Looking To Bounce Some Diy Filtration Design Idea's Around

[RipSlider]

Hi guys,

After committing the cardinal sin that I swore that I would never do again, and purchasing some fish that I couldn't find anywhere else from a store who's initials are often defined as "P@H", I find that my tank is suddenly hit by TB ( again ), and fin rot ( again ) as it always is when purchasing from this specific shop. My own bloody stupid fault, and a very expensive lesson to me.

I'll try everything that I can to deal with it, and the vet is coming out tommorrow with full strength anti-biotic's, but from past experience, TB will probably wipe my tank out in about 2 weeks.

So now I have to plan for the future.

I have a 600l tank, and I am considering setting up for discus and giant corydora's. However, I must admit that the idea of daily/ bi-daily water changes does not inspire me with much joy, especially as I often work from home, and while Mrs Steve is happy enough with feeding them, she isn't prepared to do water changes.

I've been looking at the fresh water filtration mareketplace, and currently can't see any magic remedy for this, but having been delving into the marine scene, I see that they use a weapon or two that the fresh water guys don't, and was wondering about peoples thoughts on the use of them.

The first thing that I'm looking at is the use of ozone within a filtration system. I'm wondering whether there would be any value in pumping ozone into the water at a point after it leaves the filter but before it enters the tank. I'm wondering if a coloumn, maybe 2 foot high, with an open top, might be used.

The idea would be that at the bottom of the column, there is an airstone with a limewood block and a ozone feed into it. This pumps out small bubbles which is a mixture of ozone and air. The bubbles rise to the surface and "outgas", taking the toxic ozone with them, but hopefully also destroying some nasties along the way. near the top of this tower would be a feed pipe that pumps water back from the tower into the main tank again. If this was mounted ABOVE the hight of the tank ( and I can do this becuase all my filtration is out of the way in the garage ) then I don't think there would be a risk of overflow if there was a powercut.

Does anyone think this would be effective? has anyone tried, or read about ozone being used in fresh water tanks?

Secondly, I was wondering about building a phelum into the bottom of the tank. This is a place where water is free to collect and remain stagnant, at which point the anerobic bacteria can kick in and convert the nitrates back to free nitrogen, and remove them from the water. This two should remove some of the nastys from the water, but again I have never read about phelums being used in fresh water, and wondered if anyone had, or had got any sources about them in FW?

Many thanks indeed.

Steve

 

[andywg]

Ozone is more often used for its ability to eliminate pathogens than for reducing nitrates as you would want for reducing water changes.

A plenum (I assume that is what you meant) is of debatable use in a marine setup, as it is usually the Deep Sand Bed on top of it that will host the anaerobic bacteria. The systems that found the plenum really helped were of the size that only public aquaria use.

Rob Fenner states on his Wet Web Media site that in home use a plenum is likely to have little effect, good or bad, on the tank. So for most of us it is far easier just to dump in a nice deep sand bed (really want a minimum of 6")

If you can get some anoxic conditions to be cultivated then you can get nitrate removal happening. A deep sand bed should work, though the real effort is getting the flow rate correct so that the bacteria has enough food (nitrates) to grow, but not too much oxygen getting through to the area.

Most FW nitrate removers need a pump connected to a redox meter so that the flow is constantly changed depending on the levels in the filter area.

Bignose recently discussed a person who managed to get anoxic conditions by having water drain through a long column of sand where the oxygen is used up at the top leaving anoxic conditions towards the bottom.

You could cultivate cement live rock to create anoxic conditions, though this will likely buffer the water to a higher pH and more hardness than you want.

You would be far better off putting the system on a constant change were a certian percentage of tank volume is replaced every day.

 

[RipSlider]

Many thanks for this.

I think that Ozone will cure "a multitude of sins" as while also being fantastic against pathogens, it should also oxidise some of the less common but equally harmful chemicals within the water, such as steroyls etc, unwanted lipids etc.

I do think that this is worth doing, just not sure of the best way. Reading Fenner and WWM, I understand that what is really important is that O3 doesn't actually get, in quantity, into the tank itself. Therefore, it's a question of working out how to use it and then release it.

A for the DSB, I'm not sure why these aren't used within a FW tank much. while there will definately be different things living in live sand between marine and FW, the same reactions should occur.

What do you think the likelyhood of sucsess would be if there was a 6" DSB in a FW tank, which went from fine sand on the to a more coarse gravel at the bottom. This might make enough "crevises" within the gravel to produce either an anoxic or hypoxic area for de-nitrafying bacteria, but the sand wouls stop the current flow, and let a gradual, almost osmotic exchange of water happen?

DO you think it would work?

Steve

Ozone is more often used for its ability to eliminate pathogens than for reducing nitrates as you would want for reducing water changes.

A plenum (I assume that is what you meant) is of debatable use in a marine setup, as it is usually the Deep Sand Bed on top of it that will host the anaerobic bacteria. The systems that found the plenum really helped were of the size that only public aquaria use.

Rob Fenner states on his Wet Web Media site that in home use a plenum is likely to have little effect, good or bad, on the tank. So for most of us it is far easier just to dump in a nice deep sand bed (really want a minimum of 6")

If you can get some anoxic conditions to be cultivated then you can get nitrate removal happening. A deep sand bed should work, though the real effort is getting the flow rate correct so that the bacteria has enough food (nitrates) to grow, but not too much oxygen getting through to the area.

Most FW nitrate removers need a pump connected to a redox meter so that the flow is constantly changed depending on the levels in the filter area.

Bignose recently discussed a person who managed to get anoxic conditions by having water drain through a long column of sand where the oxygen is used up at the top leaving anoxic conditions towards the bottom.

You could cultivate cement live rock to create anoxic conditions, though this will likely buffer the water to a higher pH and more hardness than you want.

You would be far better off putting the system on a constant change were a certian percentage of tank volume is replaced every day.

 

[andywg]

It may work, though there is the problem that usually over time sand would work its way down and the gravel would work up. You could try using very fine gravel (similar in grain size to aragonite sand usually is). I would imagine that would provide better results. Normal silver sand is lighter than aragonite and may end up being picked up by any current across the top of the DSB (most SW has around 10x minimum turnover so a stronger current near the top of the DSB may be necessary).

The reason there are no DSB in FW is because it's a lot of space and effort and there is no money saved. freshwater water changes are pretty much free if you aren't on a meter. SW water changes cost a lot more, and the inverts are far more sensitive to nitrates et al than FW (or SW) fish.

I must admit that I do plan on using a DSB in a sump before long now I have converted mine to trickle towers for the aerobic filtration process.

 

[RipSlider]

Andy,

for most of my tanks, I wouldn't think of using a DSB, but for my big tank, i have the advantage of height, as it's 29" deep, and also I want to keep discus in as low maintaince manner as possible while still keeping the water quality excellent. This means that I'd rather spend now, and trade for less water changes, than vice versa.

Steve

 

[andywg]

Andy,

for most of my tanks, I wouldn't think of using a DSB, but for my big tank, i have the advantage of height, as it's 29" deep, and also I want to keep discus in as low maintaince manner as possible while still keeping the water quality excellent. This means that I'd rather spend now, and trade for less water changes, than vice versa.

Steve

Your best bet then is to look into a permanent water change with RO water going into the tank at a trickle to change about 20% per day (with a drain from the tank to the waste). This will accomplish water changes without effort.