colling and de-nitrification

crystalball

New member
I belive your running a geo-thermal cooling system, as it stands im adding in another cooling system, and trying to get it also to denitify my water at the same time, my question is...on your geo-thermal lines does it come out nitrate free? or is it contibuting to the nitate prossess? , I know if the water is in the run long enough that it will become anarobic and it will be nitrate free, it its run to fast it will be a factory... no better than a sump of bio-balls....

the run im making is 1 /12 flex pool hose 140' run, will buy more if needed, but these are already under the house....

how fast can I run the water through this line and still be nitrate free?

any advice/insight would be great
 
Crystal
Just tagging along, but how are you going to regulate the temp if your tank water needs to flow through the loop continuously? If you add heaters, you are pouring electricity into the ground.
Interesting idea about the denitrification, though.
I prefer a closed loop and exchanger. When the tank calls for cooling, the circ pump comes on to circulate the ground loop.
I love this hotly debated topic!:p
$0.02
Chris
 
I thought about closing the loop during cold spells, and using a outo feeder of sugar water to keep it working..it would work more or less like a calsium reactor, pump would keep the water circulating in the tubes, while a small amount is both pumped in and drained....

my main problem is im heating the water 30 degrees with the lights, and running just a geo thermal set up could be just adding a fight with the nitrates... I ran the same amount of line and it cooled to 75 degrees, using a ceramic heater it came on for a short time heating all the water and equipment in the sump, it was cheap to heat and cool....now im tring to find out how long of a run to get rid of the nitrates, if it works for the smaller tank then the tanks outside can run with out rock or sand, and would be eaisier to keep and the temp would be constant.

only the coral farmers have this situation so im hoping some one here can help

thanks h20

as for regulating the temp, it would be on a soinoid valve shutting off the flow when the tank was too cold...
 
Nicholas,

I have been attempting to work through this question myself.

I believe that I have an answer, but I still have not been able
to test it due to barriers (deth in the family, and all the chaos
that it brings).

Here is what I have come up with, although it might be tough
to visualize without a drawing (I'll try to get to that soon).

Start with a plexy/acrylic box. Place a divider in the box that
creates a top and bottom half (looking down into the box).
The divider should come up about 6-8" in a 12" deep box.

Now, create an outlet from the bottom half that feeds the main
circulation pump of your geothermal cooling unit. The other end
of the geothermal cooling pipe enters the top half of the box.
When the pump is on, water will be sucked from the bottom half,
pumped into the top half, and cascade over the divider.

Now place the box next to you sump so that the top of the
divider in the box is at the same height as your sump water
level. Run a line between the bottom half of the box and the
sump. Run a line with a small pump (pump2) between the top
half of the box and the sump.

Here's how it works. When pump2 is off, the mail geothermal
pump will suck water from the bottom half of the box and dump
it into the top half. The resistance of pump2 being off will cause
the water in the top half to spill over the divider and replenish
the bottom half where the pump is sucking. There will be a small
amount of water exhange between the bottom half of the box
and the sump through the line that runs between them , but it
should be only slight. With pump2 off, there is no colling of the
sump or the tank.

OK, lets turn pump2 on. Pump 2 is now sucking water from the
top half of the box. As the water level is reduced, water in the
top half of the box stops flowing over the divider. The main
gothermal pump is reducing the water level in the bottom half,
so water now starts flowing from the sump into the bottom
half of the box.

Sorry if it's not clear. However, this will allow you to continue to
circulate water through the goethermal pipes without cooling
the sump/tank if they are at temperature. Choosing pump2 carefully allows you to decrease the tank temperature at a rate
that will not shock the system. If you are running a controller, it
can cycle the pump with very tight temperature tolerances.

To the nitrification, if you want a slow flow when not cooling, you
can run a small pump in parallel with the main geothermal pump
to keep a very slow flow moving though the pipe and the box.

Hope this halps. If not, I hope to see you at one of the BARE
events sometime soon. I still want to purchase some sand/rock
if you have any left, but it will be a week or do before I'm free
from the family chaos going on.

Best Regards,

The Other Jim
 
the system seems like it would cool but nitrites would build in the pipe, only a dead zone...ie...a long run would turn the water, it would come out void of oxgen, at that point I can run it in a diffuser box, (a skimmer that dosent skim) and then back in the tank, it would be a compleat filter and a compleat cooler unit in one, only needing a scrubber and fuge, to add/remove nutients...

but how long of a run at what flow rate, if I know this I can scale by BTU the volume of cooling


high volume flow will only reoxadize the water and the nitrites would never dimminish, too low of flow would create sulfar, and not cool the tank....


If I monitor the sulfer by a probe it can be auto feed to in increase the nutients, or I can open the line to flow faster, but that could cool the tank too much and ill be tring to heat it...

or I can run the end of the run around in a box with a heater, if the water need to be heated then the heater will kick on and heat the water in the pipe...

all possabilities...

jim not sure if you saw my post I have that 250 with the 600 g sump up for sale
 
crystalball said:
the system seems like it would cool but nitrites would build in the pipe, only a dead zone...ie...a long run would turn the water, it would come out void of oxgen, at that point I can run it in a diffuser box, (a skimmer that dosent skim) and then back in the tank, it would be a compleat filter and a compleat cooler unit in one, only needing a scrubber and fuge, to add/remove nutients...

but how long of a run at what flow rate, if I know this I can scale by BTU the volume of cooling

jim not sure if you saw my post I have that 250 with the 600 g sump up for sale

Nicholas,

You may have to choose between functions depending on the
thermal sink capacity as well as the transfer rate of the pipe
that you choose. If you are placing the pipe under the house,
but not buried, the thermal sink capacity of the air will be quite
low. You will have to run the flow at a significant rate. If the
pipe is to be buried, the sink capacity of earth is quite higher.
A slower flow rate may work. I do not know what the thermal
transfer rate for pool hose is, but it's insulating effect will have
some effect.

If you have the pipe sitting around, you might try an experiment.
Fill a large tank/tub with water and cycle the water through the
pipe. You can then measure your pull-down capacity at different
rate and temperature differentials. I'd be interested in your
results.

I have been pplanning an underground system, but have had
concerns about leaking PVC joints. A countinuous run of flexible
pipe may be a great alternative.

What are the dimentions on the 250 and 600?

Thanks,

Jim
 
2X2X8 for the tank 2X4X8 sump and a frag tank that sits on the sump or tank is 2X1X8 if I dont sell it ill just set it outside and fill it, making green water....dont know if im up to tring to farm yet tank and sump is made to have the sump remote, but they can stack, also have a hood and cabinet for the tank

sorry anthony for making this a selling forum... but would love to get my car in the garage again...lol
 
as for regulating the temp, it would be on a soinoid valve shutting off the flow when the tank was too cold
For how long? It would surely go anerobic in no time. You are wanting denitrification, but it would turn to sulfide in a day or so during a cold spell.
Which brings up another question. my ground temp is about 60 deg. How much do you think this will affect the denitrifying bacteria?
The tiered box would work to isolate the cooling from the tank, but the de-NO2 system will be hard to control for any setup I imagine. It sounds like you are up for the controls part.
More please!:D
 
if its pumping slow enough the flow would be constant, and the sump heater would correct the temp, but in the line the conversion might also slow and become nitates again?
 
Yup its gonna be tough to get the coil to work properly as a denitrator. It needs to be fed the same flowrate constantly to dial it in and keep it there. The first sign of it crashing will be a big spike in nitrite, so careful.
 
Hmmm... sorry for the delay in reply/missing the question. I was reading through a mountain of email way too fast. This past week has been quite hectic too... also lost a member of the family while away in Cali during the new book release/signing... had to rush home abruptly.

I never did need/use a geothermal system.

I would never recommend running actual system water through any such unit... and hence would not combine a coil denitrator to it. For reasons of difficulty of line maintenance with organic rich water.

The speed of water run through any coil denitrator is dictated by regular testing of the effluent (as easy as described in my coral propagation book and elsewhere)... flow too fast reflects nitrites from aerobic faculties... flow just right has no ammonia or nitrite but reflects less nitrate on effluent side than system water.

'Tis bet to keep a denitrator on its own dedicated loop and not burden it with other duties... in this case, not trying to harness heat exchange with denitrification and finessing a flow to satisfy both (unlikely).

Hope that reinforces the consensus you find... or helps in some way.

Kind regard to all. :)

Anthony
 
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