Controlled Plenum Wasting

In reply to Cannon, I have thought a lot about particulate size, and I think I am going to stay with a uniform size of the Caribsea Seaflor Special Grade at about 3" deep. I really like working with this stuff and have heard nothing but good things about it. I'll probably use a finer sand for the refugium section of the sump. 8)

Matt, my reasoning for draining some of the fluid from under the plenum is to prolong the life of the sandbed, that along with some occaisional judicious siphoning might add years towards the avoidance of the inevitable crash.

Has anyone ever heard of a tank, in a home hobby situation, going on for 20yrs without havin to be torn down and set-up again? I haven't but I is the newbie 'round here!!

If you think about it loosely, what we are trying to do here is to combine all three concepts together. Plenum, DSB, and BB.

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1) The plenum (we are trying to improve that with the CPW concept)

2)Under the Plenum is the BB (most of the people I have communicated with that use BB say they blow the waste material with a powerhead off the bottom of the tank, and either siphon it out or use a cannister to filter the water column, hence the concept of draining the plenum fluids.

3) On top of the plenum the DSB, (siphoned as per Goeman's and others carefully and a little at a time)

As you said Matt:

We are hashing boss man Kingfish!! And it is good...and we are at Peace at 3Reef!! [smiley=sunny.gif]

[glow=red,2,300]This is what it is all about!! Free exchange of ideas, adaption, and just having fun!!! [/glow]​

 

[glow=red,2,300]I have learned a lot in my life...that is to say I have made a lot of mistakes. What I did wrong , but nothing is like it!![/glow]

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There's nothing inherently wrong with any system whatsoever.  You just have to understand how it works and what maintenance needs to be done to it.  Barebottom tanks have advantages and disadvantages, DSB's have advantages and disadvantages, plenums have advantages and disadvantages.

Bob is right in a sense that a sandbed is a storage area.  That's exactly what I like about them....they store things instead of leaving it in the water column.  However, they don't just store.  They first process big wastes to smaller wastes and bacteria process these smaller wastes to even smaller wastes and they sink lower into the sand. That's completely cool in my book.

Due to bacterial turgor, live rock is continually cleaning itself out and spitting out mulm, detritus, and bacterial floc.  Corals and fish also produce waste.  Different types of bacteria will find their favorite food source and break down and/or convert the food into bacteria poop.  Alternatively, since some of these bacteria have such a short life-cycle, they die and these sick cannibalistic bacteria will say Hmmm....food.  There's no problem as long as you don't believe the initial selling points of a DSB.....that all of the worms can take matter, break it down, and make it disappear into thin air (or thin water).  Some of the matter will be broken down into gasses that can be off-gassed so there's no prob there.  However, some of it cannot.  Some bacteria turn nasty waste into dangerous things that prevent proper maintenance to a DSB.  As a result, we have to do something to prevent sulphide zones from forming like the friend who constantly vacuumed a different area of the sandbed.  (Since he has been doing this for a while, that's fine.....However, if you have let your sandbed fill up, don't suddenly decide to follow this pattern.  If you hit a sulphide zone....everything is going to die).  

A barebottom design is set up to get the detritus, mulm, and bacterial floc out of the system before bacterial breakdown occurs.  Instead of temporarily storing the remnants of the nasties that have been broken down by worms and bacteria, its goal is to get it out of the system right away before breakdown occurs.  They can be quite efficient if you have good flow and good filtration.  If you don't have good flow, you are going to be doing a lot of siphoning and turkey basting.  If you are a travelling salesperson....don't go this route or increase your flow and the size of your skimmer.  Actually, this is something to consider always IMO.

Ammonia and Ammonium are 2 different things.  NH3 vs NH4+.  Ammonia is poisonous and Ammonium is not (however, algae likes Ammonium a LOT).  They are both Nitrogenous compounds but their effect on a tank is quite different.  The recycling of Ammonium doesn't spell danger for fish or corals but it does mean that over time, you're gonna have algae probs.  The Ammonium was the main problem at Monaco as it just kept recycling....it wasn't ever being broken down and offgassed.  As a result.....algae probs. I've been told that Charles Delbeek did a study. I would guess the info will come out at this year's MACNA.

I have alluded to the fact that matter just doesn't DISAPPEAR out of a sand bed (nor a plenum).  I'm not thinking about merely doing a waterchange from the bottom of the tank instead of the top.  (There are some advantages to this but that isn't my main goal).  Maybe, there is a way to remove some waste matter as well.  If I were to remove this matter, wouldn't my plenum be the best of both worlds? I get the advantages of storage and processing but I also get to remove the remnant wastes.  

 

You said a mouthfull there Inwall...Good job!!!

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The best thing I can say is I concur wholeheartedly!!! I think what you are alluding to is the like what Matt said about husbandry. If we can get all of these ways of improving water and sandbed quality going at once would it not be an improvement on just saying "Oh, the bugs will take care of that"...or..."a water change will fix that"!!

I like your thinking and this is the type of tank maintenance habits I want to start with so that down the line it becomes like muscle memory...I do these basics out of knowing that that this the way to allow the natural parts of the eco-system in the tank to occur in an even more beneficial way.

Since I am just starting up this tank, I can incorporate vacuuming a designated portion of the sandbed as a part of regular maintenance. Reefers with established tanks may not be able to take advantage of this knowledge because they would be disturbing a safe haven in their systems.

Thanks very much Inwall for your input!! I hope I can help in kind at some future date. 8)

Meanwhile I am thinking long and hard on developing the CPW with some way to back flush the draining system without disturbing the DSB above the plenum. I know there is a way to do it with check valves, I am just not ready to present my ideas until I build a model and try it... [smiley=builder2.gif]

Drew

 

Thanks for spelling that out Curt.  [smiley=2thumbsup.gif]

I understand what you are trying to do now. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. The other day I was thinking maybe some bulkheads installed on the bottom side panels would work, but I haven't followed the thought all the way through.


EDIT - LET ME CHANGE THAT TO BACK PANEL. hehhe. ;D

 

I picked up some 3/8" OD 1/4" ID acrylic tubing and will use that in conjunction with some 1/2" vinyl tubing for the 90 degree angles.  [smiley=yaknow.gif]

I am going to try a fan layout of six of the 3/8" from the center back bottom, use the vinyl to go from the 3/8" up a 2" acrylic pipe on the inside back of the tank and over the back. Then I can bundle the tubes together inside some more 2" acrylic, silicone around the tubes so that they act as one and put in a gate valve at the end of the final 2" piece.  [smiley=upsidegrin.gif]

I think if I work it right the tubes will all siphon at the same time by turning on the gate valve.

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I'm thinking that I'll go with just a rectangular shape for mine with the two tube setup like I've posted before. Since this is a fairly new concept, I think the KISS will work better for me.

In a couple of day's I'll be taking a day or two off from work. Hopefully then, I can put my ideas into a prototype and see if it works or not. [smiley=thumbs_up.gif] As far as the back flush goes, I'm toying with the idea of teeing of my return pump and by using a gate and ball valve, I'll be able to control the flush a little bit better. Here to I'll be using Caribsea Special Grade. Although I have never used it, I haven't heard anything remotely negative about it.

Hey dx7fd2, I'm very interested in your fan layout. Do you think that you can get the different tube sizes to pull equally? Each time I tried to combine two sizes into one larger tube, I couldn't get the silicon to completely seal the smaller tubes. No matter what I did, I ended up with a big mess. ;D

This is crazy, I've been planning this tank for over a year now. No $$$. I'm planning on getting new everything for it. A new skimmer, don't know which one yet. A new return pump, here to don't know which one. I don't even want to start talking lighting yet! ;D This cpw thing came out of nowhere. Maybe because it's the cheapest part of the tank. LOL.


phil

 

I'm not sure how it will work out, cannon!! I think I can get it to work and will start working one line at a time today. The hole spacing and size in the 3/8" tubing has me a little baffled right now. I figure the longer tubes will have to have more holes to compensate for the length of the tube as the shorter ones will draw water faster. I want all of them to draw as close to equally as possible. Of course, we're talking about the difference of 22" to 28", not that much. I'll get some flex tubing today (3/8" ID, 1/2"OD) and try stuffing some in some 2" hard acrylic and see if it will seal w/silicone. [smiley=dizzy2.gif]

I have the same $$$ problem. I'm building my skimmer and overflow myself and will actually be testing the skimmer this week. I'll let you know how that goes. [smiley=mellow.gif]

Do you have any suggestions as to the skimmer pump as far as G.P.H. It'll be 1/2" in to 1" out? The head is probably 1.5'. I'm trying to get around 700-800 G.P.H. flow rate through the tank and sump/fuge. Is there some formulae for the skimmer flow, or do I just dial it in so that "it" works as best as it can? I don't think I want to match the flow rate through the skimmer to the flow rate in the rest of the system, or do I?? Kind of a Dweebie question but I want to get it right!! [smiley=stars.gif]

I did just get the return pump, a MAG 9.5 for $65 including shipping at: http://www.bigalsonline.com [smiley=victory.gif]

I am going to start very small on the lighting and work my way up.

I have diagrams of the fan concept on the way. Like everything it takes time. [smiley=computer.gif]

I think you will like the CaribSea SG. I've been using it to make my reefrock along with some very coarse CaribSea Puka Shell for texture. The bed will be all Special Grade.

Fortunately, you are right Phil, the plenum is an inexpensive thing to play with...

I do need to get it done though..so it's off to the HDepot and other places to spend a small stipend of my ill gotten gain!! [smiley=trampoline.gif]

 

Sorry dx, I'm afraid that I know very little about skimmers. The only skimmer I own is a Seclone. :-/ So I'm am going to solely rely on my fellow reefers as far as to witch one to get.

As far as the holes goes, I'm thinking about going 3/32 of an inch with about 1/2 inch spacing. The holes will be offset to reduce dead space. [smiley=idea.gif] The nice thing about starting with small holes, you can always go bigger if you need to.


phil

 

We are on the same wavelength as far as hole size and placement...I'm thinking of staggering the wholes farther apart on the shortest pieces. [smiley=dizzy.gif]

I got the skimmer licked, just waiting on the venturi and pump!! [smiley=2thumbsup.gif] Then I'll upload some pics of it running.

It is going to take time for me to get the plenum worked out, I want to get it right...

Let me know if you come up with any ideas as you work with the CPW!!!

Thanks Cannon!!!