students need your bio filter input

[Briney Dave]

My advanced Marine Science students' latest assignment is to research current reef aquarium filtration methods.

I am going to divide up the questions between here and
Columbus to avoid the fights between guys over which is best etc.

If you are currently or have in the past run a system that you would consider to be all or nearly all biological in nature my student would like to know the gritty details

Please: not what you have read or are "supposed to do" but what is really there and the degree to which you believe you are sucessful.
The more details you can provide the more useful the research project can be:

Please consider the following

tank size vs. filter size (assuming you are using some sort of sump/refu)

live rock (where from and ratios to total gallons)

live sands: depth of bed, grain size, in filter and in tank?

refus' light cycles, light intensity(watts sectrum), kinds of algae being used.

I am guessing that most of you are also using skimmers
size rating, brand, amount of skimmate (one m or two) each day

not sure if its fair to put water changes and bio or mechanical filtration or into a group all its own but if you are responding under bio and also use water changes include ratios and how often
if you do not do water changes please note that as well

for my students and myself
thanks in advance

Briney

 

[stevestank]

filtration

filtration

tank size vs. filter size (assuming you are using some sort of sump/refu)

125 gallon tank with a 29 gallon sump/refuge. The sump has a skimmer rated at 125 gallons (coralife super skimmer). You can spend a bunch of money on a skimmer. Personally, I pull a cup of coffee out of my skimmer each day (empty every other day and clean once a week). Hanging off the right side of the sump is a Magnum H.O.T. 250 which has Kent carbon running 3 days a week. The sump has a tripple bubble wall. Between the first two walls is a phosphate sponge biomedia bag which gets good flow. The thermometer is in the first section as well. Between the second and third bubble wall is the 300 watt heater set on 78 degrees. The main refugium section has miracle mud and some rock rubble in the bottom and a soccer ball size chunk of chaetomorpha and calurpa mixed. I trim this ball once every 3 weeks to keep it rolling in the fuge section. On top of the fuge is an egg crate cover with a daylight flourescent bulb in a screw in bulb flange from home depot set on 12 hour opposite photoperiod from the main tank. This keeps my calurpa/chaeto growing and exporting nutrients to cut down on algae in the main tank. I also have a fan situated on top of the fuge that is on a timer to coincide with my metal halides to keep my tank between 77 and 80 degrees. Finally in the far left hand section is a Ocean Runner 3500 which is rated at 900 gph at 0 head pressure. This goes through a check valve and into a scwd for flow into the main tank. I have a one gallon Kalkwasser drip DIY set-up running through an IV drip running to the sump and through the egg crate lid. I also have a Tsunami top off unit that takes RO water out of a 5 gallon bucket and tops off the sump when it gets low.

live rock (where from and ratios to total gallons).

I obtained live rock from various C-Sea members, Club Reef in Mogadore, LFS, and some that had been given to me. Try your best to buy established live rock that has coraline and other things growing out of and into the rock. Avoid the whole "seasoning" the rock business. 130 lbs in a 125 tank. Bunch of tonga and fiji.

live sands: depth of bed, grain size, in filter and in tank?

I have a mix of sand and crushed coral at 1 to 3 inches thick.


not sure if its fair to put water changes and bio or mechanical filtration or into a group all its own but if you are responding under bio and also use water changes include ratios and how often
if you do not do water changes please note that as well

Water change 5 gallons on Wednesday, 5 gallons on Saturday. I'll scale this back a little once I completely get rid of the cyanobacteria problem I have (winning the battle).

Supplement kalk, Techcb part a and b, and purple-up.

This formula above has been successful for me. Most everything mentioned gives the most bang for the buck filtration for soft corals. If your students are looking into acro and other challenging corals, you need a whole host of equipment i.e. calcium reactor, controllers, etc...

 

[Briney Dave]

Steve, thanks for your time and input, would it be fair to say that your system is a hybrid between bio and mechanical?

 

[stevestank]

Bio would be the liverock and substrate aided by 3000 gallons per hour of flow in the main tank. Additionally there's bio filtration in the form of miracle mud, chaetomorpha, calurpa, and liverock rubble in the fuge.

Mechanical is in the form of foam fractioning (skimmer) and the hang on canister with a "prefilter" to the chemical filtration which is carbon. Additional chemical filtration is phosphate sponge material in the fuge.

another form of mechanical filtration is the prefilter to my hang on overflow box. This sponge material as well as the sponge material on the HOT needs to be rinsed regularly to keep nitrate levels down and increase flow to filters. Although, the chaeto, calurpa, xenia, and other live organisms such as algae take in nitrates. The key is to achieve balance and reduce nutrients in your tank so good things thrive and bad things are kept at bay. Mike660 has one of the most elaborate filtrations systems I've seen in this hobby. He has hair algae in his main tank. I suppose you are doing something wrong if you don't have some bad algae. Mike's tank should be a "tank of the month." No such thing as a perfect reef filtration system.

 

[Briney Dave]

Also Steve and other responders
would you rate your tank along with your filtration descriptions

lets call one a black, sulfer smelling death tank and 100 an acro over flowing show stopper tank.

 

[stevestank]

I'll post a photo tomorrow and you can rate it. I've been meaning to post a pic for a while. All I can say is that most everything in my tank is living, thriving, and the only prob is a little cyanobacteria. I'll give it a 70. (some would give it a 90 and others a 50 i'm sure)

 

[Briney Dave]

I look forward to seeing it and I am sure you are just being modist about the conditon of your tank.

 

[itZme]

If any more detail is needed let me know.

Display tank - 150g
Sump - 110g
Fuge - 140g

Live rock - approx 350lbs
Broken down like this:
150lbs is in the fuge the balance is in the display.
30-40 lbs tonga branch
100+ lbs aragocrete made by me
100 lbs Fiji from existing local reef tanks
100+ lbs dry base rock seeded for 6 months in holding tank with the live rock.

Skimmer- 6" x 28" body 200gph feed with Sedra 5000 needle wheel in recirculating mode, continuous drain from collection cup to floor drain so no idea of the volume being removed. (under rated for this system but in the process of being upgraded)

Flow- External 1200gph return pump from sump to display split to 2 penductors, another 1200gph external pump plumbed from sump to 2x 1/2" Sea Swirl devices in display, 700gph pump from sump to fuge through SCWD, Maxi Jets in fuge.

Fuge- 8" sand bed, mixed particle size, 150lbs live rock, fern caulerpa, chaetomorpha, 185w of fluorescent lighting on 14hr overlapping reverse photoperiod. Gravity overflow return to display.

What's a water change? Just kidding, I do maybe 5% water changes whenever I think about it and have time (possibly once a month)

I would rate the display slightly higher than the stinky cesspool of sulfur. It is still a new tank (display has been established 4-5 months) Maybe a 6.5 overall rating. I do not obsess over the water quality like some reefers do, I should do more water changes, I should have a bigger skimmer and more flow inside the tank but these are all things I will adjust as I see the need arise.

Hope that helps,
-- Kevin

What happened to those pics we were going to see of the 29g in the classroom?
The reefing world awaits your photos.

 

[serpentman]

I would categorize my setup as a hyrbid between biological, chemical and mechanical filtration. This is a relatively new system that was upgraded around 4-5 months ago. It is on its way to a be a pretty nice showcase tank. However it is still stabilizing and I am dealing with things like cyano in small pockets.

Here is my blog with pictures:

http://serpentmansreef.blogspot.com/

Display tank - 180g
Sump - 100g
Fuge - 55g
Auxilliary Tank: 20g

Live rock - approx 350lbs

Current Water Parameters Measure: (tested every few weeks)

Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 0-2ppm
pH: 8.2
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 80.0
Phosphates: 0-0.15


Biological Filtration

Live Rock: about 200lbs in the main display (mixed figi and carribean), 100lbs in the sump and ~50lbs in the refugium

Refugium:
Contains chaetomorpha and caulerpa for nitrate uptake. It is lit 24/7 and also contains about 5" deep sand bed consisting of tropical playsand.

Cleaning Crew: a mix of about 200 snails (astrea, cerith and nassarius), a few sea cucumbers and about 20-30 blue legged hermit crabs

Chemical Filtration:

1 x large media reactor that holds up to 8lbs of activated carbon. Typically only run ~1lb at a time.

1 x smaller media reactor contain a ferric oxide phosphate binder.

1 x Calcium reactor

1 x Kalkwasser reactor administered with a dosing pump.

Mechanical Filtration:

100 Micron Filter sock at the drains from the display - cleaned every few days

Protein Skimmer- 4"x40" body center downdraft skimmer. Fed with a 1100gph GenX Mak4. Skimmer is rated at 500g. I drain off about 1 cup of waste per day.

Water Changes: approximately 10% (~30g) of the system volume weekly.

[Misc Parameters]

Flow- External 1500gph Sequence Wahoo pressure rated return pump that feeds 2 media reactors, the refugium as well as the main display. Internal circulation is generated by 2 Vortec pumps and the main return. Combined flow is somewhere in the neighborhood of 7000gph.

Auxillary tank: the refugium dumps into a small auxillary tank which currently houses a seahorse.

Topoff: Evaporation is replaced with RO/DI water which is held in a 32gallon rubbermaid "brute" can. It is administered 2 ways: a JBJ ATO floatswitch system (backup) and a dosing pump which feeds the kalk reactor.

 

[stevestank]

I have those pictures on my desktop. I wasn't able to upload them because of the resolution. Email me and I'll reply with pictures.

 

[itZme]

stevestank, try uploading them to www.imageshack.us they are free and pretty easy to understand. They even give you the code you can copy/paste into the reply to show the pictures.

 

[Briney Dave]

First: Thanks so much for the time and detailed descriptions, this will really help my students a great deal as they summerize all of your input (the more details the better)

Kevin: I will bring my camera in and get those pics up Thursday.
I am so proud of the work my students have done with this little tank and how well it is running.

For anyone else interested please add your tank filtration even if its a clone of what is here already and please rate your tanks this isn't any sort of contest so post a number it will help the kids group filtration success.

Thanks so very much again
Briney

 

[Briney Dave]

Would anyone else like to share their thougths, set up information, and level of success using a biologically based filtraton system.

Thanks again to those who have and a reminder that if you are using a mechical filter based system the columbus board has a discussion survey going

Briney