Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)

[Chago09]

Chago - have you had trouble with the Merlin ASOV?

I think GE had had its fill of that system.

Russ

Ya Russ, I was using them in ice makers and things and seem to always have customers calling me "we have no water, we keep running out" although for 2 months prior they were fine. Then I change filters and again 2 months another call. Filters kept plugging and membrane would slow down. Then I started trying to use them with dentists who need highly pure water but not a lot. Then they were calling me saying the auto clave is rejecting the water the TDS is to high. I just put my hands up and said enough of those.

Sorry I didn't catch your second comment? GE had their fill?

 

[mr.wilson]

As Chago mentioned, we are fortunate enough to have high water pressure. We also have a water mixer to bring the pretreated water up to 77F. My question is, does it cost less to heat the water we are pouring down the drain, than the cost of the water itself? In other words, is there a net savings in heating the source water?

We need < 20 GPD so there is no merit to maximizing production numbers. We are more concerned about a high rejection rate to get full potential out of the DI.

 

[Chago09]

As Chago mentioned, we are fortunate enough to have high water pressure. We also have a water mixer to bring the pretreated water up to 77F. My question is, does it cost less to heat the water we are pouring down the drain, than the cost of the water itself? In other words, is there a net savings in heating the source water?

We need < 20 GPD so there is no merit to maximizing production numbers. We are more concerned about a high rejection rate to get full potential out of the DI.

hahahaha well said, never looked at it that way. Maybe its best to waste more cold water (practicly free) then waste less warm water (cost of natural gas = arm/leg and in winter a kidney)

 

[dahenley]

As Chago mentioned, we are fortunate enough to have high water pressure. We also have a water mixer to bring the pretreated water up to 77F. My question is, does it cost less to heat the water we are pouring down the drain, than the cost of the water itself? In other words, is there a net savings in heating the source water?

We need < 20 GPD so there is no merit to maximizing production numbers. We are more concerned about a high rejection rate to get full potential out of the DI.

because we haven't seen any updated pictures of the millennium Falcon (fish room/control room)
i cant say for sure, but some ideas come to mind.
if you have some equipment or a room that is warm. (water closet or a tank water heater, boiler ect, you could take a roll of 25-50ft RO line and just leave it in there. (run your water through it.)
the atmosphere temperature will warm the water to make your RO more efficient. (they say colder water slows production and efficiency)
if you have a tank hot water heater, you could wrap your ro line around it. (with a little tape, to look like a coil denitrate filter)

just a thought. (RO line is cheap, and heat in the air is free. it cant hurt....
unless you want to run the RO line within the RO holding tanks. (where a heater is to keep at a decent temperature....)

just ideas...

 

[wtac]

For sure Mr. W, we have to get together for some wobbly pops but with the holiday season coming up, my schedule is getting tight and the wife is getting grumpy with the hours I've been putting in.

IMHO/E, pretreating the water through GAC (BFS also mentioned) for chlorine is much simpler and no mechanics to deal with...a few less things to keep an eye on in the grand scheme of things . Perhaps there is a larger sediment filter and run that in line w/a GAC filter before going into the RO/DI units as it seems to me that it's more of an issue with source water and volume required than the RO/DI units themselves.

I'll be visiting that person tomorrow and I'll get more info on his experience w/the GE Merlin system. Hopefully someone is home but I have access to the place. Coming from members (BFS and Chago) in that particular market segment, it's great to have that first hand experience and I'll pass that info along

 

[Chago09]

because we haven't seen any updated pictures of the millennium Falcon (fish room/control room)
i cant say for sure, but some ideas come to mind.
if you have some equipment or a room that is warm. (water closet or a tank water heater, boiler ect, you could take a roll of 25-50ft RO line and just leave it in there. (run your water through it.)
the atmosphere temperature will warm the water to make your RO more efficient. (they say colder water slows production and efficiency)
if you have a tank hot water heater, you could wrap your ro line around it. (with a little tape, to look like a coil denitrate filter)

just a thought. (RO line is cheap, and heat in the air is free. it cant hurt....
unless you want to run the RO line within the RO holding tanks. (where a heater is to keep at a decent temperature....)

just ideas...

Thats a good idea and will keep it in mind for smaller systems. Although for Peters tank we need a outrages amount of tubing to hold even enough water to run through the system for a couple minutes. Mr. Wilson wasn't giving up much real estate, I don't think he will be happy if I take up a whole corner of the room with rolls of tubing :fun2: LOL

 

[dahenley]

if there is a large holding tank for the made RO water, why not drop 50ft of line in there? its not any extra space, but it will raise the water temp. (even if its not much, but any is a plus, and doesnt cost anything.....)

this is if you run a heater in the RO tank to keep the temp steady...

 

[Buckeye Hydro]

Warmer temperatures decrease rejection.

Russ

 

[jmoney]

Chago- thanks for clearing it up, I didn't know that it was the tds creep that you were having an issue with, i haven't heard anything regarding that positive or negative but ill day your word for it :0 sounds like you set up a great system for them

 

[mr.wilson]

hahahaha well said, never looked at it that way. Maybe its best to waste more cold water (practicly free) then waste less warm water (cost of natural gas = arm/leg and in winter a kidney)

It's one of those things I took for granted. I've been working with the mixer there for four months and never thought about whether it should or shouldn't be there

If it extends the DI resin there is some measure of benefit, but it has to be costing a significant amount to be sending all that hit water down the drain.

The new TDS controller looks great. The numbers jump right out at you and the bypass solenoid is shear briliance. Keep up the good work!

 

[mr.wilson]

because we haven't seen any updated pictures of the millennium Falcon (fish room/control room)
i cant say for sure, but some ideas come to mind.
if you have some equipment or a room that is warm. (water closet or a tank water heater, boiler ect, you could take a roll of 25-50ft RO line and just leave it in there. (run your water through it.)
the atmosphere temperature will warm the water to make your RO more efficient. (they say colder water slows production and efficiency)
if you have a tank hot water heater, you could wrap your ro line around it. (with a little tape, to look like a coil denitrate filter)

just a thought. (RO line is cheap, and heat in the air is free. it cant hurt....
unless you want to run the RO line within the RO holding tanks. (where a heater is to keep at a decent temperature....)

just ideas...

As long as the mile of hose doesn't cause friction and diminish water pressure. Hey, it will even passively cool the room

I used to have three 750 gallon water tanks in my wholesale warehouse for water changes. A few days of aeration offgassed chlorine and brought the water within a few degrees of ambient room temperature. You could feel cold air below the first vat and it sweat a lot, but by the time it trickled into the second tank it was already usable for water changes on my freshwater tanks.

 

[mr.wilson]

Thats a good idea and will keep it in mind for smaller systems. Although for Peters tank we need a outrages amount of tubing to hold even enough water to run through the system for a couple minutes. Mr. Wilson wasn't giving up much real estate, I don't think he will be happy if I take up a whole corner of the room with rolls of tubing :fun2: LOL

We have quite a bit of real estate under the tank and we could always fill those hot air vent ducts over the tank. It would make a good passive heat exchanger as long as it didn't sweat too much and corrode the ductwork.

 

[mrstihl]

took me a while to get though most of this, beautiful tank.

 

[nineball]

took me a while to get though most of this, beautiful tank.

Mrstihl, this community respects and appreciates anyone who takes the time to Wade through this long thread. Welcome to our group.......

Peter

 

[Elliott]

one more thing regarding the RK2 25PE skimmer, it's significantly more efficient with ozone running through it, producing much more foam and skimmate, principally because ozone breaks up or oxidizes dissolved organics making them more easily skimmed. I'm running 250mg/hr controlled with an ORP probe and controller.

 

[mr.wilson]

one more thing regarding the RK2 25PE skimmer, it's significantly more efficient with ozone running through it, producing much more foam and skimmate, principally because ozone breaks up or oxidizes dissolved organics making them more easily skimmed. I'm running 250mg/hr controlled with an ORP probe and controller.

Yes ozone contact time can't be beat with these big American brutes. Residual ozone is much less likely with so many organics bombarding the bubbles for a full two minutes.

Have you noticed how often the ozonizer is on/off?

One experiment we may do is a balance between a sterilizer/ozone system and a natural system. The idea is we shut down the pump to the venturi nightly to allow plankton to swim freely without ozone or the skimmer interfering with them directly or indirectly by removing TOC or more importantly, bacteria. We are also considering taking the refugium offline during the day while it is in the dark period so it doesn't release Co2 into the display tank or leach out nutrients during its photosynthetic respiration. This will also limit secondary metabolites (competitive chemicals given off by algae that stunt growth, known as allelopathy). The refugium would go back online during the evening while the lights are on it (reverse photoperiod) so it can convert Co2 to O2 and balance PH while removing excess nutrients.

Our RK2 25PE effluent feeds the refugium so we may be able to accomplish all this with one move. It would just mean shutting the skimmer off during the day or losing our reverse photoperiod for the refugium. I would prefer to shut things down at night while the plankton come out for their nightly swim and coral feeding polyps are open, but there are arguments on both sides of the fence.

 

[mr.wilson]

The next project for Peter's tank will be a live food culturing system. I'm working on a design that will allow passive automated feeding. Basically, a dosing pump periodically delivers fresh system water to a series of independent live food tanks, allowing them to overflow down through a standpipe into the sump below, and over an internal dam feeding the next level of the food pyramid.

At the bottom of the food chain we have Phytoplankton, then rotifers (zooplankton), then Brine Shrimp/Artemia Nauplii (zooplankton), and finally the larger Mysid Shrimp (zooplankton). Each live food item grows at a different rate with the bottom end (phytoplankton) growing at the fastest rate followed up the food chain to the slowest (mysis shrimp).

It is important to segregate each item as contamination can wipe out the food source. For this reason, the airlift is placed at the end that is down the food chain and the dam is high enough to discourage cross-contamination.

An air line will keep water moving and protect the live food from being damaged in pumps or filters. A turkey baster will be used to collect food as well for target feeding. The dosing pump will be adjusted to keep the cultures from overpopulating and crashing and to control water quality. The dosing pump will come on periodically for a few minutes, perhaps for one minute once an hour???

Brine shrimp are photosensitive and attracted to light, so they will be concentrated at the surface where it is easy to overflow them to the mysis or standpipe to the sump. The light will also keep the tanks warm for faster growth. I will have to adjust the size of each tank to support the biomass and feeding requirements.

I don't expect this system to be self sustaining. It will periodically crash and will require replenishing. The idea is to have a steady supply of live food for the display tank, via the sump to feed bacteria, invertebrates and fish. Brine shrimp will be hatched in a separate vessel to keep the floating hatched cysts from overflowing into the sump and mysis tank.

Here is a drawing of what I have in mind. Let me know if you have any ideas or spot any design flaws.

 

[auem]

plan is great as usual...but if you run the doser for 1 min. in every one hour,if i am correct,then overflow to the sump as well as to next culture 'point' will occur at that time...

1)will it be enough for rotifers to get ample phyto without any other manual addition/stirring?
2)post larval stage those brine will eat rotifer voraciously...will like to see 2 diff. place for larval and adult brine shrimp culture ,while larval one feeding the mysid also..

 

[dave.m]

From what I have read on culturing, often it is the algae portion that crashes first. Also, you will probably want to grow more than one type of algae for full nutrition. To accomplish this it seems to me it would be better to have multiple algae vessels that would flow into multiple rotifer vessels, etc. This way the crash of any one element will not necessarily cause your whole feed system to fail. Several breeder suppliers have some form of hanging IV-bag type systems that look both practical and inexpensive.

For artemia cysts, can you not purchase them already decapsulated? That would reduce one more layer of complexity so the system could run hands free longer.

Just random thoughts.

Dave.M

 

[MabuyaQ]

I would use holes covered with micron mesh to separate the phyto from the rotifers, so they can constantly feed on the phyto that passes through the micron mesh but not contaminate the culture. My experience with phyto is also that an airline can't give enough flow to keep it from settling in the corners if you use a rectangular breeding vessel. Adding a small return pump is no problem though as it doesn't damage the phyto, you could than pump the phyto from the bottom to the surface in a internal box that also has micron mesh used as a filter so if the phyto does get contaminated it is filtered out in this box. The same filtering on size with mesh barriers could also be used down the line, including one to separate small from large brine shrimp. Added advantage could/would be that the dissolved waste products from the rotifers, brine and mysis can be used by the phyto as food.