Nutrient Pulse Reactor (DIY DyMiCo filter)

[CHSUB]

except for this filter, slow moving water @ ~300 gpd, your tank will be sumpless?

[dartier]

Originally Posted by CHSUB

except for this filter, slow moving water @ ~300 gpd, your tank will be sumpless?

Yes, the filter will be what we would traditionally think of as a sump, except it is only used to house single purpose equipment. Also the filter will be moving around ~450 gpd, and hopefully a bit more than that, if it can manage it (for the reason that I will explain later).

I am thinking of including a 15 gallon tank mounted above the DT off to the side. This would be where the effluent from the filter returns to. This 15 gallon tank will overflow back to the DT. It will serve a couple of purposes. The DyMiCo folks highly recommend using an aeration tower to help keep the PH up and to drive off the Nitrogen that the filter has converted the Nitrate to. I am trying to keep as much equipment out of the DT as possible, so this tank will include a couple methods of aeration. One will be a plain old fashioned airstone (fed with outside air). The other that I am thinking of using is a DC2000 pump with a needle wheel impeller and venturi fitting. Essentially a small skimmer pump, but without the skimmer, again fed with outside air. I am just not sure how plankton unfriendly that will prove to be, but since it is a DC pump, I can always dial it back and see if the tradeoff of having a very effective method of making fine bubbles, outweighs potential damage to plankton.

Water will be pumped from the DT to the 15G and allowed to return to the DT. This way the O2 can be kept up even when the filter is not actively returning water.

The other purpose of the 15G tank will be to house a power filter I am thinking of making. It will again use a small DC pump to push water into an acrylic cylinder. In the center of the cylinder will be a 10" x 2.5" 5 micron pleated RO filter. There will be a pipe that exits the cylinder at the bottom center, and on this pipe bib is where the pleated element will sit. The plan is for the pump to create a vortex inside the cylinder causing detritus and particles to be separated from the outflow exiting from the centre of the filter element. There will be one more way for water to exit the cylinder. This will be through a bulkhead on the bottom plate, or very low down on the side of the cylinder (depending on space constraints). This outflow will go to another bulkhead in the side of the 15G tank and will pass through a ball valve and then be routed to the waste water drain (conveniently located directly below where the 15G is to be mounted). This external drain will be kept closed during normal operation, but when you want to backwash the pleated element, you simply disable the vortex pump, open the ball valve and allow water to flow into the cylinder through the bottom center drain in reverse direction and then through the pleated element and out of the 15G down the drain. If the vortex pump is routed over the open top of the cylinder, then once the water levels drops below the feed pipe, then only water flowing through the element in reverse will be drained. Otherwise a ball valve will be required to isolate the cylinder from the vortex pump during backwash operation.

This vortex filter will hopefully be useful for taking care of suspended detritus that the DyMiCo manual suggests can build up and needs to be removed (depending on how far your tank leans towards pure SPS), and I plan on testing to see if it can also serve a purpose for controlling PO4. For this I plan to test using Iron Citrate, which like Lanthanum Chloride creates cloudy water that can affect Zebrasoma tangs and other sensitive fish. My hope is that by dosing into the feed of the vortex cylinder, the 5 micron filter will capture the reacted Iron Phosphate before it can flow back to the DT. This is why the need for a vortex. To give the Iron Citrate time to react with the phosphate and create iron phosphate particles and get captured by the 5 micron element.

The vortex cylinder would only be used sporadically to deal with water quality issues (detritus and PO4).

Dennis

[CHSUB]

what about heating/chilling the dt?

[dartier]

Originally Posted by CHSUB

what about heating/chilling the dt?

Well I am glad someone is asking the tough questions

Thank you for asking Chsub.

I am not concerned about cooling, but living in Canada, heating can be an issue though.

At this point I should probably mention that my plans have changed some what about the planned tank that this filter will be filtering. I had planned to use a 300 DD and was expecting to hide the heaters in the overflows, however after reading recent reports about failures of the 300 DD tanks, fear of getting wet feet, has given me cold feet. So I have decided to scrap the 300 DD and move up to a Miracles custom built tank instead. This will solve a bunch of irritants and create a bunch of benefits.

My list of Pros for changing tanks

1. No more ugly overflows taking up space and being visible in tank
2. Way more swimming room for fish and for aquascaping. New tank is 10' x 3' x 2.5' (120x36x30).
3. More viewing options. New tank will be visible from front and side instead of just front.
4. Will be 3/4" glass. Should last a lifetime!?
5. No need to worry about my stand design. Miracles will provide a metal stand.
6. No need to arrange movers to install the 300 DD. Miracles is 45 minutes away. They will deliver and install the tank.

My list of Cons for changing tanks

1. The new Miracles tank will be 5 times the price!
2. Need more lights!! I have 4 AP700s and 6 80W T5 retros on hand for the 300DD. Will need more T5's and perhaps a couple more AP700s.
3. The extra room required means more renovations to remove the rest of a wall and move the existing door to a different wall.
4. Part of a marble floor that is not even complete yet has to be removed
5. Hiding equipment in tank will be even harder than before

The new tank will be 560 gallons by my calculations. So it is going to actually be a bit over the maximum size of the model 2000 filter (from DyMiCo), that I patterned my filter on, allows for. Earlier in the thread I said the model 2000 was good for 2000L, but the manual actually says 1800L (460G) . Oops. I am not too worried about exceeding the recommendations. I assume they are referring to fish load, and I can always limit my stocking level to what is suggested or tell the fish to not swim in the other 300L

Besides, my filter may operate at a completely different efficiency level, so the recommendations may not even apply.

The new tank will be using an external overflow box on the end and starphire panels on the other 3 sides. Derrick at Miracles was nice enough to observe that if I ever moved and wanted to use the tank as a peninsula tank, I would need starphire on the back as well, so he is providing it in Starphire on 3 sides even though I only require 2. The end with the overflow will be painted black. So if I have to have something in the tank (like a heater), I am hoping that the black will allow the equipment to not be too obvious.

I am planning on having the external overflow box large enough to allow for a heater and 1 or 2 small DC pumps to be included inside it along with the overflows. Because this tank will be using a much, much lower flow filter, the overflows will not be carrying the typical volume that a 'normal' tank would. But I need to plan for the worst case, that the filter ends up being a total failure and that a regular sump, protein skimmer and calcium reactor will be required. So the overflow box will have the usual 3 drains capable of carrying nnnn GPH, while I will only be using nn GPH.

So to answer Chsub's question, I plan on installing a heater in my external 15G filtration tank and in the overflow box. Hopefully 2 800W heaters will be enough to heat this beast.

The DyMiCo filter's no water changes required methodology will be even more attractive on a 560G tank than it would have been on a 300G tank! Really looking forward to this upgrade.

Dennis

[dartier]

I dropped off the baffles to the glass shop on the weekend. They are going to polish off 1/16" by putting it through the polisher for a single pass on each side. That should give me an 1/8" to work with while siliconing.

I also asked them to make me some 12" x 1" strips that I plan to silicone to the sides and bottom of the tank housing the filter. Those will be for the baffles to butt up against as there will be several hundred pounds of water and gravel/sand wanting to push the baffles out of position.

Dennis

[Fredfish]

Originally Posted by dartier

Well I am glad someone is asking the tough questions

Thank you for asking Chsub.

I am not concerned about cooling, but living in Canada, heating can be an issue though.
...

Dennis

Dang, your in my neck of the woods Hurry up and build that filter so I can come over and copy it.

[dartier]

Originally Posted by Fredfish

Dang, your in my neck of the woods Hurry up and build that filter so I can come over and copy it.

Hehe, probably be awhile still before the filter is wet. I just sent my deposit in to Miracles on the 560G tank I decided I could not live without, so I will be focused on making room for it, so that I am ready for delivery. They provided and ETA of 8 weeks.

I had considered trying to get the filter up and running using a brute container, but after thinking about having to move it into place under the tank with the sand and coarse media in it, I decided that I should wait until it can be done in situ. I still have plenty of things that I can do anyway. The glass baffles should be ready by now, so I will try and pick them up. Then I need to order in the controller hardware and start planning out the control algorithm. Oh and I need to get an RPI speaking to the Reef Angel. Optoisolators came in last week.

Dennis

[Fredfish]

Yeah. I've learned over the years that 'temporary' often is not. That would be doubly true of something this size.

Wish I could afford a Miracles tank. They are well designed and built.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this project goes. This hobby tends to have a narrow view as to how to successfully manage waste in a closed environment.

[dartier]

Originally Posted by Fredfish

Yeah. I've learned over the years that 'temporary' often is not. That would be doubly true of something this size.

Wish I could afford a Miracles tank. They are well designed and built.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this project goes. This hobby tends to have a narrow view as to how to successfully manage waste in a closed environment.

Yes I am about as patient as ... well to be honest I am not actually very patient at all. Probably with a bit of OCD thrown in as well. So keeping it dry is taking a lot of willpower. It will work out in the end.

As to the Miracles tank, I was all the way down the road to using a 300 DD (hole in wall cut, stand made, tank purchased), but after seeing multiple reports of them failing, including one at the LFS where I purchased the tank, I decided it was not worth the risk. This is suppose to be my dream tank, so I only want to do this once.

I agree that the Berlin method does get most of the attention in this hobby. I have tried other filter techniques in the past. What attracts me to the DyMico filtration is the promise of a thriving food web lower down in the food chain. When I was running an ATS on an older tank, I can't deny that I spent too much time trying to make sure that I did not flush the smaller lifeforms (Isopods, etc.) along with the algae . It was that and the fact that scrapping the screens was disgusting that caused me to cease running one.

We will see where this goes. I still have a calcium reactor and skimmer standing by just incase. Mind you they were not sized for a 560G tank, so if it comes to that, then upgrades will be in order.

Dennis

[Fredfish]

I've always been a strong proponent of encouraging as much micro life as possible in your tank. Artificial foods for corals have made huge advances in the last 10 years, but you can't top Ma Nature for proper nutrients.

Your comments on the ATS are interesting. That is the route I'm going for my upcoming tank. The compactness and simple design of a vertical flow through ATS is quite attractive.
I'm not sure where I'll put it yet. The plan is to also have a modest above tank refugium to generate critters for the tank.

[dartier]

If in the future I wanted to go back to using algae as an export, I would lean towards trying one of those Chaeto reactors, as I would be more comfortable growing a macro rather than hair algae. Chaeto also lends itself well to this format as it grows compact, coiled self supporting structures.

It would be less onerous to harvest, but I would have the same concern about throwing out critters.

Dennis

[djbon]

Dartier, do you think the bacteria plankton is small enough for SPS and sun coral?. I do have SPS but thinking of getting sun coral if those tiny critters will be able to support sun coral in a long run without direct feeding.

[Funkateer_2]

Found this on g images. Looks like the system is just an aggressive DSB filter. I could see the benefits. My only fear is a power outage. It could lose O2 quick. Tagging along

[dartier]

Originally Posted by djbon

Dartier, do you think the bacteria plankton is small enough for SPS and sun coral?. I do have SPS but thinking of getting sun coral if those tiny critters will be able to support sun coral in a long run without direct feeding.

The bacteria plankton is definitely small enough for SPS. In fact it may be too small. However the parts of the food web that will develop above the bacteria will be in the target range for SPS.

For sun corals, it will be the same as SPS, even more so as they require larger prey items. It is with NPS corals, like the sun corals, where these types of filters really hit their stride. NPS require lots of feeding which becomes a challenge to keep water quality up and the DyMiCo style greatly assist with this.

Dennis

[dartier]

Originally Posted by Funkateer_2

Found this on g images. Looks like the system is just an aggressive DSB filter. I could see the benefits. My only fear is a power outage. It could lose O2 quick. Tagging along

Yup, that is one of the BETA units that they were testing over the past couple of years. Mine is a scaled up version of that, with more filter pipes similar to their launch versions.

I view this type of filter as an automated plenum / DSB meets calcium reactor.

As for power outage, yes also a concern for me. Initially I am going to rely on UPS backup, but in the spring I will move ahead with the installation of a whole house backup generator. I was already planning the generator anyway, but this filter will make it key.

Dennis

[djbon]

Originally Posted by dartier

The bacteria plankton is definitely small enough for SPS. In fact it may be too small. However the parts of the food web that will develop above the bacteria will be in the target range for SPS.

For sun corals, it will be the same as SPS, even more so as they require larger prey items. It is with NPS corals, like the sun corals, where these types of filters really hit their stride. NPS require lots of feeding which becomes a challenge to keep water quality up and the DyMiCo style greatly assist with this.

Dennis

Great. Thanks for the information.

[OzIA]

Just checking to see if you have made any progress?

[dartier]

Originally Posted by OzIA

Just checking to see if you have made any progress?

A bit of progress, but nothing worth posting about. I kind of got sidetracked with removing more wall and moving the doorway to my fishroom after deciding on a 10ft tank instead of 6ft one.

As for the filter, I have ordered a pipe cleaning brush online and am waiting for it to arrive before I do final assembly of the plumbing (inside the filter) just so I can test if it will be possible to clean the internal pipes with the planned pipe pattern.

For the media separator, I was going to source perforated PVC sheet like the original filter uses, but I think I am going to try using the white needlepoint mesh instead. Far easier to find locally (Walmart), cheaper, and it should mould itself nicely to the contours of the coarse layer it rests on. I was worried about the PVC sheet tilting and spilling the sanded into the coarse media over time. The fact the tank I am using for the body of the filter has a rim and cross brace, also influenced my decision to use the flexible needle point mesh. To give it a bit more structural support, I will zip tie in some fiberglass fence stretchers.

For the coarse media itself, I think I am going to have to make a trip to the border to take advantage of better pricing at BRS and free shipping inside US. Probably grab a big order of Reef Saver rock at the same time. Even dry rock is crazy expensive in Canada.

Dennis

[dartier]

Speak of the devil and the pipe cleaning brush from hell arrives. Not a very good brush at all, but it did highlight the issue that the 45 degree bends in the outside lower pipes will make cleaning them all but impossible once the filter is assembled and filled with media. This is what I was leaning towards as the possible outcome. So I will make a new set of pipes that is just straight across. I can install them with the slits pointed towards the outside of the tank to try and pull from area the dog legs were trying to account for.

Dennis

[OzIA]

If I might make a suggestion on your media separator...

Drain sleeve.

I buy a roll from time to time for multiple uses. It makes nice media bags but I have used it to separate media strata that I didn't want mixing up. It is marketed as a sleeve for drain pipes to prevent sand and dirt from clogging up the pipe. It is strong, flexible and doesn't break down, even after being in for years. Cut to length and open one end of the sleeve to make flat.

Aaron

[dartier]

Hmm, thanks for the suggestion Aaron. I looked it up on the HD site, and it kind of looks like soft mesh made of nylon. I will check it out this weekend when I am out and about.

The more that I have thought about the separator between layers, the more I have wondered how important it is to prevent the sand from making its way to the bottom area. The PVC sheet that the DyMiCo folks use, appears to have quite large perforations (5-6mm), so about 1/4". So some of the sandbed would escape over time. As the bottom of the filter is really intended to be a calcium reactor, these liberated sand particles are most likely just dissolved.

Hmm, in the manual, they do mention that you may need to replenish the sand bed after 1 year, whereas the coarse layer will last several years. That always seemed backwards to me, but I guess if the sand is being washed through the holes, then that would explain it.

Dennis

[OzIA]

I would imagine that if there is no barrier between the media, the sand will migrate into the larger voids and eventually the whole thing will become one homogenous mix. This may limit the flow enough till you end up with a solid lump of calcium carbonate.

[OzIA]

I did a little experiment last night. I had previously built and set up a plastic box, about 8X8X20 in one of my tanks. The box contained four (4) 4X8X8 blocks of Marine Pure with two blocks placed back to back on each end of the box. An ORP probe was place in the center, along with a center exit pipe. I submerged the box below the water line in the sump, with the exit pipe slightly above the water line. This prevented water from flowing back into the box when the pump was turned off.

I used a small pump to push water into the box on both sides toward the middle, through the Marine Pure. The system ran for a couple of weeks in a small 60 gallon FOLR tank with four medium size fish.

Last night, I used an APEX DOS pump to apply organic carbon. I primed the system by first turning off the larger pump. I ran the DOS (CH2 500 ml @ 250 ml/min) in the same direction while dosing 6 ml of a homemade organic carbon solution (water, vodka and sugar). After that initial dose, I ran CH2 at 60ml/min for 120 ml per dose, about every 6 minutes to circulate the carbon slowly through the Marine Pure.

When the ORB on the Apex dropped to 150, I purged the dose out and started again to see if the reaction could easily be restarted. The second test, I let run all night and found it at 0 ORP the next morning.

I dropped the PH probe into exit tube and found the PH had dropped to about 7.4 from 8.0 I took a reading from the water in the center of the box and found the nitrate had dropped from 8.0 ppm to 4.0 ppm. The Phosphate had also dropped from 0.16 to 0.08.

I will try to see if I can automate this process so that it runs by itself. It seems that completely purging the box with fresh water may be too much because it takes longer than I expected to get the ORP back down.

[dartier]

Cool experiment. This is along the lines of how the DyMiCo filters operate, and how my DIY version will operate. I am not sure if you are running the DOS pump under ORP control or timed? The DyMiCo filters allow ORP to guide the process and derive the duty cycle from the ORP level and rate of descent (as far as I can speculate at this point).

When you noticed that it takes a long time to get the ORP level to drop if your flow is too high, this is likely due to the bacteria colony being insufficient to consume the oxygen quickly. Also if the ORP gets too high, you can also lose portions of the colony that are dependent on anoxic conditions and perish when the oxygen level becomes too high.

Since you are seeing reductions in PO4, your bacteria population is probably still becoming established.

Dennis

[OzIA]

The intent behind the experiment was to determine exactly how all of this might work and to see if I could get the CerMedia, housing the bacteria to perform the way this DyMiCo filter does, at least from a nitrate and phosphate removal process.

A few updates since this morning’s post.

I found that the Apex does not know how to handle the lower millivolt ranges that the probe hits. The Apex bottoms out with a zero ORP reading and won’t go negative. However, I can set the probe up as a pH probe and it will continue to read. I have a request in to Apex to get the raw milli-volt readings for both the pH and ORP values so I can convert to milli-volts.

I also saw what I believe is your “knee” effect on the pHX (actually an ORP probe). Once the probe started to read about 10.5 it started to rise (or fall in reality if I were looking at the mv reading of the probe) rapidly. Check it the thumbnail below.

I also noticed that I don’t need to dos the carbon that often. A small bump of water added will keep things from crashing. Also, the actual pH probe I moved into the filter is running a pH of around 7.2 to 7.3. I am not sure what that is a result of but I assume it is related to lower O2 levels.


Aaron