Planted tank for tetras (slow burn)

So last diagram is of the overflow box what I'm using.



Basically in this design the bracket that connects the skimmer cup and syphon box is the U tube itself. It makes for a neat looking syphon box but is has some drawbacks that we'll get into later on.

One of the disadvantages is that it's very difficult to make. I could have made one - but not without a LOT of preparation and effort and even then it would only take a little mishap and the whole thing is off!

The way I run my syphon is not what's being recommended at all. On the left hand side you see the water height h1. I run my h1 so high that it means that the water level in the skimmer cup goes OVER the bottom of its overflow barrier from the tank. When you do this it creates certain complications. The water level in the skimmer cup is at height (h3 + H). H being the barrier's height from the bottom of the cup. Now because of this the water doesn't "drop " that much. In fact, depending on how you set it, the drop is small, it's h4 in the diagram, most of the flow is going through the h3 section, but water still needs some height to fall down on, hence the h4 term. What does this mean? Well it means that the cup's skimming capacity is diminished, it would be better that if the water flow height h1 was so low that the water level in the skimmer cup did NOT reach the bottom of the outside overflow barrier. Then it will be like diagram 7 and we won't have to worry about losing skimming action. As it was I wanted this to happen for two reasons:

1) The syphon box is small so I need to accommodate h1 to be high otherwise I will have water noise.

2) I feed slow sinking food three times a day for the fish, and this food initially floats so having reduced - not totally eliminated - surface skimming means there will be more time for the fish to catch the food before it gets sucked in.

If the skimmer cup and left hand section was deep enough I would not have to do this.

So the aquarium water is mainly flowing through h3 area, and a little of h4. Then on its way to the left hand section via the U tube, it drops by h2 amount, and from that I adjust my output tap to get h1.

Unfortunately because of the nature of things this cannot stay like this all the time. What happens is that I had to put some netting on the aquarium overflow barrier to prevent the small fish from getting sucked in. This tends to get clogged over time, hence adds resistance to flow. When that happens you need a higher water level to overcome the extra resistance. This will cause the water level to rise a little if you aren't careful. So for this reason I clean my skimmer cup's barrier mesh from time to time.

Now the U tube is actually quite large in comparisons with other design, this has a consequence in that water flows through it rather gently than a normal U tube made of, say, 25mm tubing. Why would you want water to flow FAST through a U tube? Well the answer is so that you can get rid of any bubbles that gets sucked in. Even though I run the water level high I do occasionally get some bubbles dragged into the U tube, but I run it high enough that it doesn't become a problem, the bubbles taken in are small and would take maybe a month to cause any issue - it all depends how high h4 is.

Also, as a trivial note:



On the left hand side I can make a note of how high h1 is and, as long as things don't change that much, I can use that as an indicator of the flow rate going through the system.

Because I run a Powerfilter, to be explained later on, my return pump's output over time will slightly decrease. What that means is the water level in the aquarium will fall slightly over time. As you can see from the diagram if the water level in the aquarium falls that will trigger all the other values to fall, HENCE h1 will fall.

h1 can fall so badly that the water get too close to the baulkhead which would make noise. In my setup it takes about a week for this to happen, but I check my h1 level nearly every day.

Because I'm running an Abyzz A100 I can change the pump output in 1% increments. I usually start it off at 57%, and when a fall happens I increase by 1% to try and get h1 back to where it was. If I was not running a Powerfilter on my return pump intake I would not have to do this, but it's something I can live with for now.

You sure know your stuff! The "Advanced" in your username didn't come from thin air, I can see! Your work is already fantastic. The end result will blow us all away!

So having said all this we'll go over what Tom Barr did with his setups.

Firstly I will state that I got nothing against Tom Barr. I never met him, nor corresponded with him in forums or email. I'm just pointing out the contradiction in the advice he and his "polite" experts (or rather self appointed idiots shall I say) give, which they don't acknowledge themselves. And it's these contradictions that make me totally ignore the advice of these so called "experts".

I posted this on another forum and the posts were deleted and it got me banned. Someone even went as far as saying I was trolling or causing aggravation or being aggressive etc. . . nothing of the sort.

So look at the following video and my comments and make up your own minds.

Before we start I will say that Tom Barr and these so called "polite" experts have stated that flow is very important in a planted tank. They say that CO2 levels should be 30 mg/l (I have no idea where they got this excessive value from) and flow should be 10 times tank turnover an hour. That's right: TEN times. So for my 360 litre tank it should be 3600 litres an hour. If I did that my fish would be soooo pi$$ed at me you won't believe it - and I rather keep my fish happy than my plants happy to be honest. So to that end I've ignored the advice of "polite" self appointed "experts" and run, probably, only about 1200 litres an hour at the most on my return. That is the ONLY flow in my tank.

With that preliminary comment out of the way let's look at Tom Barr's tank.

Here are is the video. He set up these tanks around 2008 or so, a four foot (350 litres or so), and a six foot (about 620 litres or so). I've been told that they were sold off in a decade later, can't remember the exact date but that's not important.


At 4:10 you briefly see his the aquarium water overflowing on his skimmer cup, and a few second later he's using sponges on his baulkheads (really bad idea as I'll explain later on). At around 9:25 you can see his skimmer cup that he uses, and the water is overflowing on it. He's put his hand in the tank and making waves, hence the flow has increased here and there. From 12:19 onwards you see the water overflowing on the skimmer cup, it's quite gentle in fact. As an additional note fast forward to 15:58 to see that he's got GSA on the substrate, he's using a card to clean it off. (I don't have GSA on my substrate glass).

What can be gained from this video?

Here are the following points:

1) He's running an aqualifter pump. This is used to CONTINUOUSLY suck water (or air) out of the top section of the U tube. Why is he doing this? Because he fears losing syphon, if the U tube completely fills with air then no syphon between the skimmer cup and the left section will take place!

2) and we can see that fear is not misguided because at around 12:19 the water level IN his skimmer cup is VERY low. What does that mean? It means he's running at a relatively low flow rate for the syphon box! The water level in the skimmer cup does not reach the cup's barrier (which I think is a good thing), BUT it rather low, so low in fact that the drop that the water falls with the rate that it's falling creates bubbles, and these bubbles get sucked into the U tube and accumulates at the top. Hence the use of the aqualifter as a device to prevent this build up. He could of prevented this by making his h1 level at the left hand side high by adding gate valves for resistance. But he does not do this, there is no resistance on the baulkheads, he's running an "open" pipe, see my diagram 3. We know it's an open pipe since at around 4:10 we see the water flowing onto his drip trays of his trickle filter, they're going in quite gently, so flow is low. There's going to be hardly any noise simply because the flow is low.

3) He's putting sponges on his baulkheads on the left hand side. This will slowly build up resistance and the h1 level here will rise. BUT because he's running such a LOW level in the skimmer cup he has room enough to spare for this, my estimate is that he probably checks these sponges every couple of days, they would handle being slightly blocked.

4) Although not in the video that other things that gives his flow rate away is that his sump is quite small. For such a large tank he's using a small sump. Why does that matter? Well a small sump can only create a small water level in the main tank. And as I remarked, a small water level means low flow.

With all these comments you might ask: why should we care?

Well, from looking at his syphon box's skimmer cup and the other evidence involved, I would estimate that his flow rate through his tanks to be around 1200 litres per hour. He also has NO OTHER pump in the tank.

So why is any of that significant?

It is significant because him and the other "polite experts" (including many social media influencers) are telling us all to aim for 10 (TEN) times water turnover per hour in our tanks.

See the contradiction? Tom Barr doesn't even follow his own or the experts' advice. That's all I'm saying.

As an additional note I want to mention Amano's Personal Tank:



He's running a sump filter too with a corner overflow box. It's a 60cm box with holes drilled for the three down flow pipes, so no U tubes used.

Now looking at some photos of the overflow box in an old ADA 2006 catalogue, I would estimate that the flow rate it to be about 3 times the tank volume at the most. This is a 9000 litre tank by the way, so we're talking 27,000 litres per hour at the most.

I do not know the precise figure so I'll try and ask someone who will go to Japan and confirm it for me, see if they can take photos or even ask ADA themselves what flow rate they are using for this tank. I certainly KNOW it's isn't TEN times tank volume per hour!!!

And if you look at most ADA setups they DON'T filter at 10 times tank volume per hour. They DON'T use internal flow pumps to create extra flow. They are ALL filtered by canisters that have good flow with high head.

On some of their six foot aquariums they have two superset 2400 running on them, giving a maximum of SIX times tank volume per hour.

So ADA does not subscribe to this TEN time flow rate rubbish.

And neither should anyone. The so called experts aren't doing it, so why should we?

It's a shame that my observations and comments got me banned in another forum, and I know why. These so called "polite experts" don't like being made a fool of or invalidated. They rather censor someone who speaks the truth to protect their egos and reputations. That's the sad state of things at the moment.

I don't have anything against these self proclaimed experts, but if they talk crap I'm going to tell them: you talk crap.

Advanced Aquarist said:

So having said all this we'll go over what Tom Barr did with his setups.

Firstly I will state that I got nothing against Tom Barr. I never met him, nor corresponded with him in forums or email. I'm just pointing out the contradiction in the advice he and his "polite" experts (or rather self appointed idiots shall I say) give, which they don't acknowledge themselves. And it's these contradictions that make me totally ignore the advice of these so called "experts".

I posted this on another forum and the posts were deleted and it got me banned. Someone even went as far as saying I was trolling or causing aggravation or being aggressive etc. . . nothing of the sort.

So look at the following videos and my comments that follow and make up your own minds.

So before we start I will say that Tom Barr and these so called "polite" experts have stated that flow is very important in a planted tank. They say that CO2 levels should be 30 mg/l and flow should be 10 times tank turnover an hour. That's right: TEN times. So for my 360 litre tank it should be 3600 litres an hour. If I did that my fish would be soooo pi$$ed at me you won't believe it - and I rather keep my fish happy than my plants happy to be honest. So to that end I've ignored the advice of "polite" self appointed "experts" and run, probably, only about 1200 litres an hour at the most on my return. That is the ONLY flow in my tank.

With that preliminary comment out of the way let's look at Tom Barr's tank.

Here are is the video. He set up these tank around 2008 or so, a four foot (350 litres or so), and a six foot (about 620 litres or so). I've been told that they were sold off in a decade later, can't remember the exact date but that's not important.

At 4:10 you briefly see his the aquarium water overflowing on his skimmer cup, and a few second later he's using sponges on his baulkheads (really bad idea as I'll explain later on). At around 9:25 you can see his skimmer cup that he uses, and the water is overflowing on it. He's put his hand in the tank and making waves, hence the flow has increased here and there. From 12:19 onwards you see the water overflowing on the skimmer cup, it's quite gentle in fact. As an additional note fast forward to 15:58 to see that he's got GSA on the substrate, he's using a card to clean it off. (I don't have GSA on my substrate glass).

What can be gained from this video?

Here are the following points:

1) He's running an aqualifter pump. This is used to CONTINUOUSLY suck water (or air) out of the top section of the U tube. Why is he doing this? Because he fears losing syphon, if the U tube completely fills with air then no syphon between the skimmer cup and the left section will take place!

2) and we can see that fear is not misguided because at around 12:19 the water level IN his skimmer cup is VERY low. What does that mean? It means he's running at a relatively low flow rate for the syphon box! The water level in the skimmer cup does not reach the cup's barrier (which I think is a good thing), BUT it rather low, so low in fact that the drop that the water falls with the rate that it's falling creates bubbles, and these bubbles get sucked into the U tube and accumulates at the top. Hence the use of the aqualifter as a device to prevent this build up. He could of prevented this by making his h1 level at the left hand side high by adding gate valves for resistance. But he does not do this, there is no resistance on the baulkheads, he's running an "open" pipe, see my diagram 3. We know it's an open pipe since at around 4:10 we see the water flowing onto his drip trays of his trickle filter, they're going in quite gently, so flow is low. There's going to be hardly any noise simply because the flow is low.

3) He's putting sponges on his baulkheads on the left hand side. This will slowly build up resistance and the h1 level here will rise. BUT because he's running such a LOW level in the skimmer cup he has room enough to spare for this, my estimate is that he probably checks these sponges every couple of days, they would handle being slightly blocked.

4) Although not in the video that other things that gives his flow rate away is that his sump is quite small. For such a large tank he's using a small sump. Why does that matter? Well a small sump can only create a small water level in the main tank. And as I remarked, a small water level means low flow.

So with all these comments you might ask: why should we care?

Well, from looking at his syphon box's skimmer cup and the other evidence involved, I would estimate that his flow rate through his tanks to be around 1200 litres per hour. He also has NO OTHER pump in the tank.

So why is any of that significant?

It is significant because him and the other "polite experts" (including many social media influencers) are telling us all to aim for 10 (TEN) times water turnover per hour on our tanks.

See the contradiction? Tom Barr doesn't even follow his own advice. That's all I'm saying.

Click to expand...

I still find it so hard to watch that video with the camera shaking so much.

I am definitely not impressed as it looks not only inefficient but ugly. I am in need of a high flow rate for my tank in order to maintain thermal consistency, but it is an intertidal tank that requires it to be that high. Can't imagine his little fishies being happy with the rate he is preaching.

I am using your overflow box design as reference for my filter/cold water system, as well as the current water exchange setup at the Seattle Aquarium for their small tanks. My current challenge is to figure out the delta (T) in order to adjust the flow rate. My thermo expert (a.k.a. daughter) is helping with that. The flow box will actually be hidden in a holding tank on the other side of the wall.

Thank you so much for keeping us updated!

Advanced Aquarist said:

I do not know the precise figure so I'll try and ask someone who will go to Japan and confirm it for me, see if they can take photos or even ask ADA themselves what flow rate they are using for this tank. I certainly KNOW it's isn't TEN times tank volume per hour!!!

Click to expand...

I wonder if you could ask Balázs Farkas from Green Aqua. I know he has been to the ADA facility in Japan.

eatyourpeas said:

I am using your overflow box design as reference for my filter/cold water system, as well as the current water exchange setup at the Seattle Aquarium for their small tanks. My current challenge is to figure out the delta (T) in order to adjust the flow rate. My thermo expert (a.k.a. daughter) is helping with that. The flow box will actually be hidden in a holding tank on the other side of the wall.

Click to expand...

It ain't my design. I've never had my own design of overflow boxes, just modified what was out there.

What are you trying to do? Make waves? Or want to drain and then fill at regular intervals like a tidal pool? Do you want the water level in the tank to fluctuate over time? If the water level fluctuation is small then a Tunze Wavebox should work for you. If the difference is going to be big then you might have to have a computer control using valves or, better, make a program in adjusting pump output so the water level difference changes because you are changing the return flow. Doing the latter puts a lot of wear on the pump BTW, and it needs to be externally controllable, hence I would only recommend an Abyzz, it's an expensive option but it will work, might not be worth it if your tank is small though.

eatyourpeas said:

I wonder if you could ask Balázs Farkas from Green Aqua. I know he has been to the ADA facility in Japan.

Click to expand...

I looked at some of their videos. Some of his team is also on the forum that banned me, so it's going to be awkward.

I have other people I can ask, we'll see how it goes. This is not a big issue anyway, but it would be nice to know.

Advanced Aquarist said:

Or want to drain and then fill at regular intervals like a tidal pool? Do you want the water level in the tank to fluctuate over time?

Click to expand...

Yes, this is what I would like. I looked into the Tunze Wavebox but it is not what I need. I am going for a custom controller using Arduino which can be adjusted for the tank and inhabitants. Not worried about the pump since the mechanism is based on overflow in the holding tank.

Thanks for the recommendations anyway.

Then a good way to achieve that is to do the main tank and sump arrangement IN REVERSE.

This is the trick used on the Eheim wet/dry filter. Except they DON'T use control on the pump output. What they do is to have a float that BLOCKS the input hole for the pump when it gets near to it. When that engages the flow going in is greater than the flow coming out (the pump can still take in water by the smaller side hole so not a complete blockage), then when the canister is near full the force on the polystyrene float is strong enough to push it off the hole that it's blocking, when that happens the pump returns to its full pumping capacity, and now the flow entering the canister is LESS than the flow returning to the tank so the canister fills with air (there is a third tube to let the canister breathe), and the cycles repeats again when the float valves drops down to block the hole. This is how the Eheim interval filter works. There is no danger of flooding since the canister is sealed.

Best to show all this with a diagram which I don't have at hand.

You can take this idea to make your tidal pool tank by having an overhead tank that will store most of the water, and use the float blocking technique or pump control to make the water level periods you want. What happens is you set up the overheard tank with a top baulkhead for overflow, and the lower tank will be your tidal tank.

Yes, you have described what I have, so that is good.

Here's a recent photo of my syphon box to illustrate some of the points discussed.



as you can see I keep my h1 value high, and the water level in the skimmer cup is high. In actual fact because the "U tube" for this syphon box is so large in cross sectional area the water level difference between the skimmer cup and the left hand side is barely noticeable!

There brown algae build up inside the U tube and the skimmer cup and overflow side, this is slowly dying off as I deprive it of the nutrients fuelling it, you can see it peeling off in places. Also note the bubbles at the top of the U tube. I keep a 100ml syringe here just in case I need to suck the air bubbles out from time to time (rarely happens).

Also note that there is a little skimming effect on the skimmer cup, just a little.



From the front view you see there is a little "falling" height for the water. Mosses and dead leaves block this area from time to time so I need to remove them regularly. There a lot of algae build up inside the skimmer cup which I've left to see if I can get rid of it by nutrient control. What you see is actually 16 weeks worths of algae build up, it's going to slowly die off without me laying a finger on it. Some of the Hydrocotyle Tripartita have green filamentous algae on them, this is due to an imbalance in the nutrient dosing since I induced this by overdosing on the old Aqua Forest micro mix which I've now thrown away.

Note: There are people on other forums I rather NOT give this information to due to the disgusting way they've had me banned for telling the truth, but in the interests of the hobby and most of the beginners here I'll make it available.

What is a PowerFilter?

I've mentioned "soft" forcing and "hard" forcing.

Sumps are feed by soft forcing: water is made to overflow by engineering a path of least resistance. The force of the water is the result of the water level difference on the barrier or the hole etc. . .

Hard forcing is when you get a pump to suck the water, this is how canisters work, the pumps drives and dictates the flow. Closed loops in reef tanks is also an example of hard forcing.

What has this got to do with mechanical filtration?

Quite a lot. Nearly all forms of mechanical filtration used on large systems work by soft forcing. What most don't know is that hard forcing is a much stronger and better form of mechanical filtration.

Firstly, let's look at some of the main mechanical filters that work by soft forcing.

They are:

1) floss on barriers or compartments

1) filter socks

2) roller filters

For type 1 we have floss on section barriers in sumps or even in the syphon box. Sometimes it's not even floss used but sponges. Either way water flow through them in an open manner and they slowly clog up with detritus over time, thereby requiring a clean out or replacement of the filtering material. Example photos below



initial filter compartment with sponge then finer floss



vertically placed sponges for mechanical and biological filtration



filer floss on an barrier to catch all the incoming water



again similar set up to above



Not a great photo, but it shows my sump for the 6 foot tank and this is the filter floss on the overflow barrier before the pump, this is used to polish the water after it has gone through the syphon box and DLS filter, the final stage polishing as it were. After about a month or so it's all brown/black and needs to be cleaned out!

Type 2 are filter socks

Everyone is aware of what filter socks are. There are actually two types: the coarse plastic mesh ones and the felt ones. The felt version is for trapping finer particles and get clogged easier.



Here is a poor photo of my syphon box used for my six foot fish only tank. I use filter socks as the first form of mechanical filtration for the water to overflow on. And then at the bottom of the syphon box I have some filter floss. Because my fish are messy I have to clean out the filter socks (three of them) EVERY DAY. The filter floss gets cleaned and/or changed every month.

The idea of overflowing onto filter socks I got from Royal Exclusiv Dreamboxes.





Here you see multiple filter sock chambers and you add finer socks as the water moves along

Like Type 1 filter socks have to be cleaned regularly as they eventually clog. When they do clog they just overflow so the water needs an "escape" route which is why the Dream Box has the emergency overflow built in for their sock chambers.

Both of these types require manual cleaning/changing of the media.

The effectiveness of the mechanical filtration is dictated by the media used AND the flow rate it can handle before the overflow happens. They can't pass this limit. This is an important thing to keep in mind.

Type 3 is more interesting, this is basically an automated mechanical filter that uses soft forcing to decide when to move onto a new section of filter media to load.

The idea is you have a continuous roll of mechanical filter media in which you expose only a small front section to the water. Over time of course, that section of media acting as a filter will clog creating a resistance and water level rise in the chamber. By either a float switch or a overflow hole at a certain height, you can engineer the roller to move a fresh new section of media through and the old section gets rolled onto the used collection roller.

The first models used no electronics at all and were very expensive - well over £1200!



As time went on cheaper models appeared with Theiling leading the way. Now they're everywhere!





Someone's DIY project showing how it works.

Royal Exclusiv also do very nice units



Again these all work by soft forcing. The media used is very thin since you want to have as long a roll as possible to reduce frequent maintenance. But even if the roll were thicker you are still tied to how the media clogs and decides not to take any more. Also the thin filtering material means that it's not that effective as a mechanical filter at all, we are sacrificing convenience for filtering ability.

So what is a PowerFilter?

In my planted tank system I initially wanted to have an automated roller mat filter since I like it to be low maintenance.

But as luck would have it I was reading some other hobbyist's reefing blog and came upon someone who had an amazing collection of reef tanks that he did no water changes on.

One of the essential components of his system was what he called a "PowerFilter".

PowerFilter

I couldn't believe that after all this time I've overlooked this!! It was just pathetically simple but it all made sense.

Of course I didn't take his word for it. I went out and bought a Tunze pump with filter floss insert to try on my six foot tank.



And sure enough I can confirm that having filter floss being FORCED under pressure to filter out the particle makes for very effective mechanical filtration. I'll pose some photos of my Tunze ejet 5005 later.

Suffice to say that previously my six foot tank had the following filtration path.

1) water overflow onto 3 filter socks (200 microns)

2) then pass some filter floss on it's way down

3) goes through the rotating spray bar to wet the DLS

4) then overflow on filter floss again before hitting the pump and being returned to the tank

And in all that it did NOT keep the water as clean as the Tunze ejet powerfilter. The powerfilter vastly improved water clarity.

So for my sump I decided to put a power filter for the intake of the return pump. Unlike my six foot tank's system that had THREE points of mechanical filtration the sump for my planted tank only had ONE.

This greatly simplifies maintenance and means I have more space in the sump for other things. It also gives a cleaner look without all these barriers/chambers etc. . . and all that all over the place. That is why my sump is the way it is.

If I had to sum up the filtration system on my tank it would be a strong power filter with a bypass to a trickle tower. It's that simple. ALL the incoming water is goes through the power filter. I catch all the crap there and nowhere else. The water is fine filtered BEFORE it hits the biological tower, hence it means I don't need to EVER touch my biological tower.

For reef systems it's recommended to change out the floss every three days, but for my planted tank I can get away with 2 - 4 week before cleaning.

Here is the kind of gunk it collects over time.







And a fresh one put in place

The major problem with a powerfilter is that it does not lend itself to automation like a roller mat filter.

Also having it on the intake of the pump means that as it gets clogged the resistance will increase on the pump and thereby reducing the flow. Hence pump strength needs to be increased as this happens.

BUT, and this is a big BUT for many people, this means you CAN'T run an auto top up if you run what I do.

Why not?

Because auto top ups work on the understanding that your pump flow rate is CONSTANT throughout!!

Going back to the discussion of water flow earlier we see if the pump rate is constant and we lose water then the water level in the main tank cannot go down - because it needs to maintain the water level difference since the flow has not changed. If the water level in the main tank cannot go down due to evaporation then it can only go down in the sump. And that's how water top ups work. You set a level on the float switch where the water usually and when it goes down it will trigger a pump to fill from an external freshwater container.

Because I'm running a powerfilter on the intake of my pump I CANNOT guarantee that the flow rate of my pump will be constant. Hence I cannot have an auto top up system.

Of course I could of had two pumps servicing the sump, one with a powerfilter to feed the trickle power and the other clear to pump the water back so I can run an auto top up, but I didn't want to do this.

For the benefits I can live with the disadvantages of this system.

This was the tank in the early stages and I needed to do a trimming session.



As you can see the moss did start to grow on the wood more. Some of the plants were getting out of hand so out came the scissors.

I had some Rotola Macranda and I didn't like it that much, but recently it's starting to colour up better and I might give it more space.



The Star grass grew too fast for my liking.



And the tennelus too, checking the cuttings for algae as well.



After the trimming I moved some moss off the wood too. The water is still yellow since I've not changed it in five weeks.



As you can see the Blyxa bush is starting to really take off here. It will eventually reach the surface.