Geosapper

[Dwayne]

The sump seems best, but I'm not sure of the concerns regarding sudden pressure changes.

The problem with a pump is it kills the live food. I don't think the impeller does as much killing as the 'force' of the water. The force is powerful enough to seperate the pods from their skin.

I think I would also be satisfied with a steady drip, rather than the surges.

A constant drip will work. I just prefer the surge because its allows a better 'mix' to be dumped into the tank. This is purely a personal observation, but is a method I found that works better for me than the constant drip.

FWIW

Dwayne

 

[Dag]

The force is powerful enough to seperate the pods from their skin.

Pods? I thought it was phytoplankton (which should not be harmed by the pump) and rotifers (whatever those are).

 

[Dwayne]

The Geosapper has three sections. The top section is phytoplankton. The middle is rotifers and copepods. The bottom section is for brine shrimp.

Any drip feeder can supply phytoplankton to a tank. Rotifers and copepods are zooplankton. The addition of zooplankton is where you get the real advantage of the Geosapper.

Live zooplankton, IMO, will trigger more feeding responses from tank inhabitants than feeding dead foods of equal size.

Dwayne

 

[fjdevelopment]

the real question relates to - is is it really necessary to swooooo....sh it into the tank or is a continualy steady drip really not good enough. Can we really pre-predict the digestive cycles of the fish collectively? and time it perfectly to their individal needs? when is best right for each fish? or do we need to understand their individual feeding habit needs.

I think when I feel like feeding them comes closer to nature itself.

 

[klas]

combined phyto reactor

combined phyto reactor

You must have had real fun creating this thing! Very nice thinking behind this idea!

What do you you think of making the first chamber larger, and add light? Wouldn't it be possible to have an ongoing culture in this first chamber, to eliminate the need for culturing the phytos in another place?

I have no experience with phytoplancton culturing, but I'm very interested to try, and have been thinking of some kind of continous (not batch) cultivation.

Maybe there is something I have missed in basic phytoculturing(like need for fertilizer) or something that makes this kind of continous phytoculturing in your device impossible?

regards, Klas

 

[vmiller]

klas,
If they phyto crashes, you have no backup and are out of luck for 7 days and will probably need to buy DTs to feed your rotifers.

 

[Dwayne]

the real question relates to - is is it really necessary to swooooo....sh it into the tank or is a continualy steady drip really not good enough. Can we really pre-predict the digestive cycles of the fish collectively? and time it perfectly to their individal needs? when is best right for each fish? or do we need to understand their individual feeding habit needs.

I think when I feel like feeding them comes closer to nature itself.

The reason for the surge as opposed to the drip is to get more variety into the tank. Use the brine shrimp as an example. With a drop method you have to count on the brine shrimp swimming into the drip tube or being pulled into the tube by the siphon caused by a single drop, staying in the tube, and then being dripped into the tank. With the surge method a siphon is created causing any brine shrimp in the area of the surge tube to be siphoned into the tank.

Now expand this idea to include phytoplankton, rotifers, copepods, and brine shrimp. Understanding the last section of the Geosapper would be holding all of these, the siphon created by a single drop is not sufficient to pull all these into the tank.

By having periodic surges of multiple live foods the Geosapper allows the tank to be continuously fed (similar to a constant drip) but in surges that contain a variety of live foods (unlike the drip method).

On the road to the Geosapper, I used many different techniques to try and feed the tank live food. There were pros and cons to almost everyone of the ideas I tried. The Geosapper provided the best results. The drawback to the Geosapper (discussed earlier in this thread) is the need to have it above the tank. Other than that, I haven't found any other drawbacks.

Dwayne

 

[fjdevelopment]

Dwayne:

I am in the process of putting together a system for my tank.

My reactors have bubblers in them to try and keep the entire mix even throughout.

My thought was to use dosing pumps to dispense the liquids to the tank periodically which I plan to control with my Neptune Controller.

Any thoughts?

John

 

[Dwayne]

Re: combined phyto reactor

Re: combined phyto reactor

What do you you think of making the first chamber larger, and add light? Wouldn't it be possible to have an ongoing culture in this first chamber, to eliminate the need for culturing the phytos in another place?

The first section could be made larger to allow for more phytoplankton. I would be very hesitant in making it a phytoplankton reactor. If it were a phytoplankton reactor, it would be almost impossible to drip out good phytoplankton as opposed to weaker or underdeveloped phytoplankton.

A thought I had was to incorporate phytoplankton reactors external to the Geosapper. If the culture process was perfected and you knew every 7 days a culture would be at peak development, it could dump into the top section of Geosapper. By having 7 phytoplankton reactors, you could have fresh phytoplankton everyday. Now all we have to do is perfect the culture process, auto dump the phytoplankton to the Geosapper, and auto fill and start the next phytoplankton culture.

Dwayne

 

[fjdevelopment]

Dwayne:

My thoughts are to dose sterile water into the plankton reactor daily and let the same amount of cultured plankton water then overflow out to the Rotifer reactor and so on.... By controlling input dosing you could then time the output at say 1/7th per day.
To say it simply it would be like a waterfall...

What do yo think?

 

[Dwayne]

My thought was to use dosing pumps to dispense the liquids to the tank periodically which I plan to control with my Neptune Controller.

Dosing pumps should work fine. My reasons for not going with the dosing pumps was the cost and the possibility of failure. Omit the cost factor and dosing pumps are a good choice. Another factor will be a holding area for each type of live food and the need to feed or fill each of these holding areas.

Dwayne

 

[fjdevelopment]

I am happy to hear you concur.

I am interested in the unit you have made and think that maybe it is a good addition to what I am making, although under my theory I may not need to create multiple chambers because the liquids flow from one to another.

 

[Dwayne]

My thoughts are to dose sterile water into the plankton reactor daily and let the same amount of cultured plankton water then overflow out to the Rotifer reactor and so on.... By controlling input dosing you could then time the output at say 1/7th per day.
To say it simply it would be like a waterfall...

What do yo think?

What you're referring to is a continuous phyto reactor. I know some folks have come close to getting this to work, but I haven't seen one actually working yet. If one had a working continuous phyto reactor, then YES it could be incorporated and be really cool :smokin:

Dwayne

 

[Dwayne]

klas,
If they phyto crashes, you have no backup and are out of luck for 7 days and will probably need to buy DTs to feed your rotifers.

Agreed.

Dwayne

 

[fjdevelopment]

klas:

You can always take a little phytoplankton from your reactor and store it away in the refrigerator just like DT's

 

[bcjm]

1. How do you calculate the dripping rate to control your rotifer population? It seems to me that it is almost impossible not to over/under harvest the rotifers.

2. You still need to hatch BBS externally then add them to the bottom section right?

 

[Dwayne]

1. How do you calculate the dripping rate to control your rotifer population? It seems to me that it is almost impossible not to over/under harvest the rotifers.

The level of difficulty in maintaining a specific density of rotifers is dependent on the application. For "just" feeding a tank it is not necessary to maintain an exact density. Another example is using the Geosapper to feed fry. Then a higher density is required. In the case of over-harvesting (too low a density), the rotifer level in the Geosapper can be supplemented by adding rotifers via the vent/fill tube for the rotifer section.

2. You still need to hatch BBS externally then add them to the bottom section right?

Yes. I highly recommend hatching the brine shrimp externally and then adding them to the bottom section of the Geosapper.

Dwayne

 

[fjdevelopment]

Dwaye:

I you have not already read "Plankton Culture Manual" by Frank and Terry Snell I highly recomend it.

It is available through Florida Aqua Farms, Inc.

John

 

[Dwayne]

Dwaye:

I you have not already read "Plankton Culture Manual" by Frank and Terry Snell I highly recomend it.

It is available through Florida Aqua Farms, Inc.

John

Yes, I have read it. It is very good information.

Dwayne

 

[Dag]

The force is powerful enough to seperate the pods from their skin.

So the same problem would be for those who have their refugium going to sump, right? If so, those who are content to run their refugium through the sump, should also be OK with running the geosapper through the sump ...