Filtration rates, flow, and other questions

Hi All

I've been following this thread like a hawk and decided to build my sump this weekend, i'll be using the Prof's concept (Can't wait!!!!).

Just a few questions, first question i wanted to fill the whole chamber of the sump (80l) with Siporax but it is really expensive at R1400 for 10l or R170 for 1l, i decided to fill 2/3 of the chamber with gravel and then 1/3 with Siporax and on top some fine filter floss . (What do you guys think will this be ok? and what gravel should i use?).

Second question, I'm not too sure what power head to use can someone please suggest a brand name or guidelines??

I want to build 100l sumps for all my tanks, but this would take a few years because this is really expensive!!! Are there maybe a sponsor who are a little cheaper than a lps.

Thank you all for the food for thought and very interesting reading!!!

 

Hi all.

Some nice reading. I have a 2.4m 800 liter tank. I am using two Tetratec EX1200 and two Eheim 2213 canister filters on this tank but there is always stuff floating around. I do some cleaning using siphoning every 2nd week, but only at the front and sides as the tank is planted with rocks and bogwood. I remove around 120 liters of water this way. In the last 6-8 months I only lost a platty and 3 Danios.

I want to make some kind of filters using two 60 liter drums (blue food grade with the clamp shut top). I want to get rid of the 4 canister filters as I am tired of the pipes and cabling. Using a siphoning system to get the water to the drums and a pump pumping it back. I am looking into using open cell foam (expensive) or bio balls (still expensive) for filtration.

Did anyone do something similar to this or can give me some ideas. I don't want to use a sump as its open.

Any ideas out there?

Thanks

 

I am Neo and THIS is The MATRIX....lol

Hi , guys

Just to correct Zoom, I DO IMPORT Seachem Laboratories products.
I don't keep conversations recorded on this harddrive, but let's rather focus on what he may be referring to?

Our parent company AQuality Distribution is the longest standing, original authorised Distributors of the range mentioned.
...have merely not been aggressively marketing it like other companies are/doing.

I have bucketsfull of Eheims product, as well as many litres of SchottGlaswerke Siporax.

ALL still in use, with some excess, or new product as standby if needed.
:amazed:No reason to discard it.

Sera have a licensed agreement to sell CO-BRANDED Sera Siporax, by the way.
Several other aquarium companies may resell the EXACT same thing.
eg. Aquatic EcoSystems will sell it too...
I totally exclude any pretenders, or cheap copies...of which there are many!

However, there are some OTHER companies which produce their OWN Sintered Glass Biological media product.
Siporax , and the similar tubular media tends to clog faster, and requires crystal clear water, merely laden with the organics to be processes biologically.
THIS factor applies to all biomedia, but some suffer due to it more than others...
It does clog it's micropores , regularly, thus eventually petering out in efficiency.
BUT, I still like it.

That is, Until I found Eheim's ehfi range of substratPro...which also had limitations, including price.
Yet is a great sintered glass product as well!

there are many similar products..glass based, and ceramic too...

However,
I have finally settled on Seachem Matrix
It's advertised claims...have been able to bear up under my scrutiny.. for around 10years now...
It is a natural stone product, not sintered glass, nor ceramic.
I get aerobic AND anaeorbic filtration benefits, so filter size and scale is much more compact...and it can even be RINSED, under Tapwater (within working ranges)

It handles quite variable flow rate, even brisk turnover is well-handled..which is important for my applications...

But don't believe ME, nor the advertising....
Just know I USE more of Seachem Matrix than I care to sell.
THAT's how selfish I have been with this BIO medium
....marine, reef, brackish, tropicals and even PONDS have some stashed away as part of filtration, if not the SOLE Biofiltration component.

There are a few salient points to note in this, albeit ON seachem's site.
They work very closely with the University of Georgia for objective analysis to compare or improve their own in-house facilities.

Staff are ALL fishkeepers.
A large percentage of their key personnel are Chemists, Biochemists, and hold relevant work-related qualifications.

What is not known, is what ZOOM asked me, and I pointed him to the online resource, which Dirk(or everybody else) can access, to help him decide.

Here's the Product Page For Seachem Matrix

here's a very descriptive, comparative, scientific analysis (PDF)

I always feel that a well-made product should have a price that reflects it's quality.
If it is to be imported... that also impacts consumer purchase price, due to to supply chain and margins.

Nobody is saying, that heavy marketing must be to compensate for an inadequacy.
it may be, or it may not....
First hand results, , which are repeatable, speak for themselves.
Declarations and as much open-ness allowed for by a company, without infringing proprietary or intellectual property revelations, are why I like, prefer, recommend and sell Seachem product.

Note I don't endorse all of their products, for the same reason I don't accept everything at face value. The company openly admits, that they prefer to recommend novel, effective product and not sell "me-too" product formulations.

Anybody can use Seachem support forums, or access the library of articles on the site.

NB I must say i did not make any sale of Seachem Matrix Biomedia to ZOOM.
So, no commercial intent is inherent in this post.
​

 

I confirm this. I purchased my Matrix from an LPS on a spur of the moment decision for my new set up.

 

Have you guys considered Lava rock? Like the bags you get for Koi pond filtration? If I remember correctly it's actually quite cheap.

 

and here I thought getting some Easy-Life Symbiont& JBL MicroMec
was a clever move... @Altum thanks for the paper "A Study of Specific Surface Area for Matrix, Eheim Substrat Pro, and JBL MicroMec" good reading.

Later Ferdie

 

Hi. Does anyone use clinofish as in zeolit? Cheap for a 25kg bag.

 

Hi Guys,

I have watched a number of you respond now including altum, and I would like to have the different products that have been discussed here lined up next to each other with their own respective sales advertisements. Why I say this is because although altum has tried to give a balanced view on this, he has only quoted the Seachem website comparisons and he is after all the agent, so in my scientific opinion this is not a balanced comparison. So these are the different sales advertisements, including Sintomec which I also found in my searches, and I have indicated their links so that you can go and read more:

[FONT=&quot]Eheim, Substrat Pro:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]From:[/FONT][FONT=&quot]http://www.aquatics-online.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Eheim_Filter_Mediums_135.html[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Substratpro: [/FONT][FONT=&quot]New Intensive filtration[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The newest product from Eheim research improves and optimises the performance of their existing Ehfisubstrat[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Spherical Filter Material : [/FONT][FONT=&quot]guarantees optimum utilisation of the filter chamber of the employed filter and ensures an even water flow in the filter bed[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Enlarged Pore Structure : [/FONT][FONT=&quot]ensures optimum colonisation of the bacteria required for the conversion process (nitro-bacteria) and delays the silting-up of the pores to a great extent[/FONT]

• [FONT=&quot]Much quicker breakdown of nitrite load peaks which can arise due to overfeeding or increase of the fish stocking[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Hard, break resistant, sintered glass material guarantees total water neutrality with regard to pH and hardness. Guaranteed breakdown of pollutants for at least 6 months due to optimised pore structure[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Much longer intervals between cleaning [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]MicroMec and SintoMec[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]From: http://www.jbl.de/en/aquatics-freshwater-products/detail/2417/jbl-sintomec[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]JBL SintoMec[/FONT]

• [FONT=&quot]High-quality sintered glass rings for intensive biological water clarifying. [/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Internal hole diameter only 5 mm, resulting in thicker wall depth and providing more effective surface for bacteria which breakdown pollutants. [/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]1 liter has 1200 m2 effective surface, 5 times as much as conventional clay tubes. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]From: http://www.jbl.de/en/aquatics-freshwater-products/detail/3073/jbl-micromec-cp-e#info[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]JBL Micromec[/FONT]

• [FONT=&quot]High-quality sintered glass balls for crystal-clear water. [/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]With only 14 mm ball diameter, also suitable for small filters. [/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Conical tunnel pores allow algae-promoting nitrates to be broken down. [/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]More intensive breakdown of ammonium and nitrite. [/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]1 liter has 1500 m2 effective surface, 8 times as much as conventional ceramic pipes. [/FONT]

Siporax:
From: http://www.sera.de/fileadmin/gbi/08472-sera-siporax-40-01-INT.pdf
Sera Siporax:
Due to the fact that this is a pdf I cannot cut and paste but essentially it is saying pretty much the same as for the other media. Important information: 270 m2 per liter, recommendation of 1 liter per 200 litres of aquarium water.

From the Seachem Matrix article: http://www.seachem.com/support/SpecificSurface.pdf
[FONT=&quot]BET surface area measurements indicate that Matrix contains nearly 10 times the specific surface area of Substrat Pro, and more than 20 times the specific surface area of MicroMec. Practically all the specific surface area of both Substrat Pro and MicroMec are in the range of pore diameters to be biologically useful, while some of the surface area of Matrix is in pores that are reserved for physical and chemical processes, not biological processes. Estimates from two different pore geometries indicate that Matrix contains between 4 to 4.5 times the biologically active surface area of Substrat Pro, and between 8 to 9 times the biologically active surface area of MicroMec.[/FONT]


Now, having given you this, I want to indicate that the sales angle of Seachem is misleading. On the website they state that the surface area of Matrix is 10 times that of substrate pro and 20 times that of Micromec. If you go and read their own article they say that the biologically active surface area of Matrix is 4 - 4.5 times more than Substrate pro and 9 times that of Micromec. It is only the biologically active area which is important so the 10 x and 20 x claim is not relevant yet they have it on their website where you see it first.

If I see this then I doubt everything else as well. Compare this to the figures that are given by Micromec and Substrate Pro, can I believe Seachem? Who did the research for Seachem Matrix? No one else than the Seachem laboratories. Is this an independent assessment? No, definitely not, this is a sales advertisement. In Science this would not be accepted. If this was to be sent to an independent reviewer, he/she would immediately state that this data is fundamentally flawed because it is produced by the company itself and is not independent. So, you can decide what you want to believe?

What I would also like you to look at is advised rates of how much do you need. I cannot find a recommendation for Micromec, Sintomec and substrate pro. Siporax says 1 litre per 200 litres, but Seachem says 500 ml per 200 litres. Siporax says the surface area of 1 liter is 270 m2 whilst Seachem says 700 m2, about three times as much. So why do Seachem not say that you should only use one third of a liter as the surface area is then the same? Well either they want you to buy more or they are saying that the flow rate through the medium plays a role. This is very important in my opinion. Seachem Matrix consists of smaller balls which will allow only smaller spaces between them. This WILL influence flow rate. By comparison flow rate through Siporax will be better because it consists of tubes. So, flow rate must have something to do with it, right? If you have a canister filter flow rate is critical, if the flow rate is reduced, oxygen is reduced and the biological filter is just simply less active. So you can decide which is going to work for your filter.

Finally, it has been stated by Altum that Siporax tends to clog. I have used Siporax now for 22 years and it has never clogged in my hands. I have some that is 22 years old and it is still intact and working. When I clean my filters that contains Siporax there is no sediment coming from these compartments nor does anything stick to the Siporax, so I have not seen any evidence of clogging.

So, eventually it boils down to price and flow properties in my opinion. I wish to state here as well, that I represent none of these companies and that I have no linkages with any of them. What I do have is a training that teaches me to how to compare such things scientifically.

Perhaps you can now decide which medium you would prefer.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thanks Prof .. some insight in that indeed.

BTW ...

http://www.easylife.nl/english/freshwater_aquarium_products/symbiont.html
Easy-Life Symbiont consists of fully porous pellets in which billions of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria can thrive to degrade ammonium, nitrite and nitrate. It is a very safe, inert and efficient biological filter medium, which saves a lot of space in the filter. Easyl-Life Symbiont is made of premium sintered glass and has a superior surface area available to bacteria. It works intensively and for a long period of time. 300 g Easy-Life Symbiont are sufficient for the filtering of up to 900l freshwater or 450l marine water.

So if we have some of these how do we evaluate for ourselves what is best? I recall a LFS owner once tried to show me the ability of a specific ceramic media to absorb water via I assume the capillary affect - so would a true measure of porosity be something like "Water saturation method (pore volume = total volume of water − volume of water left after soaking)"

Sounds like a simple enough test to do at home - pending measurement accuracy.

Later Ferdie

 

Ferdie, I also thought of this. But in the end it will still mean nothing. The water is the vehicle used to get O2 to the bacteria. The pores can be so small to increase surface area, that the time it takes to do so, is simply too long. The O2 then does not get to the bacteria in the time it should and is therefore not so effective as something with a smaller surface area, yet the bigger surface area will absorb more water.

I am not trying to be clever, just bouncing my thoughts.

 

Prof, coming back to your sump design you generously provided, is it safe to say that this process can be repeated to increase filtration? It's silly to divide that big compartment into smaller compartments of say 100mm wide, but if I double the entire filter i.e. 2-3 compartments of 300mm each, the effective filtration would be increased IF oxygen is added correct?

I built my new sump with compartments that are 300x200mm, and added a air stone bar at each level change i.e. under-overflow, thus re-injecting oxygen into the water before it enters the next compartment.

Keeping the principle in mind that "one can never have too much filtration", would you deem this an effective filter? I've got a 3ft sump on a 4ft tank, with siporax, bio balls and lava rock as my bio media.

Thanks!

 

Remember that anaerobic bacteria is also beneficial to a filter, and cannot survive in oxygen rich environments. You would as such ultimately have the aerobic on the outer, oxygen rich part, with the anaerobic bacteria more towards the inside...

 

Thanks for bringing that up. I do not understand. To be anaerobic, means there is no waterflow present, hence no oxygen. So how is anaerobic beneficial to your water, if it never gets there?

 

Ahaa, common misconception. Anaerobic merely refers to the absence of oxygen, and not water flow. Flowing water can still be oxygen free as long as it's not agitated...

 

OK, but the point then remains. If the pores is too small, water can not flow and is trapped, therefore, no anaerobic or any other action. The test you suggested can well be of benefit. Time how long it takes to satisfy the product with water absorption. The amount is therefore an indication, but time the other factor.

Am I looking upside down at this movie?

 

A quick comment as I need to go home.

Shibby, you have misunderstood a point I made earlier and that is that if you add more compartments you narrow the flow through area and because of this to reduce the flow rate through the whole system thereby reducing the total biological filtration. Please read through my earlier explanations and forget about multiple chambers following each other, make one chamber and thats it.

When you have this sort of filter type where water flows through the system relatively quickly, there is no anaerobic filtration for all intents and purposes. You really have to slow the filter to a trickle, exclude all oxygen and then you may have an anaerobic system, but this talk of part of the porous medium performing anaerobic filtration, I just simply do not believe because I have experimented with these systems extensively and do not get nitrate reduction which is the result of anaerobic filtration in such filters unless the system is completely shut off and starved of oxygen.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi all,

I finished building my sump tonight!!! (Thanks Prof for the drawing) Now for the hard part, still not to sure what media to put in. Is lava rocks suitable or will it change the ph of my water, i already have trouble with high ph. So here is what i thought to use in my sump, bottom layer normal gravel (gravel size +- 1cm, second layer perhaps lava rock, third layer Siporax and top layer filter wool. Please give some advice on what to put in the sump, i want the best for my little wet friends!!!!

Thanks

 

Hi Gerrit,

The solid media that you propose to use sound fine, gravel, larvae rock and siporax, but you may find that you have problems in getting the filter wool to seal the corners so that it catches all the particles that go into the filter. I prefer to use a 3 cm sheet of sponge, which I cut 5mm to 1cm larger than the dimensions of the filter to ensure a tight fit. You can consider putting one or two stones on the sponge for the first week or so, just so that it does not bulge up. You could consider putting your filter wool on top of this, but this is a personal choice.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi Dirk

Sorry to bother you again, i used your thread for the overflow to the sump but what would happen if the electricity goes out, won't the sump overflow if the power head isn't pumping the water back to the aquarium? OK so if i drill holes in the pvc pipe just under the water level of my aquarium, the siphon will stop if the power goes out but what if the power gets back on and i am not at home will the siphon start again automatically because the power head will start pumping the water back to the aquarium and empty the sump??

Last Question: I used pvc glue to glue the pipes together but isn't the glue toxic to the fish????

I would like to thank you for all the advice, patience and diy you gave me and other members. IT IS REALLY APRECIATED!!!!!!

 

Hi Gerrit,

Let me answer the last question first: PVC contains a toxic solvent, but this evaporates within 24 hours after which it is gone and then the remainder of the glue is not toxic. So, give the glue a good 36 - 48 hours to dry completely, if you leave the PVC pipes that you have glued together to lie in the sun for a short period of time that would assist matters and then it will be OK. I would wash the pipes properly with water before installation, but then it should be fine.

With regard to your first question, you have to look at the overflow design carefully and for this reason I show the sketch again:



Ok so now you have glued all these parts together. The left arm sticks into your aquarium, the right arm into your sump. To get the syphon started, you put a smaller amount of water into the U and you fill up the U by pouring it into 1 which is open and stays open, you MUST keep it open. Now you remove the air in 2 by sucking on the airpipe that you have connected to above where "2" is written and you clamp that airpipe, and you have your syphon established. The water level in your aquarium will now fill up the U up to the level in the aquarium and that level should be where the "3" is written. What this then means is that if you add more water into your aquarium it will then overflow down pipe 3. However, it IS NOT SYPHONING DOWN PIPE 3, because pipe 1 is open, this is not a syphon. In other words, if say your pump goes off, and now no water is pumped into your aquarium, then the water flows from the aquarium into the U and down pipe 3 until the water level in the aquarium drops to the level of 3 and THEN ITS STOPS FLOWING, it DOES NOT OVERFLOW ANYMORE. Once you start your pump again the water level in the aquarium goes up again and because the syphon at 2 is NOT BROKEN, it starts flowing again and water starts flowing down pipe 3 again, and your sump continues with water flow through it.

So this is exactly what would happen when you have a power fail and your pump stops. As long as you sump has enough water capacity to carry the overflow volume which should be about 20 litres at most, then you will have no problem with a power break when you are not home. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES must you drill any holes in the syphon so that it stops when the water level drops, because after the powerfail the pumps will come on and then if the syphon is broken THE TANK WILL OVERFLOW and YOUR SUMP WILL BE PUMPED DRY. The syphon has to be maintained at all times, but the aquarium can't flow dry, the sump can't overflow if it is large enough and after a powerfail all will continue as before.

I hope you understand.

Kind regards,

Dirk