Overview

Bubbles move water, which means that a bare bubble bar is good for raising silt and making it dissolve in a tank. Dissolving silt in a tank is a good source of plankton blooms. Light up a filter and make water flow through it with a bubble bar. That will concentrate moss in your tank where you can remove it along with what it feeds on; Phosphate and Ammonia.

Ingredients for horizontal and vertical models

A body of water in your domain
A timer and a power bar
An air pump
Lighting of sufficient wattage. I am using fourty-five watts of fluorescent.
Four to six plastic-coated twist-ties and suction cups (air-line tubing holders) to match
A bubble bar short of your tank's width. I am using a fifteen inch sand-stone for a tank that is eighteen inches wide on the outside.
Filter material of one sixteenth inch larger than your tank's width and about three quarters of its height (variable, depending on space needed for plants).
A Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI or ground-fault breaker)
Scissors, depending on who cuts your filter, the only tool needed.
Duct Tape, for the vertical model, only
Silicone, for the vertical model, and only if you are using strip lights

Steps for horizontal model (preferred)

Fasten a bubble bar at one end of your tank. When you hav marked how far bubbles come from your glass, disconnect air hose.
Use filter material in a way that snuggly fits width of your tank; about one sixteenth of an inch too large.
Run four plastic-coated twist ties through filter at corners and tie them to a suction cup. Air-line holders come in packs of six.
Fasten back, water-side of filter at slightly above surface of water.
Fasten front, glass-side of filter at about five centimetres below surface of water and just beyond where you expect bubbles to go.
You may use two more cups and twist-ties to shape filter into a curve.
Reconnect air hose.
Light up filter. I am using three eighteen inch T8s.

Steps for vertical model (simpler, with lower moss quality)

Fasten a bubble bar at one end of your tank.
When you hav marked how far bubbles come from your glass, disconnect air hose.
Friction-fit filter material into width of your tank; about one sixteenth of an inch too large.
Reconnect air hose.
Fine tune curve of filter material with bubble dispersion.
If you are using strip-lights (my tank happens to be slightly smaller than a fixture for eighteen inch strip lights), then you will probably find that they fit more snuggly at an angle. Unless you are using a floor lamp or desk lamp, then glue both ends of a strip light to your tank with silicone and temporarily use duct tape until silicone sets.

From left to right, it goes filter, bubble stream, glass, light. Mirror that for a filter on the left side of your tank. I used ultra-violet lights for a few months, and I am not sure that it was a mistake, because it might hav degraded my filter enough for a different variety of moss: Cool white will make moss grow faster, because cool white is not only a filter, like [[Wood's Glass]].

In the photo, you can see why I am using a vertical model: I needed space. That Echinodorus Rohzay needs a bigger pot, because its roots are so cramped that it is smaller than it was two months ago. You can also see a filter pad which I had hoped would continue to support moss. It did not. My moss strain is different than it was about six months ago, though. It began as a billowy and stringy variety that broke off in blobs for my fish to eat. I recently rinsed my filter under cold water, though, and a strain that sticks very well to my UV-degraded filter remained: I turned my filter around, and more moss is on the left side of it, toward my tank's rear.

Ingredients for a combination model

A hand-held work-light
A clamp-on work light
A spunj of about two litres in size
A water pump that can pour onto that spunj
A three inch bubble bar or a shell-shaped bubble bar
One metre or more of speaker wire
About seven inches of fishing line (safe) or steel wire (easy)
Two suction cups (air-line tubing holders)
Aluminum foil
Masking tape

Steps for a Combo

Tie speaker wire around wet spunj with a reef knot
Fasten spunj beneath outflow of water pump with speaker wire
Shine a fifteen Watt, compact fluorescent, clamp-lamp onto spunj
If you want to stop here, then you need fewer items
Put a twenty-nine Watt compact fluorescent bulb into a work light.
Hook light under a filter or with a loop of steel wire and duct tape to edge of tank, shining into tank through glass
Cut filter pad to height of water and six inches wide
Link two suction cups with seven inches of either iron wire (easy) or fishing line (safe, but hard, because it requires either holes in the suction cups or a very tight knot).
Fasten filter pad into tank corner
Temporarily loosen one suction cup to place bubble bar beneath intake of water pump.
Measure and cut aluminum foil to direct remainder of light from work-light into tank
Fasten with tape
Realize that steps after four will make noise from air going into water pump, and it will promote oxidization of any ammonia that moss does not use.

Extensions and Tips

I do not need an Otocinclus to clean my plants.
A ground-fault breaker (GFCI) connected to your water through your ground-socket, only, will prevent your water from becoming electrically hot from contact between fixtures and your water.
Plecostomi (the king of algae eaters) like eating ambient moss, even when they are too big to get into your filter, so consider leaving a used filter at your tank's bottom for a while.
Only for horizontal model: Java Moss provides a place for tadpoles and fry. Let me know about other kinds.
Spores of moss contained in waste-water from rinsing filter, may grow under terrestrial conditions. Most moss needs to be continuously wet, because it has weak transport from soil.

Wastewater Aquarium

Shit is to life what holy is to farmer.
I thot of this trick while wondering how Edmonton's wastewater could be treated so thoroughly that fish can survive in it. Recently, Edmonton decided that putting drinking water into the North Saskatchewan river with an enjineered waterfall descending from a bridge was a bad idea, because of Chlorine. I agree. In relative terms, though, I see a bigger crime in our wastewater, even if it is given show-tank treatment. If all of our wastewater is treated for supporting animals, then I see no easy way to remove soluble fertilizer without spending a lot of energy and contributing to greenhouse gases. I do not hav numbers on most of our sewage, and I am confident that it would be far cheaper and better for both plants and animals if we did like Victor Hugo recommended in Les Miserables. That is direct fertilizer to terrestrial plant life. I wonder if it would be practical to install a septic tank under boreal forest without disturbing roots of it too much. Then, we would not need to treat water very much at all; solids removal only. It would be an expensive investment in our future, and I think some of the payoff would be economic. To be sure, I am not talking about one acre or so needed for one family. I am talking about a feature other than tailing ponds in Alberta's landscape that is embarassing, and it is a lot of cuts for seismic lines; no tree roots to disturb, there. One tricky part of a job like installing sewer lines would be figuring out how deep to go with weeping pipe. With altitude from Global Positioning Satellites, that job got a lot easier in the last two decades. Sewer lines cannot go up without a pump, because solids go into sewer lines through holey pipe and clog depressions.
Shit is to life like holy is to farmer.

You may use this information in any way you wish, excluding patents, providing that substantial portions or conclusions should be attributed to me, this web page, or this page, preferably with notification of me or collusion with me. CC-BY-SA. I encourage outfitting a tank model with these parts or parts like this and including labour in the total price.

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