Marty's 450g (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter marty9876
- Start date
Oh crap! They accidentally sent along the child laborer that built the piece of Chinese reef equipment you just bought!!
Fish filter v4.0...
Guessing this is the 4th or so major iteration of tryign to keep a ton of heavily feed fish in a reef water quality environment. So far I'v pretty much 0 for 3, I gave up testing water quality... someone asked me what my no3 was and I said the test stopped at really red. I'll pull some baseline test soon.
Objectives:
So I bought a Reef Octopus Ozone reactor, Hammerhead Reeflo pump and Sulfur denitrator from Aquarium Engineering (Bill Wann). Sounds simple enough right? Well even in a fish room, nothing fits. Ozone reactor too tall & needed to switch out returns form a 1" to a 2" return which was a ton of work.
Started day after Thanksgiving, literally went 12 hours straight and still had ~ 8 more hours to even get close to done. Between continuing to work on it up until the sulfur reactor delivery (yea, UPS must have posted their dimensional weight they charge on instead of actual - it don't weigh 115 pounds I Was just as confused as anyone else).
RIP v 3.0
Table o-stuff
Making progress
Not really much fun anymore
Out with the old
I had to stand in the tank to switch out the return from 1" to 2"
Still not sure if it's better to stand in your tank when nobody is home or not, sucks forgetting something
No wife home, sick of going upstairs to cut pipe = chop saw on the floor
Sulfur reactor, chair for reference (no wimpy 2 liter bottles here!)
Finished:
Open items: I need to quiet down the Hammerhead pump some how, that thing moves a ton of water plumbed with 2" in/out. Have a vibration can hear in the bathroom above the fish room, so much flow in the tank is causes loud vortexes (I think I have that fixed). Strangely enough flow seems to be slowing down, I need to adjust the Herbie down bit by bit, don't know whats up with that. I cleaned up the cables some, I tried and failed. There is just as lot of crap in there.
Thanks to Riley for the help. Pumps plumbed right make a world of difference on the flow (now make it quiet!). Those Cepex true unions are a great price to performance piece.
Guessing this is the 4th or so major iteration of tryign to keep a ton of heavily feed fish in a reef water quality environment. So far I'v pretty much 0 for 3, I gave up testing water quality... someone asked me what my no3 was and I said the test stopped at really red. I'll pull some baseline test soon.
Objectives:
- Reliable ozone delivery
- Nitrate control
- Tank to sump flow increase
- Electricity reduction
- Semi-Riley approved plumbing, all rigid with true unions all over
- Clean things up
So I bought a Reef Octopus Ozone reactor, Hammerhead Reeflo pump and Sulfur denitrator from Aquarium Engineering (Bill Wann). Sounds simple enough right? Well even in a fish room, nothing fits. Ozone reactor too tall & needed to switch out returns form a 1" to a 2" return which was a ton of work.
Started day after Thanksgiving, literally went 12 hours straight and still had ~ 8 more hours to even get close to done. Between continuing to work on it up until the sulfur reactor delivery (yea, UPS must have posted their dimensional weight they charge on instead of actual - it don't weigh 115 pounds I Was just as confused as anyone else).
RIP v 3.0
Table o-stuff
Making progress
Not really much fun anymore
Out with the old
I had to stand in the tank to switch out the return from 1" to 2"
Still not sure if it's better to stand in your tank when nobody is home or not, sucks forgetting something
No wife home, sick of going upstairs to cut pipe = chop saw on the floor
Sulfur reactor, chair for reference (no wimpy 2 liter bottles here!)
Finished:
Open items: I need to quiet down the Hammerhead pump some how, that thing moves a ton of water plumbed with 2" in/out. Have a vibration can hear in the bathroom above the fish room, so much flow in the tank is causes loud vortexes (I think I have that fixed). Strangely enough flow seems to be slowing down, I need to adjust the Herbie down bit by bit, don't know whats up with that. I cleaned up the cables some, I tried and failed. There is just as lot of crap in there.
Thanks to Riley for the help. Pumps plumbed right make a world of difference on the flow (now make it quiet!). Those Cepex true unions are a great price to performance piece.
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acharpenter
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Dayam dude!!!!
jlanger
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Quite the overhaul!
With Riley supervising, there shouldn't be any worries. If you did it by yourself, .... :doh:
And I was going to ask why you were cutting pipe inside the house. But I figured you were once again only in your underwear and the door may have closed locking you out; again.
Hopefully all of this revamping works out for you!
It will be nice to hear some positive reactions from you about the tank once more.
With Riley supervising, there shouldn't be any worries. If you did it by yourself, .... :doh:
And I was going to ask why you were cutting pipe inside the house. But I figured you were once again only in your underwear and the door may have closed locking you out; again.
Hopefully all of this revamping works out for you!
It will be nice to hear some positive reactions from you about the tank once more.
I thought about asking for help but I always do my own crap so why bother starting now. It would annoy me to no end waiting for someone else to make things all straight and square... Less measuring more glue!!!!
to be honest I almost got in over my head soloing this one, just a ton of work
to be honest I almost got in over my head soloing this one, just a ton of work
I like the laundry basket of filter socks.
How does sulfur denitrification work? Is there a reason that this might work where other solutions didn't?
How does sulfur denitrification work? Is there a reason that this might work where other solutions didn't?
Seems to be a vibration issue and not a flow issue, the 'sound' is vibration like. I have a dampening pad (BRS one, same as used on furnaces) under the pump, it's...pretty... much squarely mounted (heck if I know). I really, really debated using with vinyl or spa flex before or after the pump as that is the classic method to reduce vibration. I might have too, not sure of next steps. The whole no vinyl thing is to reduce any possibility of failures down the road. Price of 2" spa flex will likely make me cringe but what can you do.
Tis the riddle of the hour. How it works, in my layman's understanding, sulfur is the food source along with no3. The reactor creates a zone of very low oxygen in which these pesky bacteria grow. Very low flow through the reactor, drip or two every second to start with then ramp up as the reactor can take it. Reactor is feed with only a 1/4" (RO) line so at the highest flow it's still pretty low. However within the reactor the flow is high, runs as a massive recirculating reactor. The pan world pump has enough power to lift ~ 40 pounds of media easily. Point of the high internal flow is to prevent hydrogen sulfate gas from forming (bad, death, smelly yada yada). Basic equation is source water no3 amount / surface area of media or amount of media * flow rate squared equals how much the reactor can process. (totally made up this equation, those are the variables more or less).
Theory is there is a ORP meter in there and run it drip per second for a week or so until the ORP is -270 or so (negative). Then up the flow as it will jump up to ~ -250 and then back down to -270. Keep doing that until you can no longer hold the floor of the ORP down that low, that's the flow rate for the reactor.
Why this over the others methods... I'm getting out of options? So far I've tried liquid (vinegar) carbon dosing, solid (bio pellets) carbon dosing, marco algea (fuge), deep sand, cryptic fuge (live rock), ATS all with more or less no ability to keep the no3 under control. I've come to the conclusion, very unscientifically, that some things work for some tanks and some things don't. I know some very loaded systems where liquid carbon dosing works, others where solid carbon dosing is great. Others where these methods work fine for a while and then start creeping to more and more unsatisfactory results. Just need to keep trying I guess. And when in doubt, go big or go home.
Kicker in all this, per Bill Wann, these things start going after po4 once they run out of no3. We'll see.
What do you keep your laundry in?
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Spa tubing might not be so bad, do you have a semi local pool supply/install shop? If you don't need much (less than 4') it might be less than $10 most of those places just throw small scraps in dumpsters rather than hauling and storing it.
Another option, could be just sound proofing the ceiling of the fish room, I would think it would be pricey$$$$ but you might be able to sell the 2 hour fire rating as well? And then no matter what you do noise wise down there no one will be the wiser
www.roxul.com/products/residential/products/roxul+safe'n'sound?mobile=1
I really hope this is the solve for you, when I read bills reports on his reactor he is using he has something like 80ppm going in and undetectable coming out
Another option, could be just sound proofing the ceiling of the fish room, I would think it would be pricey$$$$ but you might be able to sell the 2 hour fire rating as well? And then no matter what you do noise wise down there no one will be the wiser
www.roxul.com/products/residential/products/roxul+safe'n'sound?mobile=1
I really hope this is the solve for you, when I read bills reports on his reactor he is using he has something like 80ppm going in and undetectable coming out
Last part of this overhaul was switching out 4x Jeabo WP-60's with a Gyre 180. Since I've been waiting for 9 months for the Gyre 180 to come out, and have another 3+ to go, I got frustrated and got a Gyre 150. I'm going to need the bigger one... For fish only with all the other flow in the tank it accomplishes the goal of a much more streamlined approach.
Starting no3 is 32-64 range and po4 is .5-1 (broke Hanna using Salifert). Really surprised the po4 wasn't a lot higher.
Starting no3 is 32-64 range and po4 is .5-1 (broke Hanna using Salifert). Really surprised the po4 wasn't a lot higher.
That looks really good, Marty. I'm looking forward to seeing all these changes at your next house meeting if I'm not out sooner. That isn't a dwv sweep I see coming off the main pump, is it? Be careful with that. It's not the pressure that's my concern, it's the glue area. They have half the glue area as sch 40 fittings. Maybe that's what you have, it's a little hard to see. Try not to bump it. Glad to hear you have really good flow now, it's amazing the difference proper plumbing makes. I'll send you some thoughts about the vibration.
I hope Santa pees in your tank. Crap... I'm sure it is. If it makes you feel worse I've sure the glue joints in the drain box, of which now can not be removes without removing the 2" bulkhead, likely have as much or less glue surface on them. PVC, if it holds the first hour it will hold for life right? Right... please... It's the holidays take it easy on me man.
Christmas miracle!
ORP hit -271 so I upped the flow and did a no3 and po4 test on the effluent. Not much po4 luvin yet but no3 is crushed. High range Red Sea no3 tests
Baseline start
Reactor online for 6 days at this point
ORP hit -271 so I upped the flow and did a no3 and po4 test on the effluent. Not much po4 luvin yet but no3 is crushed. High range Red Sea no3 tests
Baseline start
Reactor online for 6 days at this point
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So can you finally put corals in this tank yet?
Someday there whippersnapper, someday. General plan is to take 30-45 days and drop the no3 to some level that allows me to use the low range part of the no3 test kit. Not really looking for a number at this point just targeting a range on the test kit...
An update on the reactor, I keep screwing with it (surprise!) which is the last thing you want to do with these. I managed to block the output twice from increasing the internal flow and moving the media (more is always better right?). So I glued on a screen on the output to stop that from happening. The more annoying problem is the flow is not stable... think old man peeing issues. It starts, stops, speeds up, trickles off and then does it all over again. It's bizarre, I must be up for moron of the year award on this one - ram water into it and water comes out. Must be something with my plumbing that's causing it not to be stable (even though it would be creating it's own vacuum and stable out anyways). So I just keep turning it up (back to more is better right - exactly wrong with a no3 reactor but anyways). I overshot it a little and was getting measurable no3 on the output, left alone for a bit and it stabled off and then I upped it some more.
On a unrelated related note I'm back on the lacl3 dragon. New plan this time, very slowing adding a very diluted solution to the air intake of my skimmer. Theory is if I inject it into the pump on the skimmer the 1/4" line will plug overtime (the end gunks up with precept overtime) so I'll take the air delivery approach. I'm not lookin got 0.00 on po4, just looking to get a little into the system in a maintenance few method. Yes, I fully expect to completely gum up the air intake.
Last night (tank left, output right)
All this is really for this bastard (along with the clowns I picked up from patent last night)
Let's see how many expensive fish this guy can eat.
