using a Plenum in a aquarium

[mojoreef]

Hey Mr.Firemouth nice tank, but its not a plenum, to be honest Bob G's is not even close to a plenum either. The plenum system/concept was design by Jeaubert, while working at the Monaco Aquarium. None of these systems come close to his design or concepts of one.

Mike

 

[Flatlander]

Hi Mike

 

[mojoreef]

Hey you canuck!!!!!! how many feet of snow you got??


Mike

 

[Flatlander]

Hey you canuck!!!!!! how many feet of snow you got??


Mike

Just a couple feet. Have not seen you around much and thought perhaps you shut down the hobby. Should have know I would see you again in a plenum thread. :lol:

And I still have intentions to try a proper one again, but still have not got around to it.

 

[seahawkone]

I have a 120gal set up on a true Jeaubert system.I've run all my tanks starting with a20gal to a55 to a75 to my 120gal reef on the Jeaubert system.I add a little kalkwasser in my top off water. I'll run a small skimmer one or two days mo. I read all the stories of falures and guess it to do with the setup or how they are maintained.Yet over the last 12 years I've only had great setups. If done right and maintained it's the lowest cost easy to do marine reef setup ever.

 

[mcneilwh]

I am new transplant to this forum, and I have been posting on reef central for about 8-10 months now.

I believe in plenums, but you have to be careful, because over time I think that they can really work against you if you are not careful. Like all active filters over time they need to be rejuvenated or cleaned, and that is hard to do with all your beautiful corals sitting on top.

I had a plenum for 12 months. I fed my tank calcium acetate via vinegar in the top-off water which was fed into the limewater reactor. It worked great, Calcium and Alkalinity were never a problem, and neither were phosphates or nitrates. I feed my tank about 1 cup of 5% vinegar every 4-5 days depending on evaporation rates.

When I moved about a month ago; the tank was dismantled and I had homemade aragonite, nice big long sheets. I was kind of cool actually, but it told me that the plenum was on its way out, and the phosphates and nitrates spiked.

This time around I went with a shallow sand bed in the tank, and a RDSB (Remote deep sand bed) with a plenum/under-gravel filter outside the tank in a 5 gallon bucket. It is feed with a steady trickle of water from the main pump, and the vinegar in the top off water feeds enters the tank at the bottom of the RDSB, so it gets the nutrients first. The flow through the bucket is about a 2 times per day turnover. I just started it about a week ago, and will probably take about 3-5 more weeks till I see any results. So far pH is not a problem, but if it becomes one then I will switch to vodka.

My theory is that the RDSB will trap and or react most of my nutrients. When it starts to harden and become less effective, then I just change it out.

 

[OldFishMan]

Hello Gentlemen;

IMHO : I think if you run any water through a submerged plenum under substrate of any type forward/backward/sideways it becomes a UGF.

I use UGF's in all my tanks :shock:

This post is very informative backed with real world experience, please, keep it up!

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"Any two variables which do not commute cannot be measured simultaneously — the more precisely one is known, the less precisely the other can be known."

Heisenberg - "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum mechanics.


Enjoy!

OFM

 

[mcneilwh]

update on the remote deep sand bed, 30 days later.

I switch to vodka dosing because the RDSB was not neutralizing all of the vinegar, and the residual vinegar neutralized some of my alkalinity. This resulted in 1-2 point drops in alkalinity during the automatic top-offs. This was not good.

The phosphates are <0.03mg/L on the saliferts, and about 0.1mg/L on the Red Sea. I believe the Red Sea a little more. Nitrates are still not detectable.

In the past when my tank water measured about 0.1mg/L with the Red Sea, it was not detectable after running RowaPhos for about 3 days.

Therefore the RDSB will take the phosphates out to a point, but RowaPhos is needed to drop the levels to more ideal levels.