sock it 2 me – even the fish say I stink
So anyone who watches the webcams over at Girl2
see where I live right now… and that bright green thing in the corner is NOT
an tank where I kept the missing alien bodies from Area
51. No, that is my fishtank. Something like 5 fish, and something like 5
billion algae. It sucks bigtime.
I tried chemicals. I looked on the web. I changed my light bulbs. I already
had the worlds largest algae eating fish on the planet in there. A Pleko so
big it graduated from cleaning the tank to hunting small sheep in the surrounding
area. Nothing.
Somehow, everyone on the web has an aversion to chemicals. They all want to
control the tanks green growth with natural means. In particular, it seems their
big plan for this situation is to keep the tank hidden in a dark corner of the
basement forever so the green glop can’t grow. Brilliant idea – I will get a
LOT of joy out of a fishtank at the bottom of a missle silo.
Anyway, I’m a smart guy so I started thinking – hey, that green glop has GOT
to be bigger than a water molecule. So all I need to do is find something that
will let the water through and not the green stuff and it will all be just fine.
-
Coffee filters – didn’t let enough water pass … the filtration
system just overflowed into the emergancy spillway and nothing happened. -
Cotton pads – basically a long, thick cotton ball. Not good. I was
worried about it shredding and clogging my fish’s gills, and it didn’t let
enough flow through. It did tern nicely green though. It wasn’t obvious it
was blocking too much water – but the little sizzle noises as it dripped down
the wall onto the outlet were a hint. -
Cotton gauze – Dunno. I only had these little squares and they wouldn’t
stay put - Plastic bag – just kidding, do I look that stupid? (hint: NO)
In looking around, the hacker mind came into play. The things I wanted were…
- Water permeable
- Re-usable
- Longish
- About 3 inches wide
- Cotton
- White (so I could see it change colors)
- Easy to attach to the output nozzle of the filter
In other words. A sock! So I tried it. Left it in for a while and rinsed it
out – a dark, dark green. Hey, if that’s good… a double thickness would be
better right? So I did it. Put a sock inside another sock and hooked it up with
it’s own elastic over the filter output, and laid it in the filter tray. Perfect
fit!
It’s working nicely. I can see my fish again. Only time will tell about how
well it does in the long term.