Phosphate absorber

[Arne]

Hi,

I'm just thinking out loud, so don't shoot me if this seems like a crazy idea...

I'm not sure how things are done with other tanks but reducing Phosphate in a marine tank can be done by dosing liquid iron or by using iron based phosphate absorber substrate in a bedfilter.
Dosing liquid iron almost killed a couple of my fishes so I installed a canister filed with 200g absorber instead.

The water flows through at 3L/min but the effectiveness of the absorber substrate reduces in time, so at a certain moment you have to replace it.
When the substrate material is new, reducing phosphate will be faster then when the absorber substrate gets a little older.

What if we had a timer so the bedfilter pump can be on a schedule.
No, not a normal scheduler... one with a curve that can be set... 
For instance, when the absorber substrate is new, the pump only runs 2 hours a day.
In time, the pump will run longer and longer which can be set by a curve or something.

This way we might get an even phosphate absorbtion...
When the absorber substrate has to be replaced, just press reset and everything starts from the beginning.

This could also be achieved by driving the pump with a pwm signal but I guess the scheduler idea is easier.

[Rob F]

Hi Arne, unfortunately my knowledge of tanks isn't that good so to be honest I don't know if this is the best or worst idea. :) Having some of the schedules on an adjustable curve is probably good though, likely other things could be done with it as well. I'll put it on my list, as you know its fairly long so it'll be a while. I've been putting a lot of time into the custom rules, they're almost finished then I can start knocking off some simpler options. When I get closer to being able to do this I'll bounce off some ideas.