Nutrient Pulse Reactor (DIY DyMiCo filter)

[OllieNZ]

The edges of the baffles are nicely bevelled and polished. The last time I got baffles from there (about 3 years ago), they were only able to do a rounded edge, that still had grinding marks apparent. These new ones look a lot better with a flat edge and 2 bevels, polished completely smooth. I guess they got some upgrades since the last time.

Hopefully they do it without charging me more ...

Dennis

Certainly sounds like they're machine polished. I can't speak for being charged extra though, one of the benefits of having a mate in an appropriate trade
I'd be tempted to argue it's their fault for not hitting the correct dimensions or at least adhering to a suitable tolerance.

 

[OzIA]

I am really looking forward to following this project. I hadn’t seen the Dymico system advertisement until I went looking for it after seeing your project post.

It looks like a very interesting concept. Almost like vodka dosing on steroids plus a calcium reactor.

I am very drawn to the concept of minimal water changes and a balance of naturally growing foods within the system. It seems like the hobby has been so focused on removing nitrate and phosphate that we forget all of the other things that get removed along with it.

A couple of questions:

Do you know how deep they are building their course and fine media beds?
Any idea how long the primary circulation pump is being run during the nitrification cycle?

 

[dartier]

I am really looking forward to following this project. I hadn't seen the Dymico system advertisement until I went looking for it after seeing your project post.

It looks like a very interesting concept. Almost like vodka dosing on steroids plus a calcium reactor.

I am very drawn to the concept of minimal water changes and a balance of naturally growing foods within the system. It seems like the hobby has been so focused on removing nitrate and phosphate that we forget all of the other things that get removed along with it.

A couple of questions:

Do you know how deep they are building their course and fine media beds?
Any idea how long the primary circulation pump is being run during the nitrification cycle?

I have been following the DyMiCo system for a couple of years now waiting for the hobbyist version to be released. They only started to publish info on the progress of the beta units last year.

The coarse bed is 27 cm deep (10.5") and the fine bed is 13 cm deep (5.1"). The media beds are the same depth between the 2 filters (700 & 2000), the only difference is in the area they cover.

They mention that the minimum amount of time that the pumps will run in an hour is 30 seconds. For the Return pump, this would work out to between 5.83L and 8.33L at the flow setting of 700-1000 L/H that they have you limit the return pump to. Note, this is for the 2000 series filter. The 700 series has a return setting of between 200-350 L/H. They don't indicate if the process (mixing) pump operates constantly, or if it at least runs when the return pump is not running. It makes sense that the order would go something like this.

1. Return pump runs, water flows into filter from overflow
2. Return pump stops, Process pump starts
3. Carbon pumps operates providing a small dose of carbon
4. Some time later, process pumps stops and cycle repeats from#1

However they mention about comparing the water levels between when the process pump is running and when it is off, so there is some quiescent time built in for it. Just not sure if it is periodic or not. I am betting that the process pump could cause surface movement of the water in the section housing it, and since the coarse section of the filter runs anaerobically, this would be counterproductive to keeping the coarse bed anaerobic.

They also mention that the maximum amount of time the pumps will be active for is 16 minutes per hour when the filter is running at maximum capacity. Unfortunately they do not say which pumps will be active for 16 minutes. I am leaning towards it being the return pump, since that is the one that causes the tank water to be filtered. They do say that opn average the whole volume of the tank flows through the filter everyday. So we may be able to extrapolate from there.

My guess is that they are using the incoming water volume to calculate the amount of carbon required to be dosed, and to measure the operation of the filter to gauge if a larger bacteria population is required to handle the load (E.g. more carbon).

I received the metric adapters today for the flow meters and the opto isolators that will be used to interface the 3.3V RPI to the 5V Reef Angel showed up yesterday. The isolators are not only to do level shifting, but also to avoid a ground loop that messes with the probe readings.

Dennis

 

[OzIA]

Wow! That is much deeper than I anticipated. Also, interesting that the coarse media is twice as deep as the sand.

From what you have been able to find out... Do they cycle the process pump on and off during each cycle or is it just on once to circulate the CO2 and organic carbon dose throughout the media? I assume they then flush the reactor once the target ORP is reached?

The reason I am asking, I have a DIY sump with a deep sand bed. Instead of just filling the compartment up with sand, I have trays stacked in the area with about ¼ inch plenum area between so that the water can flow around and through. I might be able to convert this system relatively quickly. It already has an Apex with ORP and PH. I have been vodka dosing for some time so all the components seem to be in place.

Aaron

 

[dartier]

From what you have been able to find out... Do they cycle the process pump on and off during each cycle or is it just on once to circulate the CO2 and organic carbon dose throughout the media? I assume they then flush the reactor once the target ORP is reached?

They don't really say what the duty cycle of the process pump is. I would expect it is probably enabled periodically to help keep the lower filter uniformly mixed. Since it is acting as a calcium reactor, this would also support frequent mixing to help the CO2 dissolve the media.

The other unknown is how they are deciding a cycle is complete. The level based protocol would be the easiest, but is also pretty simplistic. I plan on trying to detect the completion of the denitrification using the rate of change of the ORP level. Observing the nitrate knee as they call it. I think that holds the most promise.

Dennis

 

[CHSUB]

except for this filter, slow moving water @ ~300 gpd, your tank will be sumpless?

 

[dartier]

except for this filter, slow moving water @ ~300 gpd, your tank will be sumpless?

Yes, the filter will be what we would traditionally think of as a sump, except it is only used to house single purpose equipment. Also the filter will be moving around ~450 gpd, and hopefully a bit more than that, if it can manage it (for the reason that I will explain later).

I am thinking of including a 15 gallon tank mounted above the DT off to the side. This would be where the effluent from the filter returns to. This 15 gallon tank will overflow back to the DT. It will serve a couple of purposes. The DyMiCo folks highly recommend using an aeration tower to help keep the PH up and to drive off the Nitrogen that the filter has converted the Nitrate to. I am trying to keep as much equipment out of the DT as possible, so this tank will include a couple methods of aeration. One will be a plain old fashioned airstone (fed with outside air). The other that I am thinking of using is a DC2000 pump with a needle wheel impeller and venturi fitting. Essentially a small skimmer pump, but without the skimmer, again fed with outside air. I am just not sure how plankton unfriendly that will prove to be, but since it is a DC pump, I can always dial it back and see if the tradeoff of having a very effective method of making fine bubbles, outweighs potential damage to plankton.

Water will be pumped from the DT to the 15G and allowed to return to the DT. This way the O2 can be kept up even when the filter is not actively returning water.

The other purpose of the 15G tank will be to house a power filter I am thinking of making. It will again use a small DC pump to push water into an acrylic cylinder. In the center of the cylinder will be a 10" x 2.5" 5 micron pleated RO filter. There will be a pipe that exits the cylinder at the bottom center, and on this pipe bib is where the pleated element will sit. The plan is for the pump to create a vortex inside the cylinder causing detritus and particles to be separated from the outflow exiting from the centre of the filter element. There will be one more way for water to exit the cylinder. This will be through a bulkhead on the bottom plate, or very low down on the side of the cylinder (depending on space constraints). This outflow will go to another bulkhead in the side of the 15G tank and will pass through a ball valve and then be routed to the waste water drain (conveniently located directly below where the 15G is to be mounted). This external drain will be kept closed during normal operation, but when you want to backwash the pleated element, you simply disable the vortex pump, open the ball valve and allow water to flow into the cylinder through the bottom center drain in reverse direction and then through the pleated element and out of the 15G down the drain. If the vortex pump is routed over the open top of the cylinder, then once the water levels drops below the feed pipe, then only water flowing through the element in reverse will be drained. Otherwise a ball valve will be required to isolate the cylinder from the vortex pump during backwash operation.

This vortex filter will hopefully be useful for taking care of suspended detritus that the DyMiCo manual suggests can build up and needs to be removed (depending on how far your tank leans towards pure SPS), and I plan on testing to see if it can also serve a purpose for controlling PO4. For this I plan to test using Iron Citrate, which like Lanthanum Chloride creates cloudy water that can affect Zebrasoma tangs and other sensitive fish. My hope is that by dosing into the feed of the vortex cylinder, the 5 micron filter will capture the reacted Iron Phosphate before it can flow back to the DT. This is why the need for a vortex. To give the Iron Citrate time to react with the phosphate and create iron phosphate particles and get captured by the 5 micron element.

The vortex cylinder would only be used sporadically to deal with water quality issues (detritus and PO4).

Dennis

 

[CHSUB]

what about heating/chilling the dt?

 

[dartier]

what about heating/chilling the dt?

Well I am glad someone is asking the tough questions :thumbsup:

Thank you for asking Chsub.

I am not concerned about cooling, but living in Canada, heating can be an issue though.

At this point I should probably mention that my plans have changed some what about the planned tank that this filter will be filtering. I had planned to use a 300 DD and was expecting to hide the heaters in the overflows, however after reading recent reports about failures of the 300 DD tanks, fear of getting wet feet, has given me cold feet. So I have decided to scrap the 300 DD and move up to a Miracles custom built tank instead. This will solve a bunch of irritants and create a bunch of benefits.

My list of Pros for changing tanks

1. No more ugly overflows taking up space and being visible in tank
2. Way more swimming room for fish and for aquascaping. New tank is 10' x 3' x 2.5' (120x36x30).
3. More viewing options. New tank will be visible from front and side instead of just front.
4. Will be 3/4" glass. Should last a lifetime!?
5. No need to worry about my stand design. Miracles will provide a metal stand.
6. No need to arrange movers to install the 300 DD. Miracles is 45 minutes away. They will deliver and install the tank.

My list of Cons for changing tanks

1. The new Miracles tank will be 5 times the price!
2. Need more lights!! I have 4 AP700s and 6 80W T5 retros on hand for the 300DD. Will need more T5's and perhaps a couple more AP700s.
3. The extra room required means more renovations to remove the rest of a wall and move the existing door to a different wall.
4. Part of a marble floor that is not even complete yet has to be removed
5. Hiding equipment in tank will be even harder than before

The new tank will be 560 gallons by my calculations. So it is going to actually be a bit over the maximum size of the model 2000 filter (from DyMiCo), that I patterned my filter on, allows for. Earlier in the thread I said the model 2000 was good for 2000L, but the manual actually says 1800L (460G) . Oops. I am not too worried about exceeding the recommendations. I assume they are referring to fish load, and I can always limit my stocking level to what is suggested or tell the fish to not swim in the other 300L :lmao:

Besides, my filter may operate at a completely different efficiency level, so the recommendations may not even apply.

The new tank will be using an external overflow box on the end and starphire panels on the other 3 sides. Derrick at Miracles was nice enough to observe that if I ever moved and wanted to use the tank as a peninsula tank, I would need starphire on the back as well, so he is providing it in Starphire on 3 sides even though I only require 2. The end with the overflow will be painted black. So if I have to have something in the tank (like a heater), I am hoping that the black will allow the equipment to not be too obvious.

I am planning on having the external overflow box large enough to allow for a heater and 1 or 2 small DC pumps to be included inside it along with the overflows. Because this tank will be using a much, much lower flow filter, the overflows will not be carrying the typical volume that a 'normal' tank would. But I need to plan for the worst case, that the filter ends up being a total failure and that a regular sump, protein skimmer and calcium reactor will be required. So the overflow box will have the usual 3 drains capable of carrying nnnn GPH, while I will only be using nn GPH.

So to answer Chsub's question, I plan on installing a heater in my external 15G filtration tank and in the overflow box. Hopefully 2 800W heaters will be enough to heat this beast.

The DyMiCo filter's no water changes required methodology will be even more attractive on a 560G tank than it would have been on a 300G tank! Really looking forward to this upgrade.

Dennis

 

[dartier]

I dropped off the baffles to the glass shop on the weekend. They are going to polish off 1/16" by putting it through the polisher for a single pass on each side. That should give me an 1/8" to work with while siliconing.

I also asked them to make me some 12" x 1" strips that I plan to silicone to the sides and bottom of the tank housing the filter. Those will be for the baffles to butt up against as there will be several hundred pounds of water and gravel/sand wanting to push the baffles out of position.

Dennis

 

[Fredfish]

Well I am glad someone is asking the tough questions :thumbsup:

Thank you for asking Chsub.

I am not concerned about cooling, but living in Canada, heating can be an issue though.
...

Dennis

Dang, your in my neck of the woods Hurry up and build that filter so I can come over and copy it.

 

[dartier]

Dang, your in my neck of the woods Hurry up and build that filter so I can come over and copy it.

Hehe, probably be awhile still before the filter is wet. I just sent my deposit in to Miracles on the 560G tank I decided I could not live without, so I will be focused on making room for it, so that I am ready for delivery. They provided and ETA of 8 weeks.

I had considered trying to get the filter up and running using a brute container, but after thinking about having to move it into place under the tank with the sand and coarse media in it, I decided that I should wait until it can be done in situ. I still have plenty of things that I can do anyway. The glass baffles should be ready by now, so I will try and pick them up. Then I need to order in the controller hardware and start planning out the control algorithm. Oh and I need to get an RPI speaking to the Reef Angel. Optoisolators came in last week.

Dennis

 

[Fredfish]

Yeah. I've learned over the years that 'temporary' often is not. That would be doubly true of something this size.

Wish I could afford a Miracles tank. They are well designed and built.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this project goes. This hobby tends to have a narrow view as to how to successfully manage waste in a closed environment.

 

[dartier]

Yeah. I've learned over the years that 'temporary' often is not. That would be doubly true of something this size.

Wish I could afford a Miracles tank. They are well designed and built.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this project goes. This hobby tends to have a narrow view as to how to successfully manage waste in a closed environment.

Yes I am about as patient as ... well to be honest I am not actually very patient at all. Probably with a bit of OCD thrown in as well. So keeping it dry is taking a lot of willpower. It will work out in the end.

As to the Miracles tank, I was all the way down the road to using a 300 DD (hole in wall cut, stand made, tank purchased), but after seeing multiple reports of them failing, including one at the LFS where I purchased the tank, I decided it was not worth the risk. This is suppose to be my dream tank, so I only want to do this once.

I agree that the Berlin method does get most of the attention in this hobby. I have tried other filter techniques in the past. What attracts me to the DyMico filtration is the promise of a thriving food web lower down in the food chain. When I was running an ATS on an older tank, I can't deny that I spent too much time trying to make sure that I did not flush the smaller lifeforms (Isopods, etc.) along with the algae :facepalm:. It was that and the fact that scrapping the screens was disgusting that caused me to cease running one.

We will see where this goes. I still have a calcium reactor and skimmer standing by just incase. Mind you they were not sized for a 560G tank, so if it comes to that, then upgrades will be in order.

Dennis

 

[Fredfish]

I've always been a strong proponent of encouraging as much micro life as possible in your tank. Artificial foods for corals have made huge advances in the last 10 years, but you can't top Ma Nature for proper nutrients.

Your comments on the ATS are interesting. That is the route I'm going for my upcoming tank. The compactness and simple design of a vertical flow through ATS is quite attractive.
I'm not sure where I'll put it yet. The plan is to also have a modest above tank refugium to generate critters for the tank.

 

[dartier]

If in the future I wanted to go back to using algae as an export, I would lean towards trying one of those Chaeto reactors, as I would be more comfortable growing a macro rather than hair algae. Chaeto also lends itself well to this format as it grows compact, coiled self supporting structures.

It would be less onerous to harvest, but I would have the same concern about throwing out critters.

Dennis

 

[djbon]

Dartier, do you think the bacteria plankton is small enough for SPS and sun coral?. I do have SPS but thinking of getting sun coral if those tiny critters will be able to support sun coral in a long run without direct feeding.

 

[Funkateer_2]

Found this on g images. Looks like the system is just an aggressive DSB filter. I could see the benefits. My only fear is a power outage. It could lose O2 quick. Tagging along

 

[dartier]

Dartier, do you think the bacteria plankton is small enough for SPS and sun coral?. I do have SPS but thinking of getting sun coral if those tiny critters will be able to support sun coral in a long run without direct feeding.

The bacteria plankton is definitely small enough for SPS. In fact it may be too small. However the parts of the food web that will develop above the bacteria will be in the target range for SPS.

For sun corals, it will be the same as SPS, even more so as they require larger prey items. It is with NPS corals, like the sun corals, where these types of filters really hit their stride. NPS require lots of feeding which becomes a challenge to keep water quality up and the DyMiCo style greatly assist with this.

Dennis

 

[dartier]

Found this on g images. Looks like the system is just an aggressive DSB filter. I could see the benefits. My only fear is a power outage. It could lose O2 quick. Tagging along

Yup, that is one of the BETA units that they were testing over the past couple of years. Mine is a scaled up version of that, with more filter pipes similar to their launch versions.

I view this type of filter as an automated plenum / DSB meets calcium reactor.

As for power outage, yes also a concern for me. Initially I am going to rely on UPS backup, but in the spring I will move ahead with the installation of a whole house backup generator. I was already planning the generator anyway, but this filter will make it key.

Dennis