gyre flow possible?

[mrcrab]

Wasted a couple of hours yesterday and got very frustrated trying to get the gyre flow going and not because of the vortechs limitations to do this but because of programming issues. Here's the back of my tak and how the vt's are mounted:

That's an 8 foot tank and the 2 controllers at the top from outside to ouside measures 6'9". The vt's are supposed to have a 10' operating distance and need to be in line of sight. I would think my setup conforms.

Without having to undo all the wires, the controller boxes are velcro mounted, I can get then to within 4'9" of each other to program, again, should be good enough.

I was having serious problems programming them. Followed the directions to the letter as I don't program them very often, I'm a set and forget guy. I kept getting issues with at least one of the controllers flashing an error message when setting the slave. and would have to start all over again. Must have spent an hour trying to program the pulse because of this, but finally got it to go with no errors. Don't ask me how, just lucky more than anything. Kept having to retry by setting different masters/slaves.

After getting it set properly, it just didn't look, sound right. Two of the pumps are a bit noisy and make a whirring sound. Also, two run hot while the other two are quite comfortable to the touch. The controllers being less than 7 feet apart should not have an issue communicating with each other but the ones furthest from the controller weren't consistently getting the info packet from the master, they weren't getting the packet more often than not.

After all that nonsense I tried to reprogram them back to my original settings with the same issues and frustrations. Wasted about an hour to finally get it back.

I think the only way to get a true gyre would be to have two electronic timers switching two pumps on and two pumps off on a half hourly basis, just not sure if the programming will hold once the power is cut when they come back on or wether it will do damage to the controllers.

Tim, would it be possible to set it up like this without doing damage or losing the programming while cutting power completely?

 

[EcoTech Marine]

When viewing the tank from the back, try rotating the drivers 90deg's clockwise for the ones on the left side, and 90deg's counter clockwise for the ones on the right side. This will orient them so that the antenna's are pointing right at one another, and should take care of any range issues. Alternatively, it does look like you have enough cord to perhaps move them each about one foot closer; that could help too.

As for the gyre flow, to achieve this you don't necessarily need them to be sync'd with one another, all that you really need are two timers. Looking at the tank from the left side panel, I would place one pump in the top right region, and one pump in the lower left. I would then set the pumps up opposite this on the other side of the tank, so that each pair in the gyre occupies either the top region or the lower region; I would not split a pair up between top and bottom in an effort to achieve the ideal circular flow for a gyre system.

Put each pair in green, constant speed mode, and set them up on a timer to come on for 15 minutes and off for 15 minutes while the other pair is off and on. There is no real advantage to having a master/slave group for this type of a setup, but you could do it with each pair. The only advantage that assigning them as master/slaves would provide is that you would only have to control the master pump's potentiometer, not both.

-Tim

 

[mrcrab]

Cool, thanks Tim. I was just concerned that a timer cycling them on and off would cause a problem with the driver as it did with the old ones.

 

[EcoTech Marine]

The new driver is much more robust than before, I don't predict you'll have a problem but if you do we'll take care of you. I'd stick with nothing shorter than 15 minutes on and off and see if you like the result.

-Tim

 

[mrcrab]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12350162#post12350162 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by EcoTech Marine
The new driver is much more robust than before, I don't predict you'll have a problem but if you do we'll take care of you. I'd stick with nothing shorter than 15 minutes on and off and see if you like the result.

-Tim

I was actually planning on 1/2 hour to start.

One last question, what distance from the top of the water and from the sandbed would you recommend for the pumps? Top shouldn't be an issue but I'd like to avoid a sandstorm or a mass migration of the substrate. It's a shallow sand bed.

The reason I'm looking into this is that I'm starting to experience a cyano issue in a couple of spots.

Thanks Again.

 

[mrcrab]

dp

 

[EcoTech Marine]

Barry-

If you're just starting to see cyano and the flow hasn't changed and neither has your rock structure, I'd look into nutrients as a potential cause versus flow.

As for a recommendation on vertical placement, I really don't know what's best. You might have to experiment on this one. You'll need the lower pumps at least 15-18"" up to avoid a sandstorm if they're on at full blast and usually a pump can be as little as 4" down from the top without pulling a vortex.

-Tim

 

[mrcrab]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12351085#post12351085 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by EcoTech Marine
Barry-

If you're just starting to see cyano and the flow hasn't changed and neither has your rock structure, I'd look into nutrients as a potential cause versus flow.

-Tim

Actually, I attribute the cyano problem to the fact that the pumps will no longer stay attached to the back panel of my tank.

I have pillars of rock that run down the center of my tank. The original plan for the pumps and the way it operated for the first 10 months was that there were 2 pumps on either end, one providing flow along the back and the other the front of the rock work. I also had 2 pumps attached to the back panel blowing towards the front providing flow between the pillars. With this configuration I NEVER had a problem with cyano and the sand always stayed nice and clean as nothing settled. Since the 2 pumps on the back have had to be relocated to either side because of the fact they will no longer stay attached to the back panel for more than a day or so, I no longer have the flow between the pillars allowing detritus to settle there, feeding the cyano.

This is the reason I am looking for the gyre, to help provide more flow in between and help to keep the detritus suspended so the overflow will pick it up and it can be collected in the filter sock or skimmed out. Kind of like Viagra for Vortechs, trying to make up for a lack of performance.