More medie and lower turnover vs

[razE]

Hi guys,

I would like to hear what you guys think or possibly know from experience.

I was thinking that water turnover may be more important to canister filters and a low turnover, large sump with huge amounts of media would make up for the slower turnover.

What do you guys think?

 

[tlindsey]

Hi guys,

I would like to hear what you guys think or possibly know from experience.

I was thinking that water turnover may be more important to canister filters and a low turnover, large sump with huge amounts of media would make up for the slower turnover.

What do you guys think?

This may help
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/tank-minimum-flow-turnover.745648/post-8404691

 

[razE]

This may help
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/tank-minimum-flow-turnover.745648/post-8404691

Thanks for the link

It starts with

"Turnover rate has to do with making sure all the water in the tank flows thru the biomedia enough times to remove ammonia, so that ammonia doesn't build up, and poison the fish."

My thoughts are the more media, the less times it has to flow through it.

I don't know if I'm correct of course, I just thought it was interesting

 

[duanes]

The waste output of your fish, determines the stable population of beneficial bacteria in your filter, not the amount of media.
Of course if you are heavily stocked you might need more surface area for beneficial bacteria to live on, bu consider the head of a pin can house millions.
In my 300 gallon system, I use 3 small bags of rings and a 6" cube of pumice as an adequate amount biomedia for my stock, on the sumps left end.
Of course the other 80% of the sump/filter is heavily planted, because normal bio filtration does nothing to eliminate nitrate.
The plants do, along with having a surface area for beneficial biofilm to to live on.

 

[Midwater]

Yes. I go for large sumps with lots of media.

My twelve foot tank has an eight foot sump, but the flow turnover is only 1.5 times per hour.

 

[esoxlucius]

Firstly, you need to understand that more bio media doesn't equate to more BB. The size of your BB colony is solely dependant on your bio load.

So, a pokey little cannister filter bio compartment will contain just as much BB as a sprawling open bio section in a spacious sump. Add a few new fish to the set up and the BB numbers increase. Take fish out of the set up and BB numbers decrease.

What may be a little less clear is how fast your water actually needs to flow (turnover), to ensure that harmful waste is extracted efficiently. We all have different turnover rates. Does that make some of us right and some of us wrong if all our parameters are good?

Turnover figures of 10x your tank volume were once the norm. That is crazy. Maybe for reefers, but certainly not required in freshwater set ups. And of course you need to think of what type of fish you have too before aiming for ludicrous turnover rates.

Midwater 1.5 turnover seems a pittance and many may be surprised, but it isn't, far from it. I reckon mines around the same on my 400g system, and there's never a hint of ammonia in my system.

 

[razE]

Thanks for all of your replies!

So I agree that the bacteria colony will grow to meet the amount of waste in the water but wouldn't the colony be bigger with a slower turnover as more would be required to keep up with the amount of waste in the water?

 

[duanes]

Thanks for all of your replies!

So I agree that the bacteria colony will grow to meet the amount of waste in the water but wouldn't the colony be bigger with a slower turnover as more would be required to keep up with the amount of waste in the water?

One of the things that determine beneficial bacteria robustness' is how aerobic the conditions are .
The higher the dissolved oxygen in water, the more robust the beneficial bacterial population.
In some cases this might mean the faster the water moves the better. Although that is not always the case.

Fish like trout prefer colder fast moving streams, so dissolved oxygen is high in those conditions.
Some twarm water ropical species are also rheophillic and come from areas where strong water movement increases the oxygen level, such as many Geophagines, Tommocichla and Hydrocynus.
There are also many species that don't need that movement , and do well in more sedate conditions, Anabanids and others that are able to make use of atmospheric oxygen come to mind.
Water movement is more about what species you keep, than some generic water movement formula.

I keep rheophillic species so I try to match their specific natural flow conditions.
This is the river where I catch many of them.

So this is the flow from my sump to the tank
.

 

[Midwater]

Another feature in a sump is baffles. I go for lots of pairs of under and over baffles, so that the entire flow is exposed to the air at each pair.

Canisters do not have them (I think).

 

[razE]

Nice, I have a drip system inside the sump. I assume this will increase oxygen as the water runs over the top of the acrylic plate and then falls down below.

So when we are talking about dissolved oxygen in the water, would there be many systems that could use a change to create more oxygen or would the general aquarium have enough?