Hiatt filtration system

[txav8r]

The tank looks great Cory! Nice video!
Glad that you got the nitrate problem under control. This is a very informative thread and I hope that more people read it. I have been taging along the whole time, I just haven't responded.

[Bill S]

Wow, CoryDUDE! I can't believe your SPS are doing that well! I really had problems with mine and the Hiatt. How full is your canister?

[CoryDude]

Still running about 7lbs (added 2lbs per Snake's instructions), but I may start pulling a few cups out. Last few nitrate tests were barely showing any color and the goal so far has been keep it around 2-5ppm.

I'm thinking since I can feed so heavily now w/o worry about nutrient buildup, that it may be contributing to the overall sps health.

[jesserettele]

I ran this system as my first ever system on a 125 for about 10 months about 3 years ago. I had very few problems, but then again I was just getting started, until an ice storm left me without electricity for three days. Then, like a moron, I left the pump plugged in and when the electrcity came back on toxic water pumped into my tank killing about $2,000.00 of stuff.

I over fed like crazy twice a day and my levels were normal. I built three custom tubes to try and mimic the torpedos and they worked pretty well. I plumbed the system so that I could hook a water hose and an air hose on the return side with an hose fitting on the input side running outside the house to back flush the system every couple months. I had about 30-40 lbs. of tri based carbon and about 50-60 lbs. of the calcium rock. The calcium rock didn't work and apparantly it is recomended to do half that amount of carbon now. I just recently parted out my custom tubes to scrap out the sch 80 bulkheads. It was a sad day.

[CoryDude]

Thanks for chiming in. That sucks about losing your last tank. I didn't take something like that into account. Guess I need to be careful on extended outages.

You didn't have a thread going on RC did you? I saw someone else that was making their own torpedoes. Anyways, yes, Snake now recommends about 1/3 of the calculated amount for reef tanks. He tried selling me on the ph rock, but I passed on that one.

Your backflushing setup sounds like an easier way than I'm doing it. Right now I disconnect the filter and take it in the backyard to flush with a hose. If you have any tips, pics, or ideas, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

[jesserettele]

I don't remember doing anything on RC about these.

After I got about 10 X flow like you discussed things went very well. Here are a few pics of the plumbing under the tank. Sorry for the poor pics.

The first is the air line quick disconnect and the water hose inlet that is located at the exit of the carbon tube.

The second photo is the water hose exit that is on the inlet side of the carbon tube.

The third is all three tubes, flow was from RT to LT starting with carbon and then the useless calcium rock tubes.

The fourth is before intalling them and the fifth is after with a view of both the flushing valves with their ball valves isolating the system.

I have a whole ton of pics and could share how I built them if there is any interest. It was fun and the best part was that they worked.

[CoryDude]

Things are still rolling along. Nothing new to report. NO3 - 5 mq/L, CA - 400, PO4 -.05, ph 8.3, total alk 4.

Reefcentral has a new thread going on this method. I'd suggest reading it to see different points of view. Here's an interesting abstract from some research in the 90's regarding the purported strain of bacteria that the Hiatt uses:

Aerobic nitrification and anoxic denitrification are the two main steps of the biological nitrogen removal processes. However, studies have shown the ability of pure strains to consume simultaneously oxygen and nitrate. These properties of co-respiration were used to combine nitrifiers and aerobic denitrifier (Microvirgula aerodenitrificans) in a single aerated reactor under continuous and Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) cultures. The aerobic denitrifier was maintained by discontinuous addition of carbon. Under these conditions, nitrifying and denitrifying activities were observed with aerobic reduction of the N-oxides produced by autotrophs into nitrous oxide and nitrogen.


D. Patureau*, N. Bernet, T. Bouchez, P. Dabert, J. P. Delgenes and R. Moletta
Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Laboratoire des Biotechnologies de l'Environnement (LBE), avenue des Etangs, 11100 Narbonne, France


Received 26 September 1997;
accepted 24 November 1997.
Available online 24 November 1998.

[CoryDude]

Forgot to add that I emailed Snake on a simple yes/no question and he left a 5 minute voice mail on my phone in response. Nice guy, but he sure likes to talk.

[Richard]

Bill, did you lose all you 'pod populations and other rock dwellers? Do you think there was a break down in the food chain in your tank, starting at the microbial level?

I noticed on my 210 seahorse setup that I could not get pod populations to thrive even with adding cultures and feeding live phyto. Also I had almost no worms living in my sandbed. So I think in a full blown Hiatt setup there is a problem with keeping microfauna thriving.

[Richard]

Forgot to add that I emailed Snake on a simple yes/no question and he left a 5 minute voice mail on my phone in response. Nice guy, but he sure likes to talk.

LOL, Snake doesn't do yes or no.