Lets Talk About ~Filtration Concepts~

[mojoreef]

Sue I think keeping the skimmer on as a good idea, I can't see any reason for not running it, it's the kind of safety and export system that every tank needs regardless of what their filtration system is. By the sounds of what happened and what the result was in your tank. I think he would be safe to say that the mud bed was basically compromised with an overload of organics built up over time. Once this happens it lost its ability to function as a filter properly. From that point they can no longer store or recycle nutrients and thus begin to actually leached them into your system.

Glad to hear you survived another battle my dear, it's funny to longer were in this the more battle scars we get, LOL

Mike

 

[Scooterman]

Yea battle scars in my wallet LOL

 

[SueT]

Hey Mike, so battle scars are what we call them ehh?? I think you just hit on exactly what was going on in this system. The fact I had it packed with sps corals and about 12 clams didn't help when things started going downhill. That was the heartbreaking part.

As long as I ever have a reef system set up now I will run it with a skimmer for sure.

Amen Scooterman on the wallet part too. No more having to replace any percentage of the mud sounds sweet to my ears.

 

[Scooterman]

You know, when you think about husbandry, In a MUD system, your not really any different than a BB system, either case you need to do your regular chores, any slacking and you will get the same results, maybe one system sooner than the other but it will happen. I guess that can be said for any system, lets face it, we are human, we are busy & we slack from time to time regardless of your set-up. So until you eliminate that, then you can compare the more details of husbandry, in relation to systems used, is that clear as Mud?

 

[SueT]

Scooterman, I agree about the need to be diligent in the keeping of any form of reef to FO set-ups. In my case the sad thing was I was and always have done 10g weekly water changes. Keith Gay owner of Aquatic Designs, who I referenced before, was helping me and ended up needing to stop, but I did some figuring and was able to keep the WC's up. I am home during the day as I am disabled from a car wreck and 2 subsequent spinal surgeries so I saw everything that went on in this tank up close and personal.

That was the hard part knowing something was going on and testing, WC'ing, and still not knowing what in the heck was going on. I had never heard of a mud bed going bad before. Seeing it daily and not knowing what to do was the worst.

 

[Scooterman]

I hear you on that, sometimes it isn't what your doing that is the problem but other unseen things, you can test all day until your blue in the face and still not figure out what is wrong, one thing I've learned is patience is a necessity. I'm glad for one thing and that you manage to save your reef after all of that, which in itself means your doing something right.

 

[NaH2O]

Sue, what would you recommend to someone contemplating a mud system?

OK...I know this was a page ago, but I thought I'd bring it up again, and see if we can get some discussion on Shallow Sand Beds:

Originally posted by NaH2O
The first thing I want to try to understand is what depth is considered a shallow sand bed. I believe DSB is 4-8 inches in depth, so I would think that a shallow sand bed would be 1-3 inches? Since nitrification takes place in the upper inch or so of a DSB....then a SSB would also nitrify. How much emphasis is on bugs/critters? Does a shallow sand bed perform as a recycling center, too? Hmmm....wouldn't it become saturated sooner than a DSB?

 

[Curtswearing]

BTW---for those who don't know it, Sue's reef can be seen on pages 100-103 in the book Ultimate Marine Aquariums by Michael Paletta.

 

[mojoreef]

You know, when you think about husbandry, In a MUD system, your not really any different than a BB system, either case you need to do your regular chores, any slacking and you will get the same results, maybe one system sooner than the other but it will happen

As a general rule husbandry is critical, but thier is not alot of maintence you can do on certian things. Mud is one of those things along with DSB's. In a mud system what they have done is to break down the nitrifing and dentrifing into two seperate systems. the bioballs do the nitrifing base on the bacteria forming on th bio surfaces. the dentrifing is done by by the mud. the MM is so very fine and compact that it doesnt allow for much if any diffision of water so it is pretty much anaerobic just under the surface. So lets say 95% of all the mud is anaerobic. It operates under the same principle as the DSB but doesnt have that hand length passing off of nitrates like a DSB does.
Here is a problem I see Sue. If detritus or organics arrive on the surface of the MM bed their is very little of the right type of bacteria to deal with it. The detritus/waste/organics has to be broken down from ammonia to nitrite to nitrate before the bacteria in the Mud can do anythinng with it, this process is called nitrification and bacteria in anaerobic zones (which is what is in the mud) do NOT reduce this material. So it will just sit on the surface or meld into it but will not be processed. After a period of time based on how much of this stuff goes in, it would become a real problem and would probibly begin to leach severly.
I think a Mud system might be best as a final polisher for nitrogen products that are already soluable. So if it were me, I would go with a good skimmer prior to the Mud system to remove as much particulate as you can prior to the water entering the system. then maybe use the mud filter to polish the output of the skimmed water.

Mike

 

[mojoreef]

Ok Nikki let me see if I can shed a little light on that.
The problem with determining the depth and what does what is that its almost impossible to figure out. A sand substraight is always in a state of flux, its not a static thing. you cant say that an inch of sand will always be just areobic, things happen that create micro enviroments with in the system. An example would be if a peice of food lands on a 1 inch sand bed. the area with in and under the section would become anaerobic, because of the lack of oxygenated water flow to it, also bacteria will make thier own little enviroments in order to make thingns more conducive to them. the creation of enzynes, microbes and so on are what they use to do this. So if one looks at the whole surface of the bed your going to find all sorts of differing conditions at all sorts of different levels in the bed.
The only way to have some sort of control over this is when the reffer comes into play and skews the enviroment to being more areobic and not anaerobic. this would be done by manual stiring and shyponing off of waste/detritus/organics. All of the nutrients such as P and N are going to be are going to be associated with the detritus/waste/organics and that is in both forms. Inorganic P and N will be bound up in the tissue or mass of whatever the detritus and waste is. Organic P and N will be in the form of bacteria/algae and will be right the inside or on top of the detritus/waste as they are trying to feed on the inorganic forms. the organics are the by products of the bacteria/algae and should also be in the very close proximity. So you can see the importance of removing the detritus/waste/extra food/organics, it takes all the bad with it.
Which brings me to my favorite saying "just remove it and you wont have to deal with all those complex cycles, its just gone"

hehehe

MIke

 

[Scooterman]

Mike, the boyz at the LFS are going Nutz over their MM systems. The Marine Biologist there claims that reefing and being a biologist doesn't work, he is both. He has his MM system up for 5 years, beautiful, no skimming, he replaces 1/4 each year and all half of it every other year. He says he has no phosphates, he hardly ever cleans off his glass. He ask me if I test for phosphates, because I was getting a little problem of having to clean my glass every two or three days. I ask him how can you test for Organic phosphates, (he just got quiet), then he told me he could get me a tester for about $80 so said would test it. I felt a little fumed but kept quite, thinking I need someone like Mike to help me LOL! Seems like the MM system although are a little expensive are working out better than the DSB maybe. They are also trying out this new Liquid Phosphate remover, claimed it is the best Yet. I told him to test it for me & maybe in 5 or so years I'll try it, because of the way it works binding up like that, to me still needs to be removed, short term ok but eventually it will catch up, I'd think so?

 

[Flatlander]

Interesting reading.

Hi Sue, sorry to hear about some problems with that beautiful tank.

My turf scrubber experience is somewhat similar. Seems no matter what size tank I ran my large scrubber on, it did better when running my large beckett skimmer also.

 

[piercho]

My turf scrubber experience is somewhat similar. Seems no matter what size tank I ran my large scrubber on, it did better when running my large beckett skimmer also.

Doug, I'd be grateful if you'd elaborate with more details about your ATS, how you used it and for how long, and what you thought of it.

 

[Flatlander]

As long as its ok to expand on it here. I did not want to derail the topic at hand or does turf scrubbing fit in here.

 

[NaH2O]

Doug, sounds good. Algae Turf Scrubbing is a filtration method....and would fit in well. If you could touch on the concept of how it works.

 

[Flatlander]

Well, I am not an expert at explaining all the theory regarding turf scrubbing, but here is some.

The idea is using turf algae versus the calerpa type refugium algae. The turf algae is a different composition and said to better at absorbing dissolved nutrient, {ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate and some metals}, from the water and yet, not spreading to the main tank. Its also based on a back & forth motion to the algae, plus exposure to oxygen, again as compared to submersed calerpa types. It also involves lighting the algae at night to keep the tanks oxygen levels up.

Mine is the commercial unit, that was once sold by a company mentioned in the attached thread. I bought it slightly used from a USA reefer, but it arrived with the body smashed to bits. We built a glass body for it. Ugly, but functions the same.

Mine has a 24in. by 10in. turf screen. Its lit by a pair of 55w pc,s and dumps about once or twice a minute, depending on how large the feed pump is.

Although rated for 250g, I found it could not keep up to my 225, without skimmer assistance. Now that could be my over feeding or whatever, but still a fact. We have played with it on smaller tanks, but perhaps not enough to draw a conclusion. During this move time for me, {in between tanks, :lol: }, a friends running it on his heavy load 180. Despite heavy skimming, he has some algae problems, including bubble algae. The scrubber appears to be helping.

I would assume one could run a properly set up tank, with a decent load and little or no live rock, on a turf scrubber alone. I think one of the problems with my 225, was although high flow, the amount of rock was limiting it a fair bit.

If its ok, here is a link to a dandy scrubber thread on Eric Borneman,s forum at RC.
{sheez. I cant make the link work. DOH.}. Its a 6 pager called ATS on Erics forum, if someone can link it from a search. Very good thread, including lots of pics and reference,s to Adeys books on it. And some good explanations of why truf algae?

The pic here is one of the new unit.

 

[Flatlander]

Pic of turf screen during the dump.

 

[piercho]

Doug, thanks for responding. Could you guess what your flow through the scrubber was, and what was the flow relative to the display tank volume? Do you intend to include an ATS in future set-ups? If not, what style tank do you think you will be moving towards?

I've figured a way to surge an ATS mounted below the tank using my RCSD, which surges over 10% of the display tank volume. Doing it that way makes the setup simple enough - relative to how my system is already plumbed - to be attractive to me to try. So that may be the next modification of my little experimental reef tank. Thanks in advance for anything else you or other ATS users have to offer from your experience.

 

[Flatlander]

Howard,
I fed the scrubber with a Hagen 800 ph. Posting here and re-reading the long thread on RC, got me thinking about flow again. I posted there again, so someone wont have to search for the thread. I was wondering if perhaps if more flow over the screen, would help the scrubber maintain a larger tank.

Wish I could link it for you. There are several pics and posts on scrubbers being set up and used as you wish to do.

Yes, I will use the scrubber again, on my future tank. I have to much inversted in it, to give it away or let it sit in the corner. :lol: However as I mentioned in my first post on this thread, I would likely still run a skimmer. Not that I want to but I see to much benefit from one.

I may set up a 280 I have access to, but depends where I move to and what my wife lets me put it. :lol: Also thinking of doing a standard 120 and trying to filter it only with the scrubber. One would think it would handle a talk that size with ease.

Lets try a link again,

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=39531&referrerid=186