Pete's 110 build

[psteeleb]

someone was asking me more about carbon dosing and bio pellets on my TOTM thread but thought i'd share it here as this thread should hang around longer. I was asked to expand on this statement I made in my TOTM write up
http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index.php/current-issue/article/111-tank-of-the-month

I struggled with carbon dosing, but decided to try biopellets and as expected found them to be very detrimental to maintaining a diverse biological balance as part of the mini ecosystems we strive for.

my response below:

I struggled with carbon dosing....

I hope some people don't interpret this wrong as I never did carbon dose in a liquid form, I just didn't want to as a means of reducing No3 or No4.

but decided to try biopellets....

Bio pellets are just another form of carbon dosing, reluctantly I decided to try them.

and as expected found them to be very detrimental to maintaining a diverse biological balance as part of the mini ecosystems we strive for

Carbon dosing, including bio pellets, basically super charge bacteria cultures that are other wise population constrained. I often refer to carbon dosing as bacteria on steroids.

In an established system super charging bacteria cultures will starve out other established nutrient consumers (sponges, bivalves, feather dusters, other bacteria etc). As expected I saw significant die off in my system of these beneficial filter feeder type critters that reside in well established bio diverse live rock.

In new systems this die-off of established consumers should not be an issue as the system hasn’t had a chance to fully establish themselves to a system balance . Consider the cycles we see as a system matures; bacteria ---> algae ---> worms ---> snails etc). The systems we build will try to reach a biological balance, if we chose to offset the balance in favor of bacteria, other things suffer.

My other concern is for the health of corals that grew up in a non bio pellet environment. It would appear that for some corals if they grew up and or acclimated themselves to a non bio pellet environment, the introduction of them can take away from what they are use to consuming. There is also some speculation growing that bio pellets give off some sort of by product that may create issues to an established system (be it polymers or dead bacteria) and is why many people discharge the reactor to their skimmer for export of these by products.

 

[psteeleb]

I finally got the ozone reactor up and running

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I got to do something about the generator noise; I will say it's not as loud in person as it is on this video. When the doors closed you can barely hear it but it still needs to be muffled some how.

I monitor the No3 over the next few days and see if the ozone helps. Technically the introduction of ozone will help break down and remove waste products through skimming before it's consumed/converted into No3.

 

[psteeleb]

I think I was past due for a skimmer cleaning

The cool thing was when I was using soft brush on the inside of the cone I saw several baby limpets in there

 

[drummereef]

Love these "instructional" videos you post Pete. I've never really investigated Ozone very much but your video makes perfect sense of the system. Question though... Why with water trickling through the reactor does it not create a NO3 rich environment over time, like bio-balls etc? Is it that water running through there is so pure that it doesn't allow for excess bacterial growth?

 

[feh]

I think I was past due for a skimmer cleaning

Just a little.

 

[Guttungen]

Read all the posts (puh) and I need to take back what I called simple thinking lol. That leaves patient

Amazing setup, amazing picts and videos. And amazingly build. I love those threads documenting so good building a system from scratch. Really love it, well done, and again- well deserved TOTM.

 

[psteeleb]

Love these "instructional" videos you post Pete. I've never really investigated Ozone very much but your video makes perfect sense of the system. Question though... Why with water trickling through the reactor does it not create a NO3 rich environment over time, like bio-balls etc? Is it that water running through there is so pure that it doesn't allow for excess bacterial growth?

Thanks Brett

You make an excellent point and without ozone the reactor chamber would be a haven for aerobic bacteria (or act like a bio ball filter). But with running ozone the environment inside the chamber is lethal. The intent of ozone is to charge the water with an oxidizer to break up heavy proteins this also kills bacteria and other pathogens.

Consider the ozone oxidation process like bleaching the water, but, with the use of ozone the lethal effects do not last long as it has a half life of only 30 minutes. Running the ozone rich water through the activated carbon pretty much eliminates the residuals. When I first turned this unit on I was detecting (smelling) some residual ozone. On investigation I found I was getting some bleed by at the upper coupling on the standpipe inside the carbon reactor, thus the ozone rich gas was bypassing the carbon and I could smell it. Since I fixed the leak with a little Teflon tape there has been no residual smell.

Ozone is commonly used in many industries and pharmaceuticals to sever carbon "“ carbon bonds and bleach substances to kill microorganisms in air and water. Many municipal drinking water systems use it to kill bacteria instead of bleach.

Ozone does not form organochlorine compounds, nor does it remain in water after treatment, but it can form bromate from the bromide in salt water and is one reason you should stay on top of water changes when using ozone. I know Randy has some good literature out on the subject.

Long story made short; the ozone reactor is essentially a bacteria free zone.

Just a little.

hehe - it was a mess, but was still working fine. I'm sure the cleaning helped but that swabbie keeps the main neck nice and clean and that's what matters most.

Read all the posts (puh) and I need to take back what I called simple thinking lol. That leaves patient

Amazing setup, amazing picts and videos. And amazingly build. I love those threads documenting so good building a system from scratch. Really love it, well done, and again- well deserved TOTM.

thank you very much

 

[drummereef]

Thanks Brett

You make an excellent point and without ozone the reactor chamber would be a haven for aerobic bacteria (or act like a bio ball filter). But with running ozone the environment inside the chamber is lethal. The intent of ozone is to charge the water with an oxidizer to break up heavy proteins this also kills bacteria and other pathogens.

Consider the ozone oxidation process like bleaching the water, but, with the use of ozone the lethal effects do not last long as it has a half life of only 30 minutes. Running the ozone rich water through the activated carbon pretty much eliminates the residuals. When I first turned this unit on I was detecting (smelling) some residual ozone. On investigation I found I was getting some bleed by at the upper coupling on the standpipe inside the carbon reactor, thus the ozone rich gas was bypassing the carbon and I could smell it. Since I fixed the leak with a little Teflon tape there has been no residual smell.

Ozone is commonly used in many industries and pharmaceuticals to sever carbon "“ carbon bonds and bleach substances to kill microorganisms in air and water. Many municipal drinking water systems use it to kill bacteria instead of bleach.

Ozone does not form organochlorine compounds, nor does it remain in water after treatment, but it can form bromate from the bromide in salt water and is one reason you should stay on top of water changes when using ozone. I know Randy has some good literature out on the subject.

Long story made short; the ozone reactor is essentially a bacteria free zone.

Gotcha, makes sense. So I'm assuming that overtime the system oxidizes enough water that flows through the reactor to create cleaner water throughout the whole water column -more of a compound effect? Typically, what's flow rate through the reactor and/or is there an optimal amount of turnover per hour that is ideal based upon the size of tank one keeps?

Also, since you are running bio pellets as well do you think there will be any effect on their efficiency? OR are you just wanting to limit the "free" bacteria that may escape from the bio pellet reactor into the water column? I'm assuming this is what possibly caused some of the tissue recession on the Monti a while back...?

Sorry for all the questions!

 

[psteeleb]

Gotcha, makes sense. So I'm assuming that overtime the system oxidizes enough water that flows through the reactor to create cleaner water throughout the whole water column -more of a compound effect? Typically, what's flow rate through the reactor and/or is there an optimal amount of turnover per hour that is ideal based upon the size of tank one keeps?

Also, since you are running bio pellets as well do you think there will be any effect on their efficiency? OR are you just wanting to limit the "free" bacteria that may escape from the bio pellet reactor into the water column? I'm assuming this is what possibly caused some of the tissue recession on the Monti a while back...?

Sorry for all the questions!

Brett, man you can ask some excelent questions:
Your question on the compound effect is accurate and is very evident with water clarity

The flow rate is more subjective and a slower rate may be more important with the use of bio pellets so you don't over bleach the water. My experience is more in running ozone through my skimmer so the rate was very high (using a Mag 24 on a 300g system - or up to 7-8 times an hour). The recommended flow for this reactor (sized for 100g tank) is using a Mag 3 so around 2-3 times and hour

As for the coral issues I'm not sure if they are caused as a byproduct of the pellets, like a polymer; the dead bacteria; or a reduction in available nutrients or a combo of the three.

In summary the reason I didn’t run ozone a couple months ago (or after I got all the equipment in) is I didn’t want the ozone killing off the bacteria I was trying to promote by using bio pellets. But now that I’m just about at a point of turning off the bio pellets I’m introducing ozone in small amounts and will monitor the No3 to see if it drops, stays the same or increases. And yes I do believe I could see on increase in No3.

I don’t think ozone will do much to No3 directly but it will kill bacteria that consume No3. What I am after with ozone is attacking waste products before they become No3.

Generally we refer to No3 as the end of the ammonia cycle (even though the real end is Nitrogen but a shortage of anaerobics make the process ball up at the No3 step

Food ---> Waste ---> Ammonia ---> N02 ---> No3 ---> N2


We can combat No3 at several stages in the cycle, I’m showing the more popular ones below in parenthesis:

Food (feed less) ---> Waste (remove more) ---> Ammonia---> N02 ---> No3 (carbon dose) ---> N2

I’ll jump to “remove more” waste. There are a couple things we can do to remove waste prior to, or, while bacteria take over, by:
1) More Clean up Crew (CuC)
2) Eliminating dead zones that collect waste
3) Improve water circulation to suspend waste in the water column enabling it to be skimmed.
4) Larger skimmer
5) Break down the waste to improve skimmer efficiency using ozone, recirc mods etc

The side bar issue is ozone will kill the bacteria that we may be trying to promote in the later stages of the cycle.

This just made me think of something; I feed late at night and an hour our so later cut off my wave box for night mode, hmmmmm. :idea:I think I’ll change the off time on the wave box to happen after midnight.

------------
I'll add that I need to get my recirc mod done on my skimmer as it should help with waste removal

 

[drummereef]

Brett, man you can ask some excelent questions:
Your question on the compound effect is accurate and is very evident with water clarity

The flow rate is more subjective and a slower rate may be more important with the use of bio pellets so you don't over bleach the water. My experience is more in running ozone through my skimmer so the rate was very high (using a Mag 24 on a 300g system - or up to 7-8 times an hour). The recommended flow for this reactor (sized for 100g tank) is using a Mag 3 so around 2-3 times and hour

As for the coral issues I'm not sure if they are caused as a byproduct of the pellets, like a polymer; the dead bacteria; or a reduction in available nutrients or a combo of the three.

In summary the reason I didn't run ozone a couple months ago (or after I got all the equipment in) is I didn't want the ozone killing off the bacteria I was trying to promote by using bio pellets. But now that I'm just about at a point of turning off the bio pellets I'm introducing ozone in small amounts and will monitor the No3 to see if it drops, stays the same or increases. And yes I do believe I could see on increase in No3.

I don't think ozone will do much to No3 directly but it will kill bacteria that consume No3. What I am after with ozone is attacking waste products before they become No3.

Generally we refer to No3 as the end of the ammonia cycle (even though the real end is Nitrogen but a shortage of anaerobics make the process ball up at the No3 step

Food ---> Waste ---> Ammonia ---> N02 ---> No3 ---> N2


We can combat No3 at several stages in the cycle, I'm showing the more popular ones below in parenthesis:

Food (feed less) ---> Waste (remove more) ---> Ammonia---> N02 ---> No3 (carbon dose) ---> N2

I'll jump to "œremove more" waste. There are a couple things we can do to remove waste prior to, or, while bacteria take over, by:
1) More Clean up Crew (CuC)
2) Eliminating dead zones that collect waste
3) Improve water circulation to suspend waste in the water column enabling it to be skimmed.
4) Larger skimmer
5) Break down the waste to improve skimmer efficiency using ozone

The side bar issue is ozone will kill the bacteria that we may be trying to promote in the later stages of the cycle.

This just made me think of something; I feed late at night and an hour our so later cut off my wave box for night mode, hmmmmm. :idea:I think I'll change the off time on the wave box to happen after midnight.

Good explanation. Ozone is one of those topics that is widely misunderstood but you are making the process very clear, at least for me. So what's the bottom line reason why you are considering taking the pellets offline?

 

[psteeleb]

So what's the bottom line reason why you are considering taking the pellets offline?

thanks Brett
the bottom line is due to super charging bacteria takes away from the bio diversity in the tank through starvation. It may work and it may be the only way to stay on top of trates when heavy feeding but I'll strive to do without

-----------------------------------

where some of my corals seem to be suffering still from the bio pellets others are doing great. For example my Turaki has RTN'd some more yet here's another with just 10 days growth
4-9

4-19

 

[psteeleb]

Ozone update

Ozone update

On the bad side (but minor)

The air pump had minor failure, maybe one of two chambers gave out, I'm not sure yet. And the check valve allowed for some bleed by, the two failures allowed for tank water to be pushed in to through the ozone unit into the air dryer, nothing major just a pain to clean up. The pump appeared to be working fine so I'm not sure what happened but I ordered a Luft HP air pump and replace the check valve. I tested the system in an air off mode and the check valve held.

Fortunately I was only running the ozone a couple hours a day, and that's exactly why I always want to be home when I start doing anything different to the tank. Murphy knows my name and I know his

On the good side:
Po4 - dropping
No3 - dropping
Water clarity "“ noticeable improvement (it wasn't bad but it's definitely better).
LPS corals "“ open more then usual
SPS corals "“ about the same
Softies "“ no issues good or bad

On the odd side:
No increase to system ORP, this may be due t the carbon filtering removing all excess O3 before the water returns to the system. No big deal one way or the other. I'm just use to running ozone and seeing the ORP increase but I've always run it directly in the system or through the skimmer.

The cheap Economy brand ORP probe is a joke, every time I touch it the readings jump all over the place, most likely it has a short in the wire lead someplace. As they say you get what you pay for. I'm using an older ORP probe that is staying rather constant but I'm not real confident in it's ability just due to age so I'll be ordering a new one tonight.

 

[drummereef]

Good to hear, besides the minor hiccup, the ozone is doing it's job. :thumbsup:

 

[dukeap]

WOW! I have to say I have spend the last two days at my job doing nothing but reading this whole thread after I saw your video on youtube. A lot of good information that I will be using in my 90 gallon upgrade. But I do have one question. What optics are you using for your LED? I dont recall reading it any where or may have just not even registerd in my head after all that great information over load. Beautiful pictures and great work.

 

[FrankMcD]

Beautiful corals!

 

[psteeleb]

Good to hear, besides the minor hiccup, the ozone is doing it's job. :thumbsup:

thanks Brett - so far so good - it would appear I finally have a handle on the trate issues. I'm not going to say its over but it seems to be being beat into submission

WOW! I have to say I have spend the last two days at my job doing nothing but reading this whole thread after I saw your video on youtube. A lot of good information that I will be using in my 90 gallon upgrade. But I do have one question. What optics are you using for your LED? I dont recall reading it any where or may have just not even registerd in my head after all that great information over load. Beautiful pictures and great work.

thanks
I know I was goingwith a narrow lens for penetration and want to say I got 40 degree for the first batch and 55 for the second

Beautiful corals!

thanks

 

[psteeleb]

uggg - my flame angel has been nipping at the polyps of my corals. At first it was just one or two of the monteporas, then the mille's now it decided it likes my strawberry tabling acro. The corals still look fine but with a short haircut, I guess I need to decide if I'm going to keep him or not. I knew the risk but had hoped for the best.

 

[feh]

uggg - my flame angel has been nipping at the polyps of my corals. At first it was just one or two of the monteporas, then the mille's now it decided it likes my strawberry tabling acro. The corals still look fine but with a short haircut, I guess I need to decide if I'm going to keep him or not. I knew the risk but had hoped for the best.

I feel for you. I have blenny living in my sump for that same reason. He was munching on my favia, platy, and chalice frags. I might give him another shot once I get an automatic feeder and the corals heal up.

 

[psteeleb]

I feel for you. I have blenny living in my sump for that same reason. He was munching on my favia, platy, and chalice frags. I might give him another shot once I get an automatic feeder and the corals heal up.

thanks Feh

I may try feeding twice a day in smaller portions to see it it helps curb the Flames nipping tendency but I feel now that he started he will continue unless removed to another environment. I may move it to my 29g but my pair of clowns own that tank with a passion.

my lawnmower blenny that was in my 300g started nipping on a lot of corals and my clams, he got real bad about going affter the clams to a point where I had to build a cage for them.

 

[feh]

I used some aquatic plant buckets and 1/4" screen to make cages to get him to leave the ones he really went after. That lasted a day. Come home next day after work he had been nipping at my acans so that landed him in the sump.