Trying a new "bi-zonal" sump design...

H

hatfielj

New member
I've recently been reading up on Steve Tyree's methods of trizonal naturally filtered captive reefs. His ideas make a lot of sense to me and I've been playing around with the idea of creating a sump that would be able to serve as both a place for my equipment (skimmer, probes, heaters) and as a bizonal filter.
My idea would be to use a sump with three separate chambers.
The first would be for the return plumbing with or with out filter socks and for the skimmer.
The second would normally be used as a refugium, but instead I was thinking of dividing it up to have both a filter-feeder section and a cryptic zone.
The third would just be an area for the return plumbing and the ph probes and heaters and such.

So, for the filter feeding zone and cryptic zone I was thinking of dividing the space horizontally so that the bottom of the tank would be a cryptic zone that recieves very little flow and no light, and the top section would be a higher flow filter feeder zone, probably with very weak to no light.
My thought was to simply place small peices of live rock in both sections and hope that the special conditions of each area would promote growth of the appropriate organisms for each zone (i.e. filter feeding majano's in the higherflow zone and sponges and tunicates in the lower flow zone)

The combined use of a protein skimmer would just be for additional support.

Does this even remotely sound like something that would be at all beneficial to an SPS tank?
Does anyone have any recommendations on how to properly accomplish this?
Has anyone on here ever tried anything similar in their tanks?
 
I have a sump area where water flows down through a layer of chaeto and then through about 8" of live rock rubble and exits under a baffle. This creates varying light levels throughout the structure.

Growth of sponges and tunicates has been minimal even though there is some sponge growth in the tank. Same with tunicates but that's probably because none ever hitchiked into my tank.

On the plus side there are all kinds of worms including several dozen tubeworms throughout the rockwork. It's also a huge refugium for all kinds of pods.
 
I started incorporating a zoned sump system about a year ago in both my 125 gallon main tank and about 6 months ago in my clam tank that has no clams in it acting as my frag tank. I initially did this to save space and put as much under the tank as possible. I must say that after doing this for over a year I would not recommend this if you can utilize a separate refugium if at all possible. You have to make absolutely sure that all of your pump intakes are protected by foam because I was constantly getting cheto in the becket injector of my protein skimmer. I had teeth at the top of the baffle that separated my refugium zone from the protein skimmer compartment and it was constantly growing over and through the teeth obstructing the flow. I have since added another 90 gallon tank attached to a 100 gallon shallow refugium for growing frags and did not incorperate the refugium compartment in this system. My clam tank will be plumbed into this large refugium as well removing the bizonal sump that currently is running that system. I will incorporate a separate refugium on the system in the furture. I hope this information helps.
 
I do not know if it has ever been demonstrated how useful the "cryptic filtration" actually is at removing nutrients from the water.

My sump consists of two 44 gallon trash cans plumbed together with bulkheads. One has a lot of turbulence from skimmer and refugium water inlets.

The other is fairly low current with about 1/2 - 2/3 filled with live rock and kept totally dark. I also dose silicate. I really do not know if this dark live rock area does anything significantly useful at all, but it may.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12079813#post12079813 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Randy Holmes-Farley
I do not know if it has ever been demonstrated how useful the "cryptic filtration" actually is at removing nutrients from the water.

My sump consists of two 44 gallon trash cans plumbed together with bulkheads. One has a lot of turbulence from skimmer and refugium water inlets.

The other is fairly low current with about 1/2 - 2/3 filled with live rock and kept totally dark. I also dose silicate. I really do not know if this dark live rock area does anything significantly useful at all, but it may.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it would be nice to see a study on the usefulness of cryptic zones. It seems reasonable to think that the more "layers of diversity" in a system the better, but who knows, it may do nothing. It certainly would be easier to maintain than a traditional refugium with macroalgae. I might just give it a shot and see if I have any trouble keeping nitrates in check. It would save me money on not having to purchase a refugium light and it would save some money on electricity!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12076467#post12076467 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Agu
I have a sump area where water flows down through a layer of chaeto and then through about 8" of live rock rubble and exits under a baffle. This creates varying light levels throughout the structure.

Growth of sponges and tunicates has been minimal even though there is some sponge growth in the tank. Same with tunicates but that's probably because none ever hitchiked into my tank.

On the plus side there are all kinds of worms including several dozen tubeworms throughout the rockwork. It's also a huge refugium for all kinds of pods.
Click to expand...

Does your sump water hit a filter sock or skimmer first thing? This could be why you have few sponges/turnicates in your sump. The skimmer or filter sock (if there) is reducing the available food to your sump creatures. You feed your tank and that water does not get skimmed until after it has left the tank. I bet if you put your skimmer in the last section of your sump before the water is returned you would have better growth in your sump. I am considering doing this. I want to use as much natural filtration as I can and then skim what they don't take out. This could maximize the fuge and give them a chance to feed before stripping the water. Although this theory could easily be shot down by saying the skimmer would take out benifical plankton. Maybe no skimmer would be best. Utilize only natural filtration (not for an all Acro tank). Use a skimmer while the tank matures. After a year put it on a timmer and slowly reduce the time it runs so the life can keep up with the extra nutrients. This might be the most beneifcial to feeding corals naturally. More food for plankton = more plankton. Just an idea.
 
I have no skimmer or mechanical filtration of any kind. Water to the rubble section is directly from the display tank overflow. Pretty much all waste goes through this section eventually.


I do believe a lot of waste is removed by the chaeto, pods and worms but it's no "cryptic zone". If you read Tyrees book you'll realize his tanks were holding tanks for imported or propagated corals. The constant influx of corals also involved the consistent introduction of the biodiversity on the corals or rock. I suspect that was part of his success with cryptic zones as opposed to the monocultures a display tank can become. In my case since tunicates were probably never introduced it's pretty hard to get a colony of them growing.

Bottom line it's my opinion my set up is an efficient nutrient remover. It's just not a cryptic zone, more like a sewage treatment plants settling pond :lol: .
 
Randy, I am interested in your thoughts after reading the duplex sump thread...

thanks in advance,
marlene
 
OK, I skimmed through it. I still see no evidence that such benthic zones are significantly effective. If you think of the amount of macroalgae that systems typically export, you'd need similarly large amounts of biomass exported from these zones to be "equally" effective. I know they are not necessarily one or or the other, but if it is not even close to macroalgae in growth rates, what is the big benefit?

I do think a settling area that can be frequently cleaned out is a fine idea. I don't have that, but it might be a useful addition to my system. :)
 
There's plenty of studies looking at the filtering efficiency of sponges and other coelobites. The important points are that 1) They're net producers of DIN. 2) They're net producers of detritus. 3) They're highly efficient (~90%) at filtering small (microscopic) POM and picoplankton, but they're usually much worse at filtering larger particles and their filtering efficiency drops off as the amount of larger particles increases.

They aren't going to significantly reduce your dissolved nutrients and they aren't going to reduce the amount of visible particulates in the water. They will reduce the amount of planktonic bacteria and other microbes, but corals will too and I don't know of anyone who has ever had a chronic problem with excess bacterioplankton.
 
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