with your aquarium.  I used to spend hours and hours on multiple tanks, now I can invest that time into only 1 tank.

So..  last week I developed green water, my water has always been slightly milky and hazy, and I assume that a fertilizer imbalance threw it out of whack and the water turned green.  when I got my additional 2 light bulbs I doubled my ferts, at the same time as I removed 75% of my quick growing stem plants. Oops.   so a couple 50% waterchanges later the green water didnt seem to want to go away.   Hey, I thought to myself, I have a diatom filter.   Why not give it a try?
However I was missing a filter bag and the intake hoses, so I had to go to Big Als to get a replacement filter bag, and to Rona to pick up some elbows for the pvc tubing I already had.
Went onto the Vortex website and looked at the manual, and got the filter working first try, however I had no idea how much powder to add so I guestimated at about 1/4 cup.    As I watched the filter I could see the "cookie" of diatoms form on the filter bag,  but only about 1/2 way to the top.   Nevertheless I could literally sit and watch the filter bag turn green and the water in the tank clarified before my eyes.  I let it go overnight to see how clear it could get.

In the morning, it was Crystal clear. I mean clear.  bottled water clear. its never been that clear before. Cool, I said to myself.  I took apart the filter, rinsed the bag, and started my biweekly plant prune/glass clean/filter clean etc. tasks.  Got the fluvals working, took a whole bunch of plants out, and scraped the glass.   The water was nice and brown now, hehe

So I grabbed the diatom, reloaded it with 1 cup of powder now (looked on the internet and found out the smaller units take 1 cup)   and went to hook it up again.   Waited a few minutes and the cookie didnt seem to  be forming.  Oh Shoot, (well not exactly those words) I exclaim as I realized I forgot to put the turbulence tube in the canister. so I had to unhook everything and install the tube, and make sure I didnt get diatom powder on the o-ring mating surfaces.  Reattached everything, started it up, kinked the hose for 3 or 4 minutes,   and waited for the cookie to form.  I got sick of holding it so I let it go, and a bunch of diatom powder got released into the tank.  but low and behold! about 30 seconds later I could see the cookie, on the entire filter bag, as the rest of the air bubbles got spit out of the vortex.

I sat back and played some Mario bros on the DS Lite, and every so often I'd take a look over, and no word of a lie, you could watch the tank get clearer and clearer.   However due to my startup mishap I had a fine layer of diatom powder on the plants so I just shoved the net in and stirred them up a bit, and they disappeared in minutes.  3 hours or so later, the tank is crystal clear again, and the fish LOVE it. its like a new set of sheets on the bed. I have never seen them so happy, swimming around in the clear, not murky, not cloudy not green water.   I'll take the filter off tomorrow and see how long it stays clear.

with regards to the fert imbalance, I have gone back to my routine I was using when I only had 2 bulbs on the tank,  not 4.

here are some pics of my adventure.
http://artw.myvnc.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album30

editted to fix thoughs crazzy speling mistakes

[artw]

Hey guys will the diatom filter take out my fertilizer?  I would like to run it maybe once  every 2 weeks or so. just to polish the water.  and its fun.

[BigDaddy]

The only thing that should take ferts out of you water are the plants and water changes.

Diatom to your heart's content!