Hiatt filtration system

[Mike]

Hey Cory,

We bought the Hiatt filter from Eve and are clueless. It came with a bunch of carbon, which I am not sure if is the tribase or not. I also have questions about the RN Bacteria stuff, where to get and how to use etc? If you were available we might like to talk sometime by phone or in person for a consult. No huge hurry, trying to learn and see what I would need to use it.

Thanks- Mike & Kristy

[CoryDude]

Glad to help. I'd love to stop by and check out yalls new tanks/setups sometime. I'm available this weekend if you'd like.

[Elijaher]

I wad doing a little reading on ozone. What you reefer think on it with Hiatt system?

[CoryDude]

Because ozone can react with some bacteria, I'd treat it like a UV filter and not use it on a hiatt. But, I don't have experience using ozone, so I'm just guessing on this.

[CaptainGreg]

Do not use it... It just release so much junk into your tank you get problem with algae. It is too expensive also.

I take my previous comment back.....After having Hiatt system running at max capacity... I found that I need more minnerals of all sort....that a regular cal/mag/alk dosing does not do it.... i am using the sea lab block and very happy with the result.

By the way, the Hiatt PH rock is Junk.....

[ColaAddict]

I'm doing research on Hiatt system and I was reading through this thread. Why do you think that the pH rock is junk? Also, I want to set up a Nano with Hiatt. Do you guys think it's really necessary to have the outflow above water? Has anyone have success running outflow underwater?

[CoryDude]

In theory, you're producing excess co2 as the bacteria consume the organics and therefore lowering the ph. The PH rock is supposed to keep your ph from dipping down too low. From my experience, if you're dosing 2 part calc/alk or dripping kalk then the rock isn't needed.

The main reason Snake wants the returns above water is to maintain high oxyen levels through surface agitation. This is supposed to help the bacteria since they are aerobic and could in theory use all of the available o2 up and kill your fish.

Personally, I never had any real problems when the returns were underwater, but the system seemed to work better when there was some splashing above the water line. I opted to go half way and have the returns placed just at the water line so that there was some surface agitation, but no splashing.

[CoryDude]

Just a note, I did take my Hiatt offline. Like a lot of others, I was having problems with they system being too clean. Macro algae wouldn't grow and the sps corals started to look pale.

[ColaAddict]

Does anyone have any experience on just curing dead rock with the RN bacteria, instead of using the Tri-Carbon. I'm not interested on keeping SPS, so I want to give it a try. I want to know if I can cycle my new tank without the Tri-Carbon. Any advice would be apreciated.
CoryDude, hello. Doesn't the RN bacteria already populated youre rocks, how long did it take to normalize your tank again after you stopped using the torpedo?

[CoryDude]

Actually you're right about the bacteria colonizing everywhere in the tank. I'm still seeing some side effects. My cheato barely grows which leads me to believe that the organic content is still low, despite the fact that I feed every day and twice a week at night. The skimmate from my skimmer is also still very dark and smelly, which is a by-product from bacteria systems (pellet users have the same experience). So the bacteria are still in there and the torpedo was turned off almost a month ago.

With a smaller setup like yours you'd probably get by with seeding the system with a bottle of bacteria. The rock and substrate should provide adequate space for the bacteria to grow. You could even add a small bag of carbon or Chemi-Pure Elite if you think you need more bacteria. Just make sure you place the carbon where it can get adequate flow.