Rizup
New member
Figured as much. Didn't think they would work too well with a DC pump :beer:
Coral Tank from Canada (1350gal Display Tank)
- Thread starter nineball
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Figured as much. Didn't think they would work too well with a DC pump :beer:
nineball
Active member
Well here we go...
A ha! I was copying the address from my browser, not the right clicky tricky. Thanks. Now let's see how long I can remember that
And the mangroves???
Peter
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
I have the green light from Peter to post the filtration room drawing. Even though the tank has its own spacious fishroom, the filtration is a little tight. The refugium growing area is only 30"L x 14"W x 7"H so there's no room for mangroves there. The sump was originally designed as a wet/dry, but we are converting it into a benthic/cryptic zone full of live rock. We want to keep that "twilight zone" dark so still no room for our mangrove forest. The only direction to go is straight up the wall so we did just that.
We were able to reclaim 40 sq' of growing area on the walls surrounding the sump. Water runs from one trough to the next, over the magic Mud and through a morass of mangrove roots & shoots, eventually ending in the sump/benthic zone. The mangroves can grow horizontally out of the troughs and even walk down to lower levels with their prop legs. It also gave us a place to put 200 pounds of mud and another SSB (shallow sand bed). Sorry, it's a little blurry because it's a big file converted from PDF to JPG.
We were able to reclaim 40 sq' of growing area on the walls surrounding the sump. Water runs from one trough to the next, over the magic Mud and through a morass of mangrove roots & shoots, eventually ending in the sump/benthic zone. The mangroves can grow horizontally out of the troughs and even walk down to lower levels with their prop legs. It also gave us a place to put 200 pounds of mud and another SSB (shallow sand bed). Sorry, it's a little blurry because it's a big file converted from PDF to JPG.
nineball
Active member
I have the green light from Peter to post the filtration room drawing. Even though the tank has its own spacious fishroom, the filtration is a little tight. The refugium growing area is only 30"L x 14"W x 7"H so there's no room for mangroves there. The sump was originally designed as a wet/dry, but we are converting it into a benthic/cryptic zone full of live rock. We want to keep that "twilight zone" dark so still no room for our mangrove forest. The only direction to go is straight up the wall so we did just that.
We were able to reclaim 40 sq' of growing area on the walls surrounding the sump. Water runs from one trough to the next, over the magic Mud and through a morass of mangrove roots & shoots, eventually ending in the sump/benthic zone. The mangroves can grow horizontally out of the troughs and even walk down to lower levels with their prop legs. It also gave us a place to put 200 pounds of mud and another SSB (shallow sand bed). Sorry, it's a little blurry because it's a big file converted from PDF to JPG.
Oops. One more time.
Peter
Rizup
New member
I have the green light from Peter to post the filtration room drawing. Even though the tank has its own spacious fishroom, the filtration is a little tight. The refugium growing area is only 30"L x 14"W x 7"H so there's no room for mangroves there. The sump was originally designed as a wet/dry, but we are converting it into a benthic/cryptic zone full of live rock. We want to keep that "twilight zone" dark so still no room for our mangrove forest. The only direction to go is straight up the wall so we did just that.
We were able to reclaim 40 sq' of growing area on the walls surrounding the sump. Water runs from one trough to the next, over the magic Mud and through a morass of mangrove roots & shoots, eventually ending in the sump/benthic zone. The mangroves can grow horizontally out of the troughs and even walk down to lower levels with their prop legs. It also gave us a place to put 200 pounds of mud and another SSB (shallow sand bed). Sorry, it's a little blurry because it's a big file converted from PDF to JPG.
Sounds awesome! Can't wait to see the pic
Mr. Wilson, can you please describe the mod you did on the RK2 25pe? I just purchased the same skimmer, thanks
Also, what are the benefits derived from a mangrove forest? I was under the impression they were not as efficient in nutrient export compared to Cheato and have the downside of going sexual
Also, what are the benefits derived from a mangrove forest? I was under the impression they were not as efficient in nutrient export compared to Cheato and have the downside of going sexual
RocketEngineer
Space is big.
Looking at this image, I like how you use what already exists to get what you want. I would run the return pump 24/7 while CL pumps 1 & 2 would be set on alternating cycles of several hours each. If you use VFD then mayble ramping between 50% and 100% over a couple hours with a cycle time of 12 hours would almost imitate tides. Just a thought.
RocketEngineer
LeeJ
New member
I like the drawings, it helps out a lot. It also looks like you'll have a very chaotic area near the corner of the "L" which should be interesting. I did chuckle that you're putting sand in the overflows because real estate is getting tight. Who'd have thought you'd be tight on real estate in a tank this size? :spin2:
What are the size of the inlets and outlets that are punched through the tank for the closed loop? If your pic is to scale, I'd be concerned about starving your pumps since it appears you have twice as much outlet to the tank as inlet to the pump. Most pumps do better at pushing water than pulling it and that is worsened if the pipe run from the tank to the pump inlet is long.
What are the size of the inlets and outlets that are punched through the tank for the closed loop? If your pic is to scale, I'd be concerned about starving your pumps since it appears you have twice as much outlet to the tank as inlet to the pump. Most pumps do better at pushing water than pulling it and that is worsened if the pipe run from the tank to the pump inlet is long.
nineball
Active member
I have the green light from Peter to post the filtration room drawing. Even though the tank has its own spacious fishroom, the filtration is a little tight. The refugium growing area is only 30"L x 14"W x 7"H so there's no room for mangroves there. The sump was originally designed as a wet/dry, but we are converting it into a benthic/cryptic zone full of live rock. We want to keep that "twilight zone" dark so still no room for our mangrove forest. The only direction to go is straight up the wall so we did just that.
We were able to reclaim 40 sq' of growing area on the walls surrounding the sump. Water runs from one trough to the next, over the magic Mud and through a morass of mangrove roots & shoots, eventually ending in the sump/benthic zone. The mangroves can grow horizontally out of the troughs and even walk down to lower levels with their prop legs. It also gave us a place to put 200 pounds of mud and another SSB (shallow sand bed). Sorry, it's a little blurry because it's a big file converted from PDF to JPG.
I suspect that you are having the same fun I am trying to get the pdf down to a reasonable file size on the filtration and wall diagrams. The original is 7.7megs but somehow when you put them into your album they reduce significantly in size to something like 200K. If you put them into your album with the link I can get them and post them to the thread. All you have to do is put them into your album.............
Peter
P.S.
They are great by the way.
The last couple of suggestions from lee and Rocket are very good I think, but what do I know...........
nineball
Active member
Elliott, we have not done the mod on my RK2 skimmer yet as we decided to check and measure the performance of the skimmer right out of the box first before doing the mod. Having said that I believe Mr. Wilson may have more information on the mod itself as I recall he has done it in the past to others.
One of the factors in delaying the mod was to get a sense as to the real requirements in my context as we do not anticipate a heavy bio load with the clear emphasis on coral rather than fish. This can change but we need to establish a baseline for decision making.
Further to the mangroves, Mr. Wilson and I agreed that part of the rationale was aesthetics in that it would bring more life to the fish room. The role in filtration will also be a bit of a research project along the lines of our student group who are undertaking a study of various approaches to improving water quality. We will be tackling three issues with our design. First our hydroponic wall unit will give us a chance to see how effective a remote mangrove swamp/grove might be on the filtration system. Second we want to try and determine what if any differences there is with various media and depths of Miracle Mud which will now be possible with the unique design that Mr. Wilson has suggested. Third we are going to try and automate as much as possible including making rain to wash the leaves each day at 4pm. Just like the tropics eh? Something all Canadians would be interested in.
Peter
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
The RK2 was there before I started and it still hasn't seen water or mods. We have decided to test it out for a few months to get an idea of what it can do as a stock unit before we add the N2o
Here is a link to an RK2 mod... http://www.reefs.org/forums/topic130009.html
We will be swapping out the stock Dart and Mazzei injector for a Hammer Head needle wheel or with a little engineering hope to do better with an Abyzz (formerly Triton) brushless DC needle wheel. If the DC pump can handle the high head pressure of the RK2, then we can also use the speed controller to further dial in performance. Controlling water velocity and air intake gets you one step closer to God
This is the small DC needle wheel from Abyzz...
Closed loops technically have no head pressure because the intake and outtake are working under the same pressure; however, once you add an air intake below the water level you are working against pressure. Apparently the Dart NW can handle this amount of pressure. The Hammer Head gives you even more pressure and water & air volume.
All of the "experts" agree, mangroves are poor nutrient exporters due to their slow rate of growth. In great numbers they can pull out a lot of nutrients from the cycle, but the term "efficiency" is a hard one to apply here. We are using dead space on a wall so our resources expended are limited to a small water pump (or tee off main return) and a 400 watt MHL light. I'm hoping we can cover both (perpendicular) mangrove walls with one light, but the ceiling is relatively low (7'). The nice thing about a mangrove wall is you can have horizontal growth and even horizontal illumination.
The real benefit of mangroves is the environment they offer. Mangroves, as in nature, foster the growth of non-photosynthetic benthic invertebrates. Coupled with the Magic Mud, the mangrove root system will be home to countless sponges, tunicates (sea squirts), serpulid worms, feather dusters, barnacles, and bivalves (clams, scallops, oysters). All of these wonderful creatures have their place in the reef even if they don't have a place in the sun
We are hoping to expand the biodiversity of the system so we can avoid the reverse pyramid hierarchy found in typical captive reefs. If we have a broad biomass at the bottom of the pyramid, these water polishers will not only consume bacteria, excess nutrients and polish the water, they will also feed the tank with live (natural) food (zooplankton). The larval stage of snails, bivalves and many other organisms are ideal reef food that you just can't pop out of an ice cube tray in your freezer. There is a common misconception though; mysid shrimp, copepods, isopods and all of the other creepy crawlies with the last name of Pod can pass through a centrifugal return pump, but they are unlikely to do so in great numbers. They tend to buzz around rocks, roots and substrate and rarely venture into open water where they can be sucked into the display tank realm (like plankton in Wonderland). The best way to feed the display these live food items is to shake out a clump of macro algae in the display.
The other issue we were wrestling with was where to put Peter's magic Mud. This is another area where most "experts" fail to see a value. Personally, I'm not sold on it, but I don't see how it can hurt. They advertise the virtues of adding trace elements, which we all know better as "heavy metals". There were two independent tests done on the mud and they came up with roughly the same conclusion. It is 65% silica silt (fine sand) and rich in calcium, iron, aluminum, and magnesium (along with a host of other much smaller elements that are more likely to feed algae than denitrifiers).
We know that iron is a good additive for growing macro algae and bonding phosphates (granular ferric oxide or GFO). Older phosphate removing technology was based on the addition of aluminum, so that explains why that element is present. Everybody likes calcium and it bonds with phosphate to form calcium phosphate precipitate so you won't have any arguments there. Magnesium is another "friendly" as it is a major building block for coral growth and in high concentrations (1500-1800ppm) deters the growth of green nuisance algae. The fine silica silt is inert but it will act as a fluidized bed for anaerobic bacteria that consumes/converts nitrate.
Macro algae and mangrove roots act as a media for beneficial denitrifying bacteria. Our two mangrove walls will add 30 gallons of mud (top) and aragonite (below) as well as viable surface area on the mangrove roots themselves. Here is a picture of an established mangrove root system. It's hard to see in the blurry photo but the roots are covered in tunicates and worms.
There is no sexual reproduction with mangrove trees. They grow slowly and do not decay in the water or release significant quantities of secondary metabolites (toxins used in allelopathy/competition for space). Mangroves have little or no competition and have adapted to their unique salty environment as their competitive edge.
Mangroves is they remove nutrients to the leaves above the water so there is no nightly leaking of nutrients as experienced with macro algae. They have no gas exchange with the water column as they inhale Co2 and O2 through the stomata (pores) on the undersides of their leaves above water. They are one of the unique plants that do not require much oxygen for the root system below water. They still function as air polishers, removing harmful VOCs (volatile organic compounds) from the air the tank crew and reef will breath. The evaporative cooling effect of their leaves will have a cooling effect in the room and in the system water to a certain degree. They use a fair amount of magnesium in order to pump salts out of their tissue, but nothing that would tax our magnesium dosing regimen.
Oh yeah, and they look super cool!
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
All of the bulkheads in the bottom are 2". The closed loop is not under any head pressure but you are right about friction loss. We don't know the pumps requirements for plumbing yet, but they are high pressure. The pumps are below the water line so as water is pumped out, gravity is working in our favour to refill the pump's intake.
You would be surprised. It's a huge house but we have the rock outside right now because we have nowhere to put it
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Computers are another project on their own. I believe my gallery will not accept PDFs. I can put it in my storage space but then it needs to be downloaded rather than pasted within the forum. I'm supposed to be picking up plumbing now so I'm trapped between the reality of your tank and this thread
mr.wilson
.Registered Member
Moser
Active member
Thanks for posting the video, that is exactly how we want Peter's flow. He said "Niagara Falls"
I will be contacting Abyzz in the next few days. I haven't heard back from Sido (Aqua-Forte) yet so we need to move on. I would like to know the quality difference between The Aqua-Forte, Abyzz, Royal Exclusive, and Vertex offerings of the DC pumps originally designed by Schunk Modultechnik/Honcar. They all claim to have corrected the shortcomings of the first generation RE Red Devil, but there must be some performance difference between the brands.
We are looking for two of the large pumps 10,000+ GPH, and one of the smaller units 5,000 GPH.
PM'd Torsten's details..... :thumbsup:.
They are super pumps!.
Mo
nineball
Active member
nineball
Active member
You mean Vancouver
No, I meant Las Vegas, city of ladders or is it lights. I can never get that right.
Peter
nineball
Active member
Computers are another project on their own. I believe my gallery will not accept PDFs. I can put it in my storage space but then it needs to be downloaded rather than pasted within the forum. I'm supposed to be picking up plumbing now so I'm trapped between the reality of your tank and this thread
Maybe we should increase the team strength with a computer graphics person. I will give this some thought.
Peter
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