My SH tank using the Hiatt filtration method

[Richard]

Boy, it seems like everyone is on the SH craze after the pics of Jose's awesome SH/Pipefish tank. I have been planning this tank for quite some time.

The tank is a 29 gallon and will at first be used as a temporary home for SH's that are headed for a 92 corner bowfront SH tank I am setting up in my wife's office at work. I want to make sure they are doing very well before they go there since I won't see that tank too often.

This tank is really a demonstration/test of the Hiatt method of filtration that just happens to be a SH tank. So first, a description of the Hiatt method and what it is supposed to do.

The system is very simple and involves two components Hiatt Tri Base Pelltized Carbon (TBPC from now on) and Right Now Bacteria culture (RN from now on).

TBPC - this is a pelleted carbon that contains 3 types of carbon in each pellet. One of those carbons is an available carbon source for the RN bacteria. It it also extremely porous so it provides a HUGE surface area for the RN bacteria to colonize. So in this filtration method the TBPC is used as a permanent media for the RN bacteria to grow on. The TBPC will last 5 years before it needs to be replaced the only requirement is that it be kept clean. The formula for calculating the amount of carbon to use with the RN bacteria is # of gallon X .1667.

RN Bacteria - This is a proprietary bacteria compound that is not normally found in your aquarium. When used with TBPC will Aerobically do the following...
1.) Aerobically reduce ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and phosphate
2.) Consume organics so efficiently that there is no need for a protein skimmer. A skimmer can be placed on aquarium but it will not skim because there will be nothing for it to skim.
3.) A 24 hour cycle of the aquarium.

The requirements for this sytem are pretty simple...
1.) The correct amount of carbon in a flow through canister (I am using a Rena Filstar on this setup with 4 lbs of carbon.
2.) A one time addition of the RN bacteria.
3.) A minimum flow rate through the carbon of 6x per hour and a maximum of 10x per hour.
4.) That the carbon be kept clean. Just occasionally rinsed and then placed back into the canister filter.
5.) That the aquarium be a true aerobic environment. The most gas exchange occurs at the water surface, therefore the output of the filter pump should be above the water line.
6.) I think that's it.

Mark and I have been playing with this system for a little while and we think it works "as advertised". I will keep this thread going long term to show how it performs and will report any positives or negatives of this system.

I am almost done with the setup so a little later I will post some pics of the setup so it will make more sense then. I am using ALL fake stuff for this setup so that any of the results will be due to the TPBC and RN bacteria and not from liverock, livesand etc. Later I will seed the tank with a little liverock so eventually everything should get covered with coralline and stuff for a natural look. I don't like the fake look too much.

Also I will send this link to the inventor of this system Mr. Hiatt (aka Snake) so that he can chime in on questions I can't answer or correct me when I get them wrong LOL.

So a quick summary. IF the system performs as advertised then you will...
1.) not have an ammonia, nitrite OR nitrate problem
2.) not have a phosphate problem (no hair algae, cyano problems)
3.) not need a protein skimmer
4.) not need a sump
5.) not need phosphate removers (phosban, phosguard, purigen, on and on), chemiclean, a whole bunch of algae eating critters to keep the tank looking nice.
6.) not need to do massive water changes. Just smaller regular ones.
7.) not have to wait a long time to stock your tank.
8.) not need macro algae's for nutrient control. It's actually supposed to be hard to grow them in this system. A negative if you just WANT to grow macros
9.) Not need dsb's, large amounts of liverock for filtration (just start with some base and seed the tank with a little LR for desirable critters)
10.) Not have to spend nearly as much time or money to setup and maintain a reef aquarium.

Sounds too good to be true but let's see how it goes first ;) .

[Richard]

One final note...there is a Hiatt product called PH rock which can be used in a canister following canister containing the TBPC. This is supposed to maintain calcium, carbonate, etc. levels much like a ca reactor does. I will not be doing that on this setup as it is not necessary. I will be putting that setup to the test on my upcoming multi tank sps system and will start a new thread for that setup. Hopefully that one will be a pretty cool thread. Ordering the tanks this coming week. Man, I am spending way too much on this stupid hobby of mine.

[TheOtherGuy]

Excellent discussion on this new method Richard.

As a side note I will be starting a thread for my 75 SPS tank which I am retrofitting with both carbon and ph rock and we shall see what happens to an existing tank and I will post my progress and results good or bad. LOL. So stayed tuned.

I look forward to seeing Richards experiences with his SH holding facility and progress as I will also be setting up a similar holding tank for seahorses for destination to my 125 SH tank and I am glad to let Richard work out all the kinks for me. Thanks Richard.

Where are the pics! I need pics now! I should have stopped by on the way home and taken some. :o ;) :P

[TheOtherGuy]

Oh I see you will post pics later. My reading comprehension just sucks. Missed the comment that pics are coming later. Cool!

[Richard]

The filter for this tank is a Rena Filstar canister filter. I had to make a few minor adjustments though.

I am using the spraybar attachment but since the return will be above the water line I had to drill the holes out to make them larger. Otherwise the water would be shooting out under pressure which would make lots of micro bubbles and generally create a big mess.

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/SprayBar.jpg

This filstar comes with two baskets. So I cut the bottom out of one of them and then attached the two together using the handy dandy epoxy putty (good for all kinds of things). So this makes one bigger basket which can then hold the 4 lbs of TBPC. Then put fiberglass screen at the bottom of the basket to keep the TBPC from falling through.

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Basket.jpg

Then filled up the basket with TBPC and put another piece of fiberglass place on top to keep the TBPC in place.

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/BasketFull.jpg

And here's a shot of the output when the filter is running.

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Return_Above_Water_Line.jpg

[matt]

Sure sounds good; the one thing that I would be very skeptical of is "a skimmer won't skim because there's nothing to skim". It's true that when running carbon, often a skimmer will slow down, but that's because carbon dust in the water really screws with most skimmers and has nothing to do with organic waste content. If you have a sizable tank with a large bioload, there will definitely be proteins in the water to skim. Plus, the O2 saturation and subsequent ph stability that a skimmer provides is a great benefit to any tank IMO. Having said that, I'm anxious to see how this system works, and isn't it great that a fish store owner is taking the initiative to openly and honestly experiment with new ideas!

[Richard]

Here's a shot of the complicated filtration system on this tank...

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Filter.jpg

And a shot of the tank with some decor...

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Tank_Shot.jpg

[Richard]

Oh, I used a silica type sand in this tank, which I have never used before. I know I've seen a number of people say they use it with no problems so I decided to give it a shot. If my tank gets covered in diatoms I'll just remove it and use some aragonite.

[Richard]

Sure sounds good; the one thing that I would be very skeptical of is "a skimmer won't skim because there's nothing to skim". It's true that when running carbon, often a skimmer will slow down, but that's because carbon dust in the water really screws with most skimmers and has nothing to do with organic waste content.


Matt, the reason a skimmer is not supposed to have anything to skim on this system is because the bacteria are supposed to consume the proteins in the water very rapidly. Sure the carbon will adsorb organics intially, like any other carbon, but there is a limit to how much and how long it could do that by itself. After a month or so of feeding SH's oily PE mysis shrimp and live ghost shrimp too, I will stick a remora I have on it and see what happens. I think if the system was not really able to eliminate proteins efficiently in the manner it says then the skimmer cup will fill very quickly. If the remora doesn't skim out anything then that will be definitive proof to me.

[Reef69]

Oooooh..sounds like the perfect setup..I really hope it is..Keep us posted on how it develops...

[SAtiger]

Sounds cool. One day I need to make my way up to CB.

[TheOtherGuy]

Hey Richard that camera works just fine. No new camera for you. LOL.
Looks nice. Eager to see the data as time goes by.
Should be very interesting for sure.

[matt]

A good skimmer will remove organic waste before it's broken down by the bio filtration, effectively taking the waste out mechanically and lowering the bioload. Relatively large chunks of crap, to use a nice technical phrase, are captured and removed. For any type of bacteria to remove organic waste, it has to be broken down to microscopic size particles or dissolved, I would certainly guess, as the bacteria that process it by consuming it are microscopic themselves. I'll bet your remora will remove some stuff, unless the carbon dust breaks the surface tension that the skimmer needs to work.

To me, this doesn't negate the value of the carbon, as it provides great chemical absorbtion and great habitat for the bacteria. I'm really interested in this set up; thanks for trying it out and keeping us posted.

[matt]

****, I mean darn, I got censored.

[NaCl_H2O]

Sounds too good to be true but let's see how it goes first ;) .
Great post, let me know when I should change my signature ;)

[Richard]

To me, this doesn't negate the value of the carbon, as it provides great chemical absorbtion and great habitat for the bacteria.


Just try to keep in mind that in this application, the TBPC is being used as a permanent bacterial media NOT as a form of chemical filtration, that is why it will not be replaced for 5 years. I will only be dumping it in a bucket and rinsing it off every few weeks, for the next 5 years LOL.

As far as the skimmer thing goes, time will tell. This will be a long term thread so if I put a skimmer on in a month and it doesn't skim I will be convinced, if I put a skimmer on the tank in 6 months and it still can't skim anything then everyone should be convinced. There shouldn't be much carbon dust in 6 months. Seahorses eat ALOT and are messy too.



Great post, let me know when I should change my signature


Well, you still gotta do some water changes.

[Richard]

Now to get the tank cycled....

I added the RN Bacteria

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/RN_Bacteria.jpg

Then add the fish (I am using back mollies, and before anyone asks...yeah the freshwater ones)

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Tank_Cycling.jpg


The RN comes on bran flake as a media so it clouds the water a little when you add it, in case anyone is wondering why it's a little cloudy in the last pic.

So now what should happen is within the next 24 hours the ammonia will rise up to about .2 mg/l and then drop down to zero. Then that's it no further ammonia spikes and no nitirite spike so the tank is cycled. I've seen this happen a couple times now so I am sure it will happen this way again, unless I screwed up somehow. If this was a clownfish tank or something then I would have just used them to start with since the brief and pretty low ammonia spike would not bother them. Since I am new to seahorses though, I decided to just play it safe and start with the mollies. The mollies will be removed and seahorses added in a day or two.

Just to make clear to any newbies that may be lurking. Do Not stock your tank this quick with any other filtration method, it will not work.

[Richard]

Here are the starting tested values...

NH3 - 0 Seachem Alert. My Fastest kit expired a year ago so I tossed it. I'll bring home a Salifert NH3 tomorrow
NO2 - 0 Salifert
NO3 - 0 Salifert
PO4 - Undetectable with seachem kit. I'll call anything below .05 undetectable with kit since 0 - .05 just looks yellow to me on their color chart.

[GaryP]

1.) Aerobically reduce ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and phosphate
2.) Consume organics so efficiently that there is no need for a protein skimmer. A skimmer can be placed on aquarium but it will not skim because there will be nothing for it to skim.

5.) That the aquarium be a true aerobic environment. The most gas exchange occurs at the water surface, therefore the output of the filter pump should be above the water line.


Aerobically reduce nitrate? OK, you got me on that one, he says as he digs for his microbiolgy text book. I can see how this things acts as a bio-reactor for the digestion of organics. The nitrate thing is a bit of a mystery to me though. However, I can also see how the deeper recesses of the carbon could be anaerobic, or at least anoxic to allow for growth of denitrifying bacteria. The only problem with that, like is the case with LR is whether there is sufficient flow to those deep pores to keep up with the detrifying demand. It looks like you have a fairly deep sand bed in the pics, but I don't know if silicate sand has a low enough porosity to allow you the development of a suitable anoxic layer. What do these folks say about the necessity of a DSB as part of their system? In either case how will you know if the carbon or the sand bed is the source of denitrification, or do you care?

I also agree with Matt on the value of a skimmer for gas exchange. I'll be interested to see what kind of pH values you are getting with this system. Please make sure to run lots of pH tests before and after adding the skimmer to see what result it has. Are you planning on running the pH rock scrubber in addition to the carbon? If you mentioned it, I missed it. I think I have figured out that its role may be primarily to scrub the CO2 and organic acids produced by the bacteria in the carbon, sort of like what happens in a plenum. The question in my mind is whether the pH in the bulk water will be low enough to create effective dssolution of the calcium carbonate. If there isn't some sort of in-situ buffering taking place I could see how maintaining alkalinity could be a potential problem. Maybe you have found a use for that micro grain sand in purple up and similar products like Kent Liquid Reactor. :) Isn't that how that stuff is supposed to work? A large surface area of fine particles that are available for dissolution by bacterially produced acids?

OK, I admit maybe I am being to analytical here. Maybe the purpose of this in your mind isn't determining how the systems works, but rather an evaluation of whether the overall system works. You ARE going to do a talk on this for us, right???

[hammondegge]

i will be following this one closely. thanks richard and mark for leading the wagon train. you guys are sounding a little like 'CarTalk' without the accents.

[BIGBIRD123]

I'm kinda anxious to see how this works, too. I always want a SH tank. I got a 30g hex that would be great for this. Keep us posted Richard and hurry up. I'm not very patient. LOL!

Steve

[Richard]

Aerobically reduce nitrate? OK, you got me on that one, he says as he digs for his microbiolgy text book. I can see how this things acts as a bio-reactor for the digestion of organics. The nitrate thing is a bit of a mystery to me though.


I was waiting for you to chime in Gary LOL. You won't find it in your books. The invention of this system is a totally new nitrogen cycle which he refers to as a Nitrogen L whereby nitrite and nitrate are reduced simutaneously and aerobically. And I think he said phosphate is reduced when nitrate is reduced. I will ask him to come on and explain it a bit better whenever he has time.

He developed this for waste water treatment, took 11 years of research and failures he says. The exact science of how it works is his proprietary information which he will not reveal. Gary, I think you can see the impact such a new science would have beyond this little hobby. So I understand him wanting to protect that information, any company would. The bacteria are found naturally but not normally in our aquariums and it is the proprietary "available" carbon source in TBPC that they require to perform.

My "carbon dsb" was a test of the claim of an "available" carbon source in TBPC. It wasn't to see if it reduce nitrates but rather to see if it reduced phosphates since you can get nitrate reduction from all kind of media used anarobically. From my limited understanding of anaerobic polyphosphate accumulating bacteria they woud require an "available" carbon source to grow in any great number.My 215 is with the carbon dsb thingy is heavily stocked, heavily fed, only moderately skimmed, doesn't get large % water changes, and no phosphate removers either. I'm no scientist but after 2 years I decided it passed the test since I don't see how else I could NOT have phosphate/algae problems. So it is time to give the full system a fair shot I think. The purpose of this thread is to see if this system does all of the things it is supposed to do, openly & honestly and just show the results.

He will disagree with you on the skimmer and gas exchange, but I'll let him explain that. Basically, bubbles don't do much and gas exchange primarily occurs at the water surface. This is why he wants the output above the water line. He told me some test data on O2 level from the input/output of 20' tall fractionaters used in waste water treatment. I don't remember the exact values but it wasn't much of a difference.

It was posted earlier that I will not be using the PH Rock on this little setup, it just isn't necessary. I will test that on my next setup. Mark will be switching his setup over so he'll be testing that before me. I don't think the PH rock is an aragonite type material so I don't think it is the same as Purple Up, Liquid Reactor etc. It does not deliver strontium (I think) so it can't be aragonite.

There is no need for a DSB in this setup since will take care of denitrification. So he says just use a shallow one and vaccum it when you do water changes to remove BOD (poop). Just like you do with a fw tank.

He will be co authoring a book which I am anxiously awaiting. He says unlike other most other books, it will be packed with actual data. If nothing else, it will create some really long threads on rc :lol .

This new science is supposed to be based on mathmatics, so he says the results are totally predictable if this simple requirements of the system are met. That's just the amount of carbon, RN bacteria, correct flow rate through the carbon, and proper O2 saturation, that's it.

This is not something like a zeovit or the many others that have come and gone. Those systems have a whole bunch of products to dose, different dosing for what "stage" your tank is in, and always leave themselves an out so if they don't give the results promised they can always say "Well every tank is different" or "That your not dosing x,y,z correctly you have to stand on your left foot when you dose x, right foot for y, or sometimes stand on both feet depending on the position of the sun" LOL. I've been around long enough not to waste my time on those types of systems.

When I started in the hobby in the 80's the state of the art filter in the US was a wet/dry filter. The new approach in Europe was live rock, bare bottom & heavy skimming. More recently DSB's were the way to go, but now on some forums people who were arguing for the science of a dsb now have threads on "how to remove your dsb" and go to the "new" appoach of liverock, barebottom, heavy skimming and now the added chore of "cooking" your liverock first. I'm just ready to try something totally different.

I am excited about this system (I know, I'm a dork) and hope it performs over the long term. So I will give it a fair shake and not blame every problem that happens on it. Fish/corals die sometimes no matter what you do so I'll just see what happens over time. This isn't to say that other methods can't/don't work, obviously they can. It's just a different and easier way to get the same or better results hopefully. Between this little setup and the others Mark & I will being setting up soon, we shall see!

[Richard]

I typed that in between customers over the last 3 hours...so if anywhere in it says "How many crickets?" or "That'll be $10.49" you will know why. :lol

[TheOtherGuy]

I am excited about this system (I know, I'm a dork) and hope it performs over the long term.
That is an understatement! Very little sleep thinking and pondering about this stuff.

& I think Richard posted his initial test results at what time last night 2 or 3am in the morning????

I missed the 6am test results though. ;)

[Richard]

In either case how will you know if the carbon or the sand bed is the source of denitrification, or do you care?


It is about 3/4" deep. A little deeper than I had planned. I will siphon some of it off on the first water change. It will be 1/2" or less, not deep enough for denitrification. I just didn't want the look of bb.

[Reef69]

Yep, same reason why my sandbed isnt deep at all..I just like the natural look..

[Richard]

Crashed early last night so I didn't test anything but the seachem alert said ammonia was zero. This morning...

NH3 - 0 Salifert
NO2 - 0 Salifert
NO3 - 0 Salifert
PO4 - Undetectable

[TheOtherGuy]

Crashed early last night

Woah! Scared me. I first read that and I thought the tank crashed! Now I see you crashed! Phew!

[Reef69]

LOL, I thought the same thing..LOL!

..Wow..seems to be working as it should..

[Richard]

Crashed = fell asleep watching LOST and didn't wake up till morning. LOL

[Reef69]

Soooo, when are you throwin' horses in?????

[Richard]

Bringing them home tonight. I will post some pics but my camera seems to have a hard time focusing through glass so they will be blurry but I'll try to get some halfway decent ones.

[Reef69]

Cool!..so, a setup using that method..how expensive/cheap is it???...I dotn want an exact amount..just a ballpark figure.. Is it the same/more than a regular setup??

[Richard]

OK...got some horsies now. Took the mollies out last night and added 5 horses. 3 H. kelloggi (Great seahorse) and 2 H. barbouri (Zebra Snout SH). The kelloggi's are big when full grown, around 11-12". The barbouri only get around 6". It was late when I got done so I didn't test everything but the ammonia alert said zero ammonia.

I showed my Michelle how to do the tests so now they will get done daily. She's not lazy like me LOL. It's cool she is finally interested in my (now our) hobby. Only took 9 years!

Here are tonights levels
NH3 - 0 Salifert
NO2 - 0 Salifert
NO3 - .5 Salifert...it's actually somewhere between .2 and .5 using salifert low range reading. Just the slightest hint of color. I'll call it .5 from now on for reference. I doubt the kit is exactly accurate to these low levels.
PO4 - undetectable

The tank still has a slight haze to it. I only had the 60 gallon size of the RN and he told me not to use all of it or the bran flake would cloud the water for awhile. So I guessed and I guess used a little to much. There was bran flake under the rocks when I moved everything to catch the stupid mollies. I'm gonna do a 5 gallon water change and siphon off the extra bran flake and some of the sandbed.

The Great Seahorse...
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Kelloggi.jpg

Zebra Snout...
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Barbouri.jpg

Alright already! Stop staring at your food and eat it!
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Staring_at_food.jpg

[TheOtherGuy]

Great pics man!
Got to love the last pic.
Readings good so far too!

[Reef69]

WOW!..Very COOL Richard.. Im still in the process of setting mine up.. Dont know which way to do it..

[hammondegge]

Really great 'test' ;) richard. beautiful horses.

[Richard]

Last nights params were...
NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - .5
PO4 - undetectable

Spent last night reading about SH diseases. Now I'm bummed, if you look at the pic of the kelloggi you can see some skin sloughing on them. They say that is a bacterial infection. I've had them at the store quite awhile and they were acting/eating fine so I just thought it was the way they were (I'm learning here). The barbouri's are fine (no sloughing) but they are from ORA. Now that I think about it, the kelloggi's are TR in vietnam mostly bred to be dried and sold to the asian market as aphrodisiacs. So more likely to not be as well taken care of. Next ones I get will spend their first night in an antibiotic bath.

The tissue looks just fine under the sloughing skin (that's why I thought they were shedding or just something that kelloggi's do) so I think first I will add a cleaner shrimp tonight and see if he will clean them up. Then antibiotic baths if necessary. Last night I fed them a bunch of PE mysis till I thought they must be full now. Then I put in 3 dozen ghost shrimp...they were all eaten by morning. Man were they fat, they looked like I feel after going to an all you can eat shrimp buffet.

[Richard]

Well I brought home a cleaner shrimp yesterday and he has showed absolutely no interest in the horses. This is odd I thought. If it's skin sloughing on the kelloggi's the shrimp should be all over it (yummy meal to a cleaner shrimp right). When I fed them mysis today the shrimp gobbled some up so hmmm... he's hungry but won't mess with the horses.

So I stared real close and noticed the stuff was greenish and looked like cyano to me. Then after some searching found that some algae (cyano) growing on a seahorses back isn't unusual and won't hurt them, just part of their natural camoflauge. That's why the skin looks normal under it when it peels off. WHEW! No need to treat them. They say you can carefully brush it off but I'll just leave it and see if it goes away with the low PO4.

Last Nights Params...
NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - .5
PO4 - undetectable

[Richard]

Really great 'test' ;) richard.

Are you implying that I have already tried this filtration method before to see if it worked, with some hardier and MUCH cheaper fish....

:innocent

[wtrujillo]

Richard,

Is there a limitation on the size tank you can use this filitration method on?

[Reef69]

Very good info Richard..(..Applauses).. :shades

[Richard]

No limitation. Just need to follow the rules.

#'s of carbon needed = tank size * .1667
Flow Rate through the carbon 6x min 10x max (actual flow rate)
Water fully aerated by having pump output above the water line.

My next setup will be a multi-tank (one 84"x24"X24", one 48"x18",18", one & 36"x18"x18") sps prop system. So on that one I will try the ph rock system that goes with this setup to maintain ca & alk. I will be ordering large canisters from the manufacturer that hold 55 lbs of the carbon and then canisters holding the right amount of ph rock.

Yesterday, we took the emporer filter off of a 15 gallon at the store and replaced it with a Kent phosreactor filled with TBPC and added the right now bacteria. The tank is a mess with red cyano, phosphates at .3 ppm, nitrates at 40 ppm. Hopefully that should all go away if this system magically cleans up the nitrate/phosphate. I'll let it run a week or so and I'll post before/after pics and readings.

[hammondegge]

Really great 'test' ;) richard.

Are you implying that I have already tried this filtration method before to see if it worked, with some hardier and MUCH cheaper fish....

:innocent

nope. just looks like a whole lot of fun. maybe a great excuse to get some seahorses ;) :)

[wtrujillo]

I need to come by the shop pick your brain about this deal.

[snoop]

Good luck im setting up a 18 horse/pipe tank soon.

[Richard]

Some pics...

Looks like I felt after going to an all you can eat shrimp buffet...
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Fat_Kelloggi.jpg

Time for some stretching exercises...
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Barbouri_Stretching.jpg

Ok that's enough, gotta rest now...
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Barbouri_Resting.jpg

[Richard]

Todays params same as the last.

Added some clean up critters. Hermits and nassarius snails. Seahorses are MESSY eaters!

[TheOtherGuy]

The first one is gonna burst!

[Richard]

Last nights params were...
NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - .5
PO4 - undetectable

I need to take home more hermits today. For those thinking of doing a SH tank, they are seriously messy. They have rudimentary digestive systems so they eat alot and when they do their business it looks like only partially digested shrimp. So keep that in mind when planning your filtration, whatever type u use.

[Bill S]

Boy, Richard, and I thought I was sarcastic... I went by last week and managed to catch both Richard and Mark in at the same time. Picked their brain, looked over the MANY, MANY tanks they have running this system. I'm thinkin' about plunging in.

[Richard]

Well a bump in the road today :( .

When I showed Michelle how to feed the horses I showed her to break off a chunk of mysis, thaw it, pour off the water, then use a spoon to feed SOME of it to the horses and just dump the rest in my 215. Well, she forgot the part about dumping the rest in my 215 and has been putting it all in the horses tank.

So tonight I saw that the seachem alert had changed color to the ALERT status and the salifert test verified ammonia at .2ppm .

So I cleaned out the filter and rinsed the carbon, lots o mysis in it. Also did a small water change and siphon off some uneaten mysis that was behind the rocks. Also saw that the screen at the bottom of the basket was clogged with mysis. The filstar has a bypass to keep water flowing if the media baskets get clogged, so not as much flow through the carbon (not good!). So I'm going to have to put a prefilter sponge on the intake to keep any mysis from getting sucked up.

The horses seem fine and are active, trying to catch the last (and elusive) ghost shrimp in the tank. What is supposed to happen with this totally predictable system is that the ammonia will go back down pretty quick. If it hasn't gone down by the morning then I think I'll have to blow off the test and add some TLC (regular nitrifying bacteria culture) to get rid of the ammonia. Since I noticed this around 10pm the ammonia hasn't gone up or down. I won't be home till late tomorrow though, and I won't want too take a chance that it will spike higher while I'm gone and lose the horses.

Params
NH3 -.2
NO2 - 0
NO3 - .5
PO4 - .1


Some pics....
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Seachem_Alert.jpg

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Full.jpg

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Group.jpg

[GaryP]

Well, if nothing else, you have provided us with a very graphic demonstration of what happens when a tank is overfed. Good luck. I'll be very interested to see how fast the system recovers. Especially the nitrates. I think the ammonia should come back down fairly quickly now that a majority of the source has been removed. A mature filter should respond quickly to a small ammonia spike. It should be a simple question of input vs. output. The bacteria can only process so much ammonia input. You removed a lot of that input when you cleaned out the filters. That should allow the bacteria to catch up so that input equals output once again and ammonia should go back to zero.

[Richard]

OK, I think I get to keep going forward on the test.

Ammonia is really low but I don't think zero. The seachem alert looks yellow but maybe a slight hint of green hue. Salifert's kit goes from white (<.25) a light yellow (.25), I see a slight hint of yellow but not .25 so I'll just call it .1

Params
NH3 - .1
NO2 - 0
NO3 - .5
PO4 - .06

[hammondegge]

Richard,
I have been following and assumed when you posted that they ate a lot and are sloppy that this may be due to the breed. But it sounds like they are getting more than they need. I have two Reidi's. They are very timid, slow eaters. I feed them twice a day with mysis shrimp soaked in garlic and selcon from a turkey baster that had a very small aperature that i drilled out to just large enough to allow the mysis to pass. i can control this baster so as to pass only one or two mysis at a time. typically i will feed each SH about 3-6 mysis each (they will take it from the tip of the baster when they are hungry and just watch it float to the bottom when not so hungry). i then give the baster three more squirts, one for the mandarin, one for the yellow watchman, and one for the SH to snack on. this usually totals about one cube. I do all of that with the powerheads switched off. The SH dont seem too interested in the mysis that fall past them and settle to the bottom (yet) but will pick off the shrimp that they like. I turn the PH back on and they get interested. They will slowly chase down (stalk) the mysis until they are full. The Hermits finish off the rest.
I will throw ghost shrimp in when i can find them.
I would guess that they eat no more than 10 shrimp each (Hikari 2xday) and they are full. OceanRider suggests only 3 each (though these are PEmysis) 2xday, only 6 days/week.

Seamonkey mentioned a feeding station in his post, i havent tried that yet.

thanks for taking the time to share all of this.
robert

[TheOtherGuy]

Well a bump in the road today :( .

When I showed Michelle how to feed the horses I showed her to break off a chunk of mysis, thaw it, pour off the water, then use a spoon to feed SOME of it to the horses and just dump the rest in my 215. Well, she forgot the part about dumping the rest in my 215 and has been putting it all in the horses tank.



Holy Cow! So they were getting food and the food for the 215. I am sure you were ecstatic to discover this situation! LOL. I am glad the Horses are ok and filter is kicking in. This is a good test of the new filter but, I am sure this is not how you wanted to conduct such a test.

[GaryP]

Wow. I love it when I am right., no matter how rarely that occurs. The fact that your ammonia and nitrate came down like they did over night is very good. I am not really surprised that the ammonia is down as fast as it did. I will be very intereted in seeing how fast the nitrate responds since that is my main reservation about this system.

Do you think the .5 ppm nitrate is a result of the overfeeding, or was that an issue all along. Its kinda hard to tell from your data since I don't know when the overfeeding began. Its not that I am concerned with .5 ppm, but I am interested in seeing how the system does in term of its ability to support denitrification for something like a reef tank with a higher bioload.

[Richard]

I would guess that they eat no more than 10 shrimp each (Hikari 2xday) and they are full. OceanRider suggests only 3 each (though these are PEmysis) 2xday, only 6 days/week.


That is about how much I showed Michelle she just forgot the instructions. She has never taken care of a saltwater aquarium before so that is one of the main points of this little tank...for her to learn. When I put the tank in her office she will be on her own since I can't go there all of the time. Much better she make her newbie mistakes now when I can check the tank every day. Time for some retraining LOL!



Wow. I love it when I am right., no matter how rarely that occurs. The fact that your ammonia and nitrate came down like they did over night is very good.


Gary, try again LOL! - Just kidding but the nitrates never went up. This system is different so I don't really understand what happened entirely. The nitrates have been running at .5ppm. A very good number. They are supposed to stay very low with this system.I would say that is very low LOL. I don't even know what the margin of error is on a salifert kit, probably more than .5 I would guess.

It's interesting thing is that phosphate jumped up to 1ppm when the ammonia went up but has come down to about half by this morning. I'll have to check with snake to see if he knows why the nitrates didn't go up but the posphate did.

[GaryP]

Gary, try again LOL! - Just kidding but the nitrates never went up. This system is different so I don't really understand what happened entirely. The nitrates have been running at .5ppm. A very good number. They are supposed to stay very low with this system.I would say that is very low LOL. I don't even know what the margin of error is on a salifert kit, probably more than .5 I would guess.

It's interesting thing is that phosphate jumped up to 1ppm when the ammonia went up but has come down to about half by this morning. I'll have to check with snake to see if he knows why the nitrates didn't go up but the posphate did.

I actually caught my mistake about the nitrates and went back and edited and for some reason either didn't catch that one reference or the edit didn't take. I wouldn't be surprised if the margin of error on the kit was 0.5 or so, but I think it would be towards the non-detect direction, not the false positive.

Ortho phosphate is never going to hang around for long. As a matter of fact its probably being used up in the water that you are analyzing during the test until you add a reagent that shuts down algae and bacterial metabolism. So, the fact that it fell quickly once you removed its source is not surprising to me. Again, go back to my earlier comments about inputs and outputs. This is a simple matter of mass transfer like the Chem Eng. folks study. Any process has a maximum mass handling capacity. Any input that exceeds the max output accumulates as a residual. Your phosphate input exceeded the output of your biological systems and as a result you got the 1 ppm test result (the residual). Once you decreased the input (extra food), the residual fell as the max output of the process was able to use up the residual.

A Chem Engineering Prof would love this as an example of mass transfer. I unfortunately took that course once upon a time as an elective. It was not the high point of my academic career and it convinced me I was not cut out to be an engineer. The only difference is that in a Chem Eng. class there would be an explosion somewhere along the way, due to the excess input. I suppose the same is true in our case if you consider an algal bloom a form of explosion. Not that I am saying that you are going to have one. It sounds like you probably caught it in time. Howver, think about what your meta phosphate concentration must have been if you were getting 1 ppm ortho PO4. Ortho phosphate is just sort of the tip of the iceberg.

[Snake]

Hello There,

I am Snake. What questions do you have? Now remember I do not nor shall I disclose some facets of the Right Now! Bacteria. You use gasoline and you know it works in your car, but you don’t know what is in it or how it is blended, but you use it anyway. So much like this invention.

So I can post two tests results conducted by outside labs. One is the reduction of Nitrates within 7 days, the other is reduction of Nitrates, Total Ammonia and Nitrates within a 4 day period.

That is all the information I shall divulge.

If you wish to grow corals, clams, etc faster, you can do it with this system. WhY?”

More food can be given without unbalancing the system.
More trace elements
Higher values of Ca, Mg, Mn, et
Cleaner water for better growth.

With a Giant Clam, which usually grows at the rate of 1/4 inch average a year, you will achieve growth rates between 2.5 to 3 inches a year. Thus, you have a larger animal in a shorter period of time.

Coral likewise and fish grow faster because of the clean water and heavy food load.

Remember science marches on, so you can either get on the train, watch the train go by, OR you can be really smart and attempt to stop the train by standing in front of it. Not a very wise thing to do if I remember my Saturday Morning Cartoons.

So with this invention you can have a very small tank 5 gallons equipped only with a fresh water box filter TBPC, pH rock, Right Now! Bacteria, and trace element nugget, with a optimum air pump, and guess what, you now have a reef tank or a fish tank that will hold 4 salt water fish .

Respectfully submitted,

Snake
562 428 9973
Snake@HDLtd.com
http;//www.HDLtd.com

[Ram_Puppy]

Snake, Any science you post is probably going to go right over my head. :) I would be more interested to know your experience as a hobbyist? sounds like you have been keeping tanks for a while.

BTW, I am setting up a new tank and while I don't have any torpedoes yet, I do have what was supposed to be one of richards deep carbon beds set up. I have a tremendous amount of flow, so much I don't think the carbon bed would ever be anerobic, so I went ahead and dosed the tank with your right now bacteria. So far all my tests are perfect, though that is not saying much as I only have two huge chunks of live rock and 2 maroon clowns in the tank.

BTW, I bought those two fully cured chunks of live rock I think 3 weeks ago, and not much changed on them since purchase, last week however I started dosing your coral stimulator and within 2 days the rocks started shedding detrius. to be honest, I can't say if this is do to the coral stimulator, or because I had to shut my closed loop off because my oceans motions drum got carved up by sand and I had to shut the closed loop off (- 3200 GPH of flow in the tank.)

I am watching closely to see how fast the rocks micro flora and fauna take off, my last new tank took about 3 1/2 months before I started seeing noticeable life. I plan on stocking very slowly on this tank, so hopefully the fish won't impact this much. (not planning on adding any more fish till june.)

[hammondegge]

Welcome Snake,
Richard has given you much fanfare :) I am setting up a 300g+ system that i want to try your carbon on, so i am watching Richards tests closely. with great anticipation of success i might add.
I do have a question for you about the PH rock. or 2 rather

"How to Use pH Adjustment Rock
This is VERY IMPORTANT! The pH rock MUST be placed directly behind the Tri Base Pelletized Carbon (TBPC). The reason for this is that the acid from the bacteria is the highest at that point and reacts with the pH rock. IF you do not place the pH rock behind the TBPC, the reaction will not be complete."

1. what happens to the acid if the PH rock is not present. does it dramatically lower PH?

2. If PH rock is used, how is calcium level maintained as calcium demand increases?

that's it for now. i am sure that there will be much more. thanks for the visit.

Robert

[TexasTodd]

Please keep posting and visiting Snake.

Richard and Snake, a couple of things.

1. Snake, make sure you specify which species of giant clam. Many grow very quickly in "normal" reefs. Derasa, Gigas, Squmosa.....I assume you are talking about Crocea and Maxima clams.


2. Richard..are you sure the Filstar is getting enough turnover with the carbon, filter pads etc. in it? Did you take a measurement from the output to confirm exact turnover rate at the tank's surface?

3. With lower flow I see more detritus settling out in the tank and not making it to the filter...yes?

4. Snake, is there a way to add more oxygen to the line right before it enters the filter? Not a filstar, I mean the scuba tank looking ones. Would this increase efficiency?

RICHARD, could you add PH readings to your routine tests...since you don't have a skimmer and are not using the ph rock?

Todd

[TheOtherGuy]

Hi Snake! And Welcome to MAAST.

Thanks for joining in on the discussion.

Lots of people following this thread and still lots o questions and it is nice to have you on board for the discussion.

I am looking forward to getting my 75 converted over to TBPC and PHRock and I will start another thread on converting an existing tank and my experiences with the system on an existing tank.

[GaryP]

4. Snake, is there a way to add more oxygen to the line right before it enters the filter? Not a filstar, I mean the scuba tank looking ones. Would this increase efficiency?
Additional oxygen may stimulate biological digestion, but depending on where the oxygen level is at already, you may actually be close to saturation already. Oxygen saturation in salt water is only a little over 6 ppm (depending on temp.) to start with. So, you may not actually get a lot more into solution. If anything you may want to look at adding oxygen to the water after the filter since I am assuming the bacterial activity there has depleted a lot of it, as well as produced CO2. This would be wasy to do with something as simple as a protein skimmer whose purpose isn't necssarily to skim, but rather to increase gas exchange.

I think the issue of gas exchange was addressed somewhere earlier in this thread.

[Richard]

Very busy today but to quickly answer...

The filstar xp2 says 300gph on the box but actual output is 200 on my tank. So I am still in the turnover range snake recommends.

Yes, I will try to remember to take home a ph test kist today. My ph probe is shot.

[Ram_Puppy]

Gary, I think that is why Snake reccomended to Richard (noted earlier in the thread) that the return from the filter be ABOVE the water level, to re-oxygenate the water.

[GaryP]

I wouldn't think that laminar flow for a split second as water fell from the return to the water surface would do much in the way of gas exchange. Its a matter of surface area vs. volume and contact time. A couple million tiny air bubbles have a lot more surface area then a solid stream of water spilling into the tank. The contact time in a skimmer is going to be a lot more then the above mentioned split second. Think about it in terms of using an air pump. Why do you use an air stone with an air pump instead of just the hose? Answer: contact time and surface area. Small bubbles have more surface area and rise slower then big bubbles.

Why am I getting stuck in these chemical engineering discussions all of a sudden? We need to go find one for MAAST. I bet MARSH has a few laying around that we could borrow on a consulting basis.

[Richard]

Sorry I haven't updated, been a long week.

Monday - got home real late and did not test but still a green hue on the seachem alert

Tuesday params...
NH3 - .1 (still low but still there)
NO2 - 0
NO3 - .2 (went down)
PO4 - undetectable

So nitrate and phosphate went down but ammonia still very low but hanging around. So the output is above the water line, carbon is clean, so it must be flow since these are the only things that Snake say can prevent the system from preforming completely.

To keep a long story short, I screwed up figuring the actual output of the Filstar xp2 (rated 300 gph on the box) and it was only 150 gph which is not quite enough. So tonight I replaced the xp2 with an xp3 (rated 350 gph) and the actual output was 180 gph (errrrrr!!!). So I raised the filter up on some books for now and shortened the hose length to try and reduce head pressure on the filter. Now the actual output is 198 gph which is 6.8x per hour so hopefully the little bit of NO3 left from the overfeeding incident will be gone tomorrow. I am going to put the filter up on a night stand or something tomorrow to see if i can get a little better flow rate.

SH's are doing fine and my male Kelloggi's pouch is looking very full so I think I will be needing the services of Jose and his nursery soon. I'll try to get some pics tomorrow.

[Ram_Puppy]

richard how are you measuring output, just filling up a gallon jug and doing the math?

[Richard]

I just put a 5 gallon water jug at the same level as the rim of the aquarium and then put the output in the jug. Let it run for 1 minute and then gallons*60. Except when I screw up I multiply by some unknown number to get another totally bogus number LOL.

[seamonkey2]

Richard, don't forget to call the paternity ward to make sure there are plenty of beds for the babys LOL

sure I got plenty of room

Jose

[matt]

So with this invention you can have a very small tank 5 gallons equipped only with a fresh water box filter TBPC, pH rock, Right Now! Bacteria, and trace element nugget, with a optimum air pump, and guess what, you now have a reef tank or a fish tank that will hold 4 salt water fish .

Respectfully submitted,

Snake
562 428 9973
Snake@HDLtd.com
http;//www.HDLtd.com

Please don't take this the wrong way, but suggesting this kind of irresponsible overstocking does not do much for your credibility in my book. Please remember you're posting to a community of hobbyists that have years of experience and have seen many "miracle products" come and go. As yours, they are typically shrouded in secrecy, as if there's some magic dust or process that we couldn't understand even if it were explained to us. So, of course, some of us will be a little skeptical when your explanation is "sorry I can't tell you what's in the bottle."

No offense, and I hope your product does really well.

[Shark_Bait]

What about converting a tank that has been up and running for a year now. 40 gal tank with 50-60 Lbs of live rock in it? As most of the filtration is being done by the rock (I hope). But the canister filters on the tank are getting old so this would be the perfect time to convert to this system.

[Richard]

On our 75 gallon at the store we just added a filstar with 1/3 the amount of carbon snake says to run a tank on. That tank had nitrate/phosphate and hair algae/cyano problems. Two weeks later the nitrates/phopshate and algae problems were gone.

That tank still has a remora pro skimmer on it and it skims about 1/4" per week. So I guess you'd call it a hybrid system. Did that 6-8 months ago and the tank has been good ever since.

[Richard]

Well, I am very frustrated now. The little bit of ammonia is still hanging around this morning. So I check the output of the filstar again and it is down to 170 gph :angry . So I will need to make some changes.

Somewhere in the not to distant future an Aquarium Pharm (Filstar manufacturer) rep will show up at the store to try and sell me more things. He's going to get an earful!

On a better note. Babies arrived this morning....

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Babies.jpg


And seahorses don't waste anytime. Just after I spotted the babies the male and a female were dancing around each other changing colors from light to dark.
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Mating1.jpg
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Mating2.jpg

[TexasTodd]

That's why I had questions on the Filstar.....I've run TWO of them over the years. :wacko

TT

[Richard]

Well I still like filstars. They seem to run well and the maintenance on them is much easier than something like a magnum 350. I just wasn't expecting the actual output to be 50% or less of what they advertise. Still no big deal for normal use but not good for this application.

[Ram_Puppy]

richard... I know it wouldn't work on an old magnum filter, quite honestly because I was curious once and tried (when I was younger) but do you think the filstar could handle it if you turned it off and used a MAG to drive it from the intake? When I tried it, I was curious if I could daisy-chaing two magnums and that just ended up making me and my surroundings wet... But I am betting you could put a small magdrive on it to increase it's output, at least temporarily until your torpedoes arrive, which you'll probably need a pump for anyhow.

[Richard]

I thought about that but instead I just added liverock. So the bacteria in the liverock can clean up what Snake's system can't because the flow isn't quite there. I'm going to get matt to build me something that will work better down the road.

I already have the torpedos :) but they are for the 92 corner. So when I get that setup and the SH's moved, I can drill this tank and plumb it up using a real pump.

Kinda screws up the test but I'll keep tracking params to see how it works when it's a little underpowered. Still pretty good IMO, nitrates/phosphate have been controlled. Ammonia has never spiked high. Also interesting is I never saw any nitrite. Snake said I wouldn't since with his bacteria ammonia is not converted to nitrite. I think he said his bacteria just strip the N and the H vents off as gas. Or maybe the other way around, I can't remember at the moment.

[GaryP]

Snake said I wouldn't since with his bacteria ammonia is not converted to nitrite. I think he said his bacteria just strip the N and the H vents off as gas.
Huh? Could this be it?

NH4 + NO2 ---> N2 + 2H2O

[Bill S]

Ditto, Gary...

[Shark_Bait]

It's been a loooooong time since I did chemistry but is 2H2O two water molecules? So amonia + nitrite equals a nitrogen buble and water. That would be cool. Unless I'm wrong (and my wife says that's most of the time) either way joining amonia and nitrite is cool.

[Richard]

Huh? Could this be it?

NH4 + NO2 ---> N2 + 2H2O


LOL, I'm tired and can't remember any details today. So, yeah that's it or it was something different LOL.

[Ram_Puppy]

Richard, do you have the torpedoes at the store? I Brian and I will probably come by on Saturday or Sunday and I would love to see them.

[Snake]

Thank you for your questions. I shall attempt to answer them from the top to the bottom. I shall make them brief and to the point.

I never attempt to impress people with high science. I make the true attempt to talk in real talk because that is what I first learned as a child and it does not make me feel any better to try to blow away people with knowledge. Besides, when I get into my car and turn the windshield wipers on, they usually say “Dumb guy Dumb guy.”

My first tank was a fish bowl when I grew up on the farm. I had guppies with E. densia. I also was very proud of my baby guppies which started to over come the tank. They turned out to be leaches. WOW what a start.

I worked in 1970 for Long Beach Fisheries as a fish packer and then a salesman. They were the largest in the world at that time. They had over 4,000 50 gallon tanks of fresh water and 2,000 gallons of salt water. The largest company that almost matched them in salt water was salton sea I Los Angeles. That is when I started keeping salt water fish, 1970. Used an under gravel filter with lots of air. Made my own sea salt and lost the fish and inverts when one day my tank leaked in my living room, only to find it bone dry and stinking like you know what during a summer heat wave. That was 150 gallon tank. I have had tanks since that time. I have a 5 gallon tank with only a bubble up filter for 7 years running with 4 fish. Today people call it a nano reef. None of my fish have died, so I believe it is better to keep fish this way than to use another system that crashes and kills fish. My fish have spawned (perc’s) a number of times. It is a bare bottom tank with all the N and P values at 0. I clean the carbon once a month by rinsing in fresh tap water to remove the dirt.

Shedding waste is a normal occurrence with the Coral Stem. I noticed this when I put my solution in a wholesalers and retailer tanks as a demo. You should see if you feed, a growth on your rocks of different organism that are present.

All bacteria and other organisms give off acids. This is a biological fact. Our urine is about 4.5 to 4.7 pH. This is waste products. Some give off more acids than others. Thus, this is why you buffer your tank because of these acids. If they and the organisms in your tank did not give off acids, then you would not have to buffer your tank as much or very little because of the Bicarbs contained in sea salt when you performed water changes. To answer your question, yes, the pH will drop slowly if you do not put the pH rock behind the carbon. You can manually buffer it or make it easy on yourself by using the pH rock.

The calcium increases and other metals increase also as the rock is used. Calcium is a metal, and you should attain between 5 to 650 mg/L which is not much in a system such as this. Granted the books say 400 is the magic number, but they are not taking into consideration kinetics, which simply means 400 is what is LEFT over in the ocean, it is NOT what is produced.

The system is non selective when it comes to filter feeders. Bi valves and any organism that has an elevated amount of Mg, Mn, Ca, ect, in it’s environment and is able to assimilate or use it, will grow faster. It is much like taking Ca with Vit D pills for denser bones.

As I stated before it took only 11 years of failures to finally achieve the totally aerobic 24 hour cycle. One of the limiting factors to this system is DO or dissolved Oxygen in solution. Because I am in the environmental business, we had to find methods of increasing O2 in the field without increasing costs with extra generators. Thus, we find if you simply have the return flow shooting ACROSS not DOWN the surface of the water, it allows the CO2 to leave, (water does not have a great affinity for CO2) and is replaced with air which elevates the DO content to as high as 8.5 ppm (remember ppm is the measurement of dissolved gas in solution) in a salt water aquarium. Again in the environmental business we call skimmer fractionars. We use fractionars for fresh water (yes, do it all the time) and we have conducted tests to find the rise in DO with a fractionar is not as great as claimed. When we did bench tests comparing the splash system vs the fractionar, the fractionar was usually 1.8 to 2 points of ppm below the splash system. What people think by seeing bubbles and knowing by math how much they impart DO into the water, there is a vast difference. Remember the majority of O2 infusion in the ocean is the surface of the water, not a giant skimmer. We simply follow what the ocean has been doing for years without our permission. There are no needs to employ other pumps to elevate the DO. If you remember Boyles Law concerning gasses, you will know when a solution which contains gas is pressurized, even for a small time period, the increase in DO within the camber is increased. This is known by the waste water treatment plants who simply pressurize their enclosed vats and it reduces time for our daily offering to the toilet god,

Now in my 5 gallon tank with the giant bubble up corner freshwater filter (super expensive equipment around 12 bucks (takes lots of Al cans to buy that one while pushing my shopping cart) and the Hagan large Optimum pump, we found with the air stone, the DO was low, but with the open end air tube making the surface boil, that is when we achieved a higher DO. I do not tell my fish about the air stone, because they might roll over and die if I did.

For everyone starting with my system, I know if you follow the simple instructions it will work every time. The entire system and fish load are based upon math, not guess work. That is something different in this industry.


I am not asking you to believe it. If you see a car running down the road, you assume it is powered by something and not pulled by a horse. Now if I were to show some of my clients these test results when they have a problem they desire me to fix, they take these lab reports as fact, because they have not the time nor money to waste on things that do not work.

Nitrate Reduction Test conducted by Ocean Enviro LLC . Notice the values are SLIGHTLY higher than you would find in an aquarium.

1. Start Date: Jan 3, 2006
1. 2. End Date: Jan 10, 2006
3. Daily Values:
1/3: 6,237 mg/L
1/4: 4,797 mg/L
1/5: 796 mg/L Note: Probe out of calibration, had to recondition, erroneous reading
1/6: 2,393 mg/L
1/7: 330 mg/L
1/8: 54.2 mg/L
1/9: 22.9 mg/L
1/10: 1.10 mg/L
4. Test unit is a Hach Sension 2 Portable digital nitrate probe

CalBret is the Largest Environmental Testing Lab I the world. When one submits data from this firm, there is no question concerning the results. . If you follow our simple protocol, it works every single time. Much like jumping off a bridge. If you do that I shall put in writing, YOU WILL FALL! (Very astute of me, don’t you think? While you are at it, you can join my Church of the Heavy Buck)
Inchcape Testing Services
Caleb Brett

R E P O R T O F A N A L Y S I S


Vessel : ---
Port/Terminal : ---
Client Reference : ---
Our Reference : LA/96-25745
Date Sample Taken : ---
Date Submitted : 04/28/96
Date Tested : 04/30/96 TO 05/03/96
Sample Designated As : RIGHT NOW BACTERIA
Drawn By : AS SUBMITTED
Representing : ---

Lab Reference : 96-----

__________________________________________________ ________________
04/30/96 05/01/96 05/02/96 05/03/96
TEST 1445 HRS 1800 HRS 1700 HRS 1545 HRS
__________________________________________________ _________________________________________


Ammonia Nitrogen, mg/L: 0.9 1.0 0.4 0.2
Nitrogen Nitrate, mg/L: 22.0 3.52 6.6 4.4
Nitrogen Nitrite, mg/L: 1.5 1.5 0.75 0.3
Sodium Nitrite, mg/L: 7.5 7.5 3.75 1.5

C.M. Dean
ITS - Caleb Brett
1941 Freeman
Signal Hill, CA 90804
562 494 4999
Fax 562 985 3469


Concerning an established tank, you follow the directions I gave Richard on his. Same amount of Carbon, pH rock if so desired, trace element blox RN Bacteria and proper flow rate and direction. You should vacuum the tank’s gravel to relieve it of the debris (dirt) which in turn relieves the system of the BOD. Dirt is from food and animal waste. BOD (or BcOD) is the reduction of that dirt by biological action to it’s lowest common denominator. Do your bi weekly water changes, vacuum the gravel at the same time, keep the correct water flow, and keep your filters clean of junk,

Richard congrats on the sea horses. Now I WANT you to name each and every one of them for us.

Nitrite is formed but is consumed so quickly it is very hard to register it on a test kit. This is not a cycle but an L or E in the manner how the bacteria process the problem.

It is more like this NH3 > NH4OH > NH4+ > NO2  ➔ NO3
➴ NO2  NO3 ➔  ➴ NO2  ➔ ➴ NO2 ➔
l ↨ l ↨ l ↨
NO3 NO3 NO3 ➤ N2 + CO2

As you can see, it is not a cycle but an E and L which works very fast. The vertical lines indicate all forms of Ammonia are also converted directly to Nitrates while some is converted to nitrites and back and forth to nitrates. The bugs are drunk so that is the way they work I believe it. Yes I do, and I also believe the world is flat!!!! (Remember always to take yourself very seriously other wise the Laughing Police will get you and it is HORRIBLE!)

Remember this is new science with new organisms. So the old rules do not apply to this compound as they would to the other nitrogen cycle.

I hope this helps. Remember, the enjoyment of reef keeping or fish keeping or sheep keeping (oops, did I let the sheep out of the bag?) Is NOT having to be a slave to your tank, but doing a little as possible, keeping the fish very healthy and watching them spawn. I usually help my fish spawn, but usually the tank is too small.

Respectfully submitted,

El Snake O in the Grass O hiding under a torpedo filter O (I speak fluent Spanglish to impress the ladies that I am bi lingual.) Hey you in the back row, forget about the sheep will you?

[Snake]

sorry the arrows came out as question marks so now you do not know the proper flow. Maybe Richard can post the chart so you can see it.

Snake

[GaryP]

Snake,

If I read your reaction pathway correctly, then you're bacteria are still working along the lines of the "classic" nitrogen cycle. What Richard said led me to believe that they were doing some other short cutted pathway. I thought you were possibly using the ammanox system, but that doesn't make sense either because that is anaerobic and you clearly state that your's is an aerobic system. However, if I read your description correctly, you are saying that denitirfication is being done by an aerobic bacteria and not by anaerobes or facultatives as is commonly believed to occur in a DSB or other anoxic type system.

You mention getting up to 8.5 ppm O2. At what salinity? I must be missing something here because all the seawater DO curves I have seen show a max DO for seawater at 6.6 ppm and that is for very cold water. 8.5 ppm may be possible for the sort of brackish water you see in a waste water plant, but unless there is some sort of super saturation taking place its not possible for sea water. Obviously any aerobic digester is going to perform better the higher the DO. I'm just not sure what the numbers are here or how you are deriving them. Also, if you are adding air bubbles to the water before it enters the torpedo, wouldn't there be a possibility of it vapor locking and resulting in channeling that would eventually reduce the efficiency. It would seem that you would want the media in the torpedo to be 100% water wetted. I am assuming that you would need to allow it to de-gas before being pumped through the torpedo. Even micro bubbles could be trapped and eventually result in problems.

What is an E & L? I'm not familiar with that term, at least as an abbreviation.

A lot of people are switching to a calfo type overflow system. As I read it, your system would probably not be compatible with a calfo because it is based on having little or no turbulence on the surface. You are correct in that gas exchange primarily occurs at the surface in the ocean. However, we don't have the luxury of trade winds and breaking surf like that on a coral atoll. Even in that situation, has exchange is occuring in a manner similar to that in a skimmer due to the action of sea foam. Besides the ocean has thousands of square miles of surface area for gas exchange, of which only a small percentage is highly biologically active (such as reefs). We only have a few square feet to work with and little or no wave action. The majority of the ocean is a biological desert with little in the way of oxygen demand. Besides, gas exchange is also done by tons of algae. We have a few pounds, at best.

I'm trying to stay with you here but the left side of my brain is having a hard time.

[TexasTodd]

Thanks for coming back and answering more questions Snake! Kind of over my head, but good to read.

Here's what got me trying SOME of this: RICHARD HAS USED THE DCB ON HIS 215 FOR A LONG TIME WITH SUPER POSITIVE RESULTS. So, I have started the deep carbon bed...remotely as it's simple and fairly "safe". Unfortunately I started using the coral stimulator around the same time so it's hard to say if I'm seeing results from the carbon bed, or, the additive....or both.

BUT, MY SYSTEM IS DEFINATELY DOING BETTER THAN IT WAS BEFORE I STARTED THESE TWO ITEMS. Is it apple cider vinegar? IDGAS---it will cost me about $100 a YEAR with this stuff on a 300g total volume system. I'd rather spend $100 and not worry about if I could get it cheaper then worry about it.

Todd

[TheOtherGuy]

Had to stop by Richard's house on the way home to pick up some stuff.

I took a few pics of his 29g Seahorse Tank. And these guys and girls (I know cause they are making lots of babies) are so cool!

I cannot wait to get my seahorse tank going. Just time and money-LOL.

Here are some more pics for your enjoyment.

http://static.flickr.com/56/114471436_2b7047f0b0_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/46/114471403_86dccf1e30_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/19/114471247_3a375c7633_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/51/114471035_2e9b4bb6ef_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/40/114471008_c13d7fcfb5_o.jpg

And a full view (although not that good of pic!).
http://static.flickr.com/41/114471307_3bd8275df6_o.jpg[/img]

[Richard]

Well I was going to post pics but I see Mark beat me to it. As you can see I replaced the base rock with some very cured liverock. The little bit of ammonia was gone within hours.

Todays Params
NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 1
PO4 - undetectable
PH - 8.3




You mention getting up to 8.5 ppm O2. At what salinity? I must be missing something here because all the seawater DO curves I have seen show a max DO for seawater at 6.6 ppm and that is for very cold water


I am going to order a Salifert DO kit and do a little experimenting. This is from the Salifert DO instructions...
"In marine water an oxygen concentration of atleast 7mg/l is advisable. Some fish need higher oxygen concentrations."

[NaCl_H2O]

:wacko :wacko Y'all get it working and then let me know "how much" for my system? ;)

[GaryP]

Richard,

Check this out.

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/r_toonen14.html

According to the study quoted there, reef O2 levels reach saturation around 6.25 ppm. Some super saturation is possible, on a reef because of breaking waves and the resulting entrained bubbles. This may result in an O2 level of around 9 ppm. I'm not sure how that would apply in an aquarium unless you have some vigourous mechanical aeration taking place.

Here is an O2 saturation table for different temps. and salinities.

http://www.redseafish.com/Languages/95/PDF/68.PDF#search='oxygen%20saturation%20seawater'

Borneman also did some studies on oxygenation in the aquarium that were published in Advanced Aquarist. I think I can find those if you are interested.

[wtrujillo]

:wacko :wacko Y'all get it working and then let me know "how much" for my system? ;)

that's exactly what i'm thinking.

[GaryP]

Now you know how I feel when the IT guys start talking "techno" on here.

[Richard]

Borneman also did some studies on oxygenation in the aquarium that were published in Advanced Aquarist. I think I can find those if you are interested.


No not really. I've read about this before. This same question has come up before on other forums when snake has talked about DO in the aquarium. In order to settle the question (at least for my own mind) I ordered a Pinpoint Oxygen monitor w/probe. I like gadgets so soon I can play ;)

[GaryP]

Please let us know what you find out. I would like to see some actual hard data. Borneman's the only data I have ever seen.

[Richard]

Will do!

[Richard]

I did find this formula for calculating DO. It hurts my brain just to look at it :wacko


"The seawater oxygen content depends primarily on factors such as salinity and temperature. Relationships have been derived from which the equilibrium concentration of dissolved oxygen can be calculated if the absolute temperature T (K) and salinity S(°MO) are known:

ln [O2] (ml l-1) = A1 +A2(100/T)+A3 ln (T/100)+ A4(T/100)+S[B1 + B2(T/100)+ B3(T/100)2]

where:

A1 = -173.4292

A2 = 249.6339

A3 = 143.3483

A4 = -21.8492

B1 = -0.033096

B2 = 0.014259

B3 = -0.0017000


And this Graph (http://www.corrosionsource.com/technicallibrary/corrdoctors/Modules/Seawater/depth.htm) which also hurts my brain to look at LOL.

[TexasTodd]

I like the "similar to Gary's Phosphate test"

Are the fish happy? Are the fish at the water surface acting like those stupid gold fish gasping for air?

:)

TT

[GaryP]

I saw that calculation too. Just give it to Mark. He lives for that kind of stuff. The result of the calculation is ml/L and not ppm, so we would be talking apples and oranges anway. Can you say alkalinity calculations?

As for the graph, you're not building a pressurized tank out there in the hills to keep deep water predators are you? That's for O2 at depth. One thing about a tank like that, the lighting would be cheap and maintenance on the pumps would be a lot of fun (NOT!)

[TheOtherGuy]

Hmmmm - I like equations except now they make my head spin - Then again just standing up makes my head spin.

I will play with it - And then I will look the equation too! :o

What is this : salinity S(°MO) - MO are my initials but, I do not see how I can be a factor for dissolved oxygen? :unsure

In other news: I have converted my 20g to a Hiatt Filter using Richard's (now mine) Filstar and nothing else. I pulled my Emperor and Skimmer off. So I now have only a Filstar TBPC Filter and 1 powerhead. I will post something in a week and lets see if anything changed.

[Richard]

you're not building a pressurized tank out there in the hills to keep deep water predators are you?


Shhhh! Nobody is supposed to know about my Coelacanth propagation farm.

[Bill S]

OK, Richard/Mark, finally got it plumbed in late last night...

215 with about 200lbs uncured rock - rock added on Friday/Saturday.

Just 2x1200gph closed loops running - I'm STILL working out details on my calfo/sump/return - should be working tonight I hope, so pretty lousy oxygen I'm sure.

Midnight nitrate: ~25ppm
4pm: <10ppm

So far, the Koolaide is tasting pretty good - but it's still early.

[Richard]

Midnight nitrate: ~25ppm
4pm: <10ppm


Wow! If I'm reading that right. So that's just with the one torpedo?

[Bill S]

Just based on this alone, even if none of this technology works long term, potentially, a spare pump, a torpedo, and a dose of bacteria COULD save a crashing tank.

Oh, and the nasty smell from the rock is gone. But, with the carbon, I guess I would expect that. I've got some major rock rearranging to do tonight, so we'll see...

[Richard]

Well I haven't been testing the tank daily anymore but it seems to be going along well. Diatoms have arrived on the fake decor and on the glass but not on the liverock. Guess it's time to get a few astreas.

No cyano or hair algae though.

Todays params...
NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 1
PO4 - undetectable

Oh, and the female Kelloggi's have decided they would rather be yellow than black :D .

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Kelloggi_Yellow.jpg

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Male_Kelloggi.jpg

The little Barbouri in the middle seems like a runt. No growing nearly as fast as the other one and is a very picky eater.

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Group_001.jpg

For some reason they always want the same piece of food LOL.
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/The_race_is_on.jpg

[Jeff]

one of the best things is in feeding them is when you get a bag of ghost shrimp floating and the horses surround it trying to get at the shrimp.

[Ram_Puppy]

any updates richard?

[Richard]

I haven't been testing. Maybe tonight I'll test and take some pics.

No real visible changes except the diatoms have subsided without me adding any snails and I need to vaccum the sand since it is building up a bit of detritus.

Oh, and I added 4 more small Kelloggi's on saturday. So now I have 9 SH's in a 29 gallon. Don't tell the SH police :innocent!

[seamonkey2]

THIS IS THE SH POLICE, COME OUT WITH THE 5 EXTRA HORSES IN A BAG AND WE WILL NOT HURT YOU!!!!

this is your last change come out or we will take all the horses and put them in a 215ga tank :P :P :lol :lol

[Richard]

HA! Nice try Jose but I'm not giving them up without a fight LOL.

Finally got time to give an update...is it just me or is the world getting more hectic for everyone? I started getting a little algea but only on the fake decor none on the pieces of liverock. It will be nice when coralline decides to start growing on the fake stuff. Looking back on this thread I realize it's been a month without any water change or cleaning on the tank so no wonder there is some algae.

First, I did a water change and just replaced the sand with PH Rock. Snake says it will work ok as a substrate but not as well as if it were placed directly behind the TBPC in another canister. I'll start checking Ca/Alk/Mg and see how it goes. If nothing else I think it makes a pretty substrate.

Tonights Params...
DO - 7.6 ppm *freshly calibrated Pinpoint DO monitor
Ca - 365 mg/l
Alkalinity - 9.0 dKH
Mg - 1110 mg/l
PH - 8.3
NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 0 on salifert low range
PO4 - undetectable

And some pics........

A tank shot...

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Tank.jpg

Just hanging out together...

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Group_002.jpg

Dinnertime wrestling match...

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Dinner_Time.jpg

[Richard]

Oh, for anyone that's really into seahorses. This is a pretty cool video....

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/6304794444/qid=1145431738/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-0462244-7578258?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=video&v=glance&n=404272

[TexasTodd]

Thanks for the update Richard!

Todd

[TheOtherGuy]

Hmmmm. 8 Seahorses, No water changes in a month and no organics. Where are you hiding your 8 foot tall skimmer again? LOL.

So some of those SHs are getting big now. And they all look pretty fat. Eating good heh? In the last pic the big one looks to be the focal point of all the other seahorses. Kind of neat how they all hang-out together in one giant mass of horses.

[TexasTodd]

Hey Richard would you test PO4 with my Deltec kit on your SH and 215 tanks if I bring it up to you?

Todd

[GaryP]

Todd, you beat me to it. I was going to suggest the same thing. It's hard to figure out where the nuisance algaes are coming from without any phosphates.

[TexasTodd]

:)

[Richard]

Hey Richard would you test PO4 with my Deltec kit on your SH and 215 tanks if I bring it up to you?


Yeah bring it up. The seachem kit isn't real accurate at very low ranges that's why I just say undetectable.



It's hard to figure out where the nuisance algaes are coming from without any phosphates.


Nah that ones easy. This is something I talked to snake about alot before even trying this system. His setup will never give true zero on N or P. This is good because things die if you get true zero. Because his bacteria are living things they would also die if P was really zero. I think it is simply that coralline has not grown on the fake stuff. Once it does the nuisance algae will be outcompeted I think. The amount of nuisance algae is minimal. Place a peace of bleached coral decor in pretty much any tank and I bet it'll be less white than these are in under a week.

[GaryP]

0 phosphates is impossible to achieve, even if you wanted to, because you are dosing your tank with phosphates every time you feed.

[Richard]

People have achieved zero using phosban reactors with bad results of course. Also I know some have managed to pull that off by using the zeovit system and then dosing vodka which resulted in a their tanks crashing. There is a really long thread on rc on that.

That is what I like about this system is that it is self limiting so there isn't the possibility for user error. Same goes for the sulfur denitrifier that Don and Brian are trying.

[Richard]

Well I won't be able to give any updates for about another week as far as the filtration goes. Our male had a pregnacy problem and we lost him :cry . We thought he had Pouch Emphysema so we tried clear the trapped gas. Unfortunately we did it in the tank and instead of getting air out of his pouch we got lots of pus which in turn infected the other horses.

They seem to be doing ok today so I think (hope) they will all be fine. I took the canister filter offline and the tank is running on a corner bubble filter while we treat with antibiotics.

I went to seahorse.org for some advise on treatment from the gurus but I decided to go a different route on treatment than what they suggested. Treatment seems to be going well but you never know with bacterial infections.

Here (http://forum.seahorse.org/index.php?showtopic=26550) is the link if your interested. In that thread is a link to my original thread on what happened.

[hammondegge]

Sorry to here that Richard. I hope the others make it.

[Jeff]

i just lost my first sea horse after a year and a half on saturday, my daughter was devistated.

[Flobex]

So hows the sillica sand working out for ya? this is a really neat "experiment"... i wanna try this in a 30 cube...

[Richard]

OK, if you ever have to do a pouch evacuation on a seahorse it IS NOT safe to do it in the tank as the article on seahorse.org says. Trust me, if it turns out that the pouch is full of pus instead of air then you will regret it. Giving your tank a bath of infectious bacteria is a really really bad idea.

Update...
The horses were doing better but took a turn for the worse wednesday. By thursday two were lying motionless on the bottom struggling to stay alive and the rest of the kelloggi's were heading in the same direction. Oddly, the barbouri's seem unaffected. So I decided it was time to be REALLY aggressive in treating them or we would lose all the kelloggi's. So here's is their current treatment schedule....

1st all the horses got a 15 minute fw bath then they were put into a bare 10 gallon tank using freshly mixed sw. Each day they are put into a bucket and the 10 gallon is emptied and then sterilized then refilled and the horses are placed back in.

Here is there medication treatment schedule...
Formalin (15 drops) every 24 hrs
Triple Sulfa (2 capsules) every 24 hrs
Neomycin (2500mg) every 24 hrs
Zosyn (piperacillin/tazobactum) (250 mg) every 6 hours

Today they are all up and eating and even the one large female that was the worse is up and eating. Her tail was getting eaten away by the bacteria but now is healing back. Vibrio SUCKS!

So hopefully they are on their way to a full recovery. I will be tearing down and sterilizing the 29 gallon before putting them back in when they are done with the treatment. On the liverock I think I will give it a strong lugols dip before putting back in the tank.

[hammondegge]

Man, you need your own reality TV show. Sea Pony Phd. :)

[Richard]

LOL...no tv show but maybe I could write a book called "Treating Sick Fish: The Shotgun Approach."

Seriously, I have been reading up alot on the opportunistic bacteria that seem to be SH's biggest problem. Vibrio is the worst. It is in all of our tanks and is a very good reason to be careful when handling liverock or working in your tank. Especially if you have cuts or scrapes on you. This is worth reading...

http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/2005IDSAMeeting/tb/1896

[TexasTodd]

Yes, that one and the bacteria that starts with "M" and gives you the bumps that grow larger are both nasties you can get from your tanks.

All the write ups and stories say "if they had come in sooner" If you get a nasty....go to the doctor ...FAST.

TT

[Richard]

Yep mycobacterium is the other nasty marine bacteria that is usually around in your tank. Could be what my horsies have also.

Also if you do get a nasty be sure and tell the doc that you have a reef tank. These bacteria don't show up well on the standard cultures the doc would run. So if they aren't looking for these bacteria you might be screwed.

Both are tough to treat and you'd probably spend some time in the hospital getting pumped full of IV antibiotics. This is why I'm hopeful the horses will pull through but still am expecting some losses. Hard to hook up an iv on a seahorse.

Here's some pretty pics of someone with a vibrio infection.
http://www.visualdx.com/vibrio/ :sick

[Richard]

Oh, I guess I never updated how the treatment went. Over two weeks of keeping them in a 10 gallon qt tank, treating with antibiotics everyday, and a 100% water change daily and they were all still alive, eating, but just not looking "right". So I stopped the antibiotics and within 36 hrs they were all dead :( .

On the upside, the barbouri's went through the whole ordeal completely oblivious that there was anything wrong going on. So they are fine. Also added 4 new kelloggi's a few weeks ago and they are doing great. If I ever have another bout with whatever bacterial thing the original kelloggi's got my new treatment plan will be - buy new horses. Sounds cruel but the treatment was a PITA and ultimately failed.

I put a prefilter on the intake and a filter pad in the filstar to keep the carbon from getting dirty and there is zero nitrate, zero phosphate, zero algae problem (only cleaned the glass once in about 3 weeks).

Also I got the 92 running just with fw to test everything. Tomorrow it'll get moved to Michelle's office and then the fun stuff begins. Pics.....

Aquachill Chiller -works but not too quiet but not too bad either...

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Chiller.jpg

The Filtration (the chiller killed my flow rate so I am just using a filstar I had to run the chiller seperate)....

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Filtration.jpg

The tank...

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Tank_001.jpg


Oh and my big torpedos for my 210 showed up. This one will use the ph rock. I'm thinking a predator/sps tank to put snake's system to the test.

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Big_Torpedos.jpg

[Richard]

My flow through the torpedos is pegged at 10x (measured) which is the ideal flow rate. I split the return up kinda like a spray bar of sorts so that there won't be too much current for the sh's.

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/Return.jpg

[TheOtherGuy]

The corner tank is pretty cool. Those returns are sweet.

Those are some big torpedoes. Cannot wait to see those running.

So how many fish are you gonna put in there? 1000 maybe? LOL.

[TexasTodd]

Nice update and photos.

O.K., what about the "the return should be above the surface" part?

Todd

[Bill S]

This method consumes a LOT of O2. Richard was concerned that my O2 levels might be too low, so he came out and measured them. I had my returns going above the water to make sure I have enough flow. However, with my calfo at one end and the return at the other, the entire sheet of surface water gets replaced about every 3 seconds. And, since I have a sump with HUGE cascading flow O2 was NOT a problem. Measured at 7.8%, as I remember!

[Richard]

O.K., what about the "the return should be above the surface" part?


I think that is really important on tanks without sumps like mine will be. DO on my 215 (not a hiatt setup) around 7.4 ppm at 2-3" below the water surface. Interestingly, the DO at the output of the skimmer is only .2 ppm higher. If you think about it, most tanks with overflows/sumps are a splash system like snake wants only in reverse. Since the water going over the overflows and baffles in the sump are kind of like having the return above the water line. So I think the DO should be high enough (mid 7's+) for most sump systems as long as the turnover is high enough.

Bill's DO was actually 8.3 - 8.5 in most areas a couple of inches below the water surface. The calfo overflow seems to do an awesome job getting the DO really high. It was pretty impressive on Bill's tank to see how fast the entire surface of the tank was being skimmed off, it's like looking at fast flowing river. If I ever do a tank with a sump again I'm going pt a calfo overflow on the end like his for sure. IF I ever use a sump again LOL.

[TexasTodd]

O.K., glad there's been some testing.

Yes, Calfos are cool. Same here "if I ever" go bigger, one end will be a Calfo.

TT

[saltcreepette]

I have a couple questions about how to obtain the carbon, ph rock used in this method. Also, if you have to use a canister filter (I hate these. I had a fluval which was terribly hard to get water flowing through it--as in getting it started after you open it up--, and it was a messy PITA to open and clean), what is the easiest to use brand? lastly, even though the DO in this system type is supposed to remain adequate with the return above water (or used with a sump or skimmer), don't you still need a CL or powerheads to increase flow rate for certain corals such as sps, and to create current to allow the fish to 'exercise' by swimming through it? That's it for now, thanks!

[Richard]

Oh I missed your questions. Yes the carbon needs to have water flowing through. The xp3 filstar filters work well and will hold enough carbon and have the right flow rate for a 25 - 30 gallon tank. You'd need two to run a 55 gallon. Tanks larger than that you would want to go with a torpedo filter and use a seperate pump. The filstars are really easy maintenance.

Got the tank setup saturday night with partially cured liverock. Stilled smelled pretty ripe :sick

http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/IMG_0435.jpg
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/IMG_0438.jpg
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/IMG_0439.jpg

I never saw any ammonia. nitrite, nitrate so I went ahead and added some livestock. Four firefish, 2 scooter blennies, a steintitz goby, some hermits & snails plus some inverts. It was late nite when I took these pics so the fish were bedded down. Not too much to look at yet but it's a start. I'll put the horses in this weekend.
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/IMG_0449.jpg
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/IMG_0450.jpg
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/IMG_0452.jpg
http://www.maast.org/albums/Richard/IMG_0456.jpg

[Richard]

Oh, here is a carbon tube DIY article that might be of interest to any DIY'er that might think about trying this system.

http://www.masotc.net/docs/MASC_Newsletter_VII.pdf

[saltcreepette]

Okay so I guess running the carbon in a regular HOB filter is hopelessly insufficient, right? Oh well.

Another question. If I were to add this method to my existing reef, would it throw the usual nitrification process off if I were to remove it (the Hiatt method) later? (Let me know if I didnt explain that well)

[mathias]

great looking tank

[DaBird47]

Hey Richard, how about an update...when you get time.

[Ram_Puppy]

1) Filstar XP4 and this method is working great. threw liverock that had died out into the tank w/ a little new lr to seed it... and haven't have so much as a blip of amonia. filstar 4 maintenance is easy as pie.

2) Richard, go to your magazine rack, open a CORAL magazine, read the article on the frozen foods - VIBRIO bacteria found in a top american brand, though they won't say which one. I wonder if your wife could take samples of the food you guys carry and do lab work on it to see if the food transmitted the pathogen?

[Richard]

Ok here's an update Danny...

On the Hiatt system in general...
We now have a bunch of tanks running on this system and I can say it works exceptionally well in the short term for sure. On a couple of tanks that have been running this system longer (Mark's and Bill's) though we've ran into a problem where nitrates are rising up to around 15-20 and staying right there no matter what. Hiatt says that these tanks are deficient in some trace elements and that is keeping the bacteria from being able to fully deal with the nitrates. He has been sending some different mixtures of trace elements to add to these tanks. We just received a batch he made up that he says he's sure will correct the problem so Mark will try that on his tank so hopefully it fixes the problem. Once we get it figured out I'm going to pressure him to say exactly what is the deficiency (he's too secretive about all this stuff LOL). Just too make sure we haven't been dooped, Mark replaced the carbon to see if just the large amount of carbon that was giving the results was. The good news is that his nitrates did not drop afterward so it does seem to be some kind of element deficiency that is responsible like Hiatt says. The bad news is his nitrates didn't drop LOL. We have tried dosing phosphate and also potassium with limited results. Hopefully we'll get that figured out soon.

My 29 and 92 have performed "as advertised" so far. Although my 29 isn't a good full test since it is just a holding tank and, other than some hermits and a few really smart or really fast ghost shrimp, it is not stocked most of the time. On the 92, nitrates have risen up to between 5-10 twice and then dropped back down following back flushing the torpedo's like they were supposed to.

On the 92...
I gave up on the kelloggi's after eventually losing the next batch to the exact same problem as before. I know now that they are actually hybrids since they all only had 34-35 tail rings and true kelloggi's should always have 38-41 tail rings. So my theory is that they are a weaker animal since they are hybrids and therefore they can't handle being in a mixed SH tank without succumbing to the normal bacteria that would be present. Probably an animal that has to remain in a species specific tank.

I still have the two barbouri's and also have some H. erectus which have done very well. Other fish in the tank are the 3 firefish, 4 scissortail gobies, 1 redheaded goby, 1 Steinitz goby, 4 Pearly jawfish, 1 scooter blenny and I think I'm forgetting a couple. Here are some pics. These were taken at night after the lights had been off for awhile so not all the corals had opened up again and most of the non seahorse fish had bedded down and didn't want to wake back up. I have to get over to Michelle's office some afternoon when everything is up for the day and get some pics then.

Oh, and a new D70 that I really don't know how to use yet but some of these came out ok I think.


http://static.flickr.com/105/286452073_fdaa8fcf49_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/100/286452547_abbd987046_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/119/286452992_75896bf5c1_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/112/286453548_a06656ca6f_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/105/286453961_38b6a02e8a_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/108/286454303_7d9d6b9c74_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/115/286454795_52254adb3c_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/117/286455128_5a389cac3d_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/112/286455627_9896e692c7_o.jpg
http://static.flickr.com/119/286455989_1042025d93_o.jpg

[DaBird47]

Thanks for the updaqte...seems like he's onto something for sure...proof's in the pics. The SH's look very happy and healthy, the whole tank does. I think the gears in my head are starting to turn...oh no......

[TheOtherGuy]

Finally an update. LOL. Now I can go to bed.

Off to a great start on the pics. Is that a coastal shrimp? I like the Fire Fish pic.

[Richard]

Yeah, that's one of the little coastal shrimp that managed to avoid the SH's and grew up. I want to get a couple more since he does a good job of stirring the sand.

[TheOtherGuy]

The last 3 seahorse pics are pretty cool too. Need to go over and check it out in person.