In article ,
Steve Michie wrote:
"Daniel Morrow" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the notes - I also found them to be educational - it will be
interesting to see if the original poster does too. Good luck and later!
Well, I'm very glad to report that the OP has indeed finally had some
success.... :-D
My water is clear as a bell now - Thanx to a 3rd charge of DE powder...
only took about 2 - 3 hours to get it sparkling with the 3rd charge....
I'm still at a loss to explain why the 1st & 2nd charges (both filtering for
1 week each) didnt *fully* clear the water or clog the outlet flow to a
trickle... but all is well that ends well...
I think what hapens when it doesn't clea the water quickly - like
under an hour and no matter what you do it won't go clear - and yes
I've left it for 24 hours and it gets no clearer - I think what happens
in this case is there is dissolved gas in the (usually new tapwater?)
that you charge the diatom with. What you add diatom powder and let it run
some of the gas comes out of solution in the filter pleats. Diatom powder
can't cover tha hole and eventually the bubble dissolves back into
solution leaving a hole in the powder coating.
I stumbled by accident on truning the filter off, letting all the
powder start to settle then turning it back on. This seems to dislodge
all the bubbles. What works too is to use aquarium, not fresh tap water
when charging the filter. it contains less dissolved gasas.
So, this does seem to help avoid the "cloudies" when no matter what you
do you seem to have a file layer of diatom powder in your tank. Keep in
mind though you should NEVER turn the filter off and on or try to charge
it in the tank itself. use a 2 gal tank or a large one gallon jar. Or
a bucket.
Getting the recharge valves helps too, but you can get by with just a
bucket. Recharging it is everything.
Once the powder it set up right it should make any tank clean in about
an hour. Leave it on for 24 hours and it's photographic quality clear.
For about half an hour... For tanks bigger than 30 gals you probbaly need
an XL. The D1 just takes too long above that size. It'll work to be sure
but how much time (or how many tanks) ya got?
The carbon these guys sell is awsome. Once the water is clear take the filter
out recharge it, then add 4 T carbon powder. Give it an hour and it will
make the water absolutely colorless taking out any yellow or green tinge.
You have to use finely powdered carbon here, not granulater carbon, but
it's easy to make. Just take any high quality (ie, coconut) carbon and
put it in a coffee grinder. Grind until it's a fine powder. Use 4T
per D1 after charging with datom powder. Now grind a couple of loeads
of beans to flush the carbon out of the grinder. The carbon actually cleans
it - that's your story and you're sticking to it. Keep excess powder in
a small tightly sealed jar.
My diatom filter is the singlemost usefull piece of fish gear I have.
Cold dead fingers etc...
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