I think this is a huge point! The faster the poo/uneaten food, is removed the better. He's not talking about trapping it in a filter sock but completely removing it from the water column before it even starts to break down. This is a new paradigm for me just like when I fully understood the trickle system. This is the first time for me understanding the need to remove the particulate matter in the water VS. just trapping it. The sooner its removed the less impact it has on overall water quality. Thanks HULON, youre a genius.
CREATING THE ULTIMATE FILTRATION AND EVOLVING WITH YOUR FISH!!!!!!
- Thread starter HULON
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I think this is a huge point! The faster the poo/uneaten food, is removed the better. He's not talking about trapping it in a filter sock but completely removing it from the water column before it even starts to break down. This is a new paradigm for me just like when I fully understood the trickle system. This is the first time for me understanding the need to remove the particulate matter in the water VS. just trapping it. The sooner its removed the less impact it has on overall water quality. Thanks HULON, youre a genius.
Hulon what type of closed system are you using the backflush on, diatom pool filter?
Db I agree 100% with pre ageing , wish I.had a 250 gal container. I'm using 2 55 gal containers and I never have enough fresh water to satisfy my wc desires. My smaller containers get to room temp within the ageing process, room is tropical hot from all the tanks. You stated that you add the water cold. I'm planning on moving my room to the basement and was concerned about heating the ageing bins wich will be in an unfinished portion. Are you doing small% @ each wc? I was thinking drip from the containers to get around heating
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Db I agree 100% with pre ageing , wish I.had a 250 gal container. I'm using 2 55 gal containers and I never have enough fresh water to satisfy my wc desires. My smaller containers get to room temp within the ageing process, room is tropical hot from all the tanks. You stated that you add the water cold. I'm planning on moving my room to the basement and was concerned about heating the ageing bins wich will be in an unfinished portion. Are you doing small% @ each wc? I was thinking drip from the containers to get around heating
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It's a good point, but not only for a closed loop system. The same goes for any type of filter, if you're willing to do with work. I could just as well run a 1 or 5 micron sock in my sump and change it out every day too. Just depends how much work you're willing to put in
I think aging water is a good thing. I always used to think it was silly, until I started keeping discus. Now I know why discus breeders do what they do and refuse to change their practices. Discus are definitely not like any other fish I've kept and you'll soon find out that gas bubble disease is a very real issue with these fish. The super-saturation of gases in your tap water can cause big problems for discus. And the only way to treat this is by aging your water. There's a reason they use de-gassing towers in aquaculture. When doing water changes with straight tap water I'd get a ton of gas bubbles on the discus while other fish in the tank were fine. The bubbles almost look to be stuck under their skin. They'd totally freak out and swim erratically, or just turn dark and hide in the corner. Not sure what it is about discus but they are very different than your typical cichlid. Once I started aging water that problem went away.
I don't age my water anymore since I just have regular cichlids, but I can definitely see its benefits depending on the fish you keep and the source of your water.
And on a related note, this weekend I converted my tank to an automated water change setup. Here's the details for those that haven't seen my thread. I'm loving it so far. The tank is clearer than ever before (because I was getting lazy and slacking off on the water changes). Now I have nothing to worry about 
Finally got around to converting the water change system on my 190g. Before I had it setup as a semi-automatic system as you can see in my build thread (link in sig). I had an aging barrel with a pump and a separate pump to drain water to a nearby sink. The two pumps were controlled by a wireless remote. I had to do no siphoning or carry around hoses. Easy, but it was still too much work
Indoor tanks present a challenge for automatic water changers. Especially when they're in the middle of the house and not next to any accessible plumbing. Also, you can't really take advantage of a simple drip system with a gravity drain like you could with a tank in the garage. It takes some creativity. I thought about using an automatic top-off controller to keep the sump refilled but that was too complicated. I could have run a constant drip but I would need an intricate system of float switches and solenoids to safeguard against flooding when the power was turned off.
So I went for the simplest setup you could imagine (thanks to Dan F for ideas on his system). I have a drain pump in the sump that comes on set intervals via a digital timer to drain water. The sump is then refilled via a simple mechanical float valve. That's it. Can't get much simpler than that. Problem on doing this on an indoor tank in a room is getting a water line to the tank and then what to do with the waste water. This will almost always involve drilling some holes in your walls. Can't get around it. But the nice thing is you're not relying on gravity whatsoever. You're free to run the waste water line wherever you like.
This system is also very safe to run. If the drain pump fails there's no risk of flooding or running the system dry; you just won't have water changes done. If the entire power goes, again, no risk of flooding. And because the float valve won't be activated, there won't be water entering the system while the power is off. The only real problem area is the float valve. If it were to fail, you could either flood your system or run it dry and burn out your pumps. But these things are so mechanically simple that the chance for failure is very low. I purchased a good quality float valve from Jehmco as seen here: http://jehmco.com/html/float_valves___switches.html
Here's my source for the feed water, my laundry room. Just a simple tap into the cold water line which feeds an RO unit. The water line is routed through the house straight to the sump's float valve as you'll see below. Note: This is an older photo. I'm no longer running RO/DI since I stopped keeping wild discus. I simply removed the RO membrane and emptied the DI canister. Now I simply use this system with a sediment filter and a few cartridges for chlorine/chloramine removal:
This is the 40g sump on my tank. Here's the separate drain pump I'm using. It's a Quiet One 4000 rated at about 1000gph. This pump is independent of the pumps that run my filtration. This pump runs straight to the waste line:
This is the digital timer I'm using to control the system (from Home Depot). I currently have it set it to 8x 3-minute intervals a day, 3hrs apart. Based on the water level drop in the sump, I've calculated that I'm draining about 11 gallons during the 3 minute interval. This is about 88g a day. Overkill for my tank for sure. I plan on checking nitrate levels after a week to see where I'm at. I will probably scale it back to about 3x a day.
This is the float valve installed to refill the sump after draining. Installation was very simple, just required a 3/4" hole. If you're scared of drilling glass, GET OVER IT
Picture of the float valve:
Here's the closet that's close to the tank. This is where I did my drilling. One small hole for the feed line and a larger hole for the waste line. The closet shares a wall with the bathroom so this was the easiest place to drill. The waste line only passes through a few inches of wall space.
And lastly, here's a photo under my bathroom sink. This was a piece of cake as well. All I needed was a new down pipe with a dishwasher drain fitting. This attached directly to the existing P-trap.
And that's it! See, simple
Any questions, critique, suggestions, whatever, put 'em up! I gave it a few test runs and all works well. No issues draining or refilling. Let's see how it works!
Thanks for the vote of confidence on my drawings DB30 min for 350 gallons? So you are holding/aging water too?
So you're doing 113gallons everyday via back flushing then 350 gallons as a big weekend water change? Am I understanding this right? So do these filters need back flushed everyday then? Your WC schedule is about as clear as your plumbing diagrams.... LOL
Takes me an hour just to refill my water change tubs (250 gallons). I couldn't handle watching water refill the tank, so I plumbed these tubs into the sump so that as soon as I get float valves the tubs will just refill during the day while I'm at work, then when I get home I just crack the ball valves...... A rush of 250 gallons of aged cold water. Thanks to a huge sump I can do this without turning anything off.
My big tank is the only system I have going that isn't what I call an over/under. All the rest are 2 tanks stacked, and both plumbed to one sump. Fed with either 2 pumps or a single pump that splits water between the 2 tanks via ball valves. Water change time is simply grabbing drains that I made from 1.5 that run from the tank to the floor drain. Rubber grommet allows sealing to the drain in the floor (without this a ball valve must be used to restrict the water flow as a 1.5 under siphon is a lot more then the drain likes) I'll just cut one of the tanks, drain and refill and return flow. This way I can get decent sized water changes done without ever having to shut the systems down.
I have a 1 inch water main on my property with 90 psi from the meter a 6 inch main running down my street DB !!! So i can refill very quikly straight from a hose so i don't need to store water..Also i use CloramX to treat my water it eliminates and binds heavy metals from my water my glass filter then removes it!!!To remove the water it takes all of 10 minutes to pump out Through my closed loop system now when i backwash that is even quiker and removes waste
Why thank you Egon "I'm Your Huckelberry
" LOL!!!A Wlim 16 inch glass filter there is a picture on the very first page !!!!
Agreed.
The back flushing option on the canister system is nice for a quick daily backwash. I'm looking into "Vortex" type of sediment strainers that pull particulate out of the water before it gets to the filter. These things have cone shaped bottoms that can quickly be flushed maybe using only 1 gallon of water. That coupled with a trickle system is going to be my future.....
Yeah the nice thing about backflushing is that it acts like a water change too when you top off the water that went out the waste line.
Vortex sediment strainer...is it like the one I discussed in post #156?
You could cut down the time by finding (or installing) a faucet in your supply pipe before it goes thru the regulator. I have a faucet in my front yard that I can use to fill my 300gal drum in 15-20 minutes. If I use any other faucet in the house, it will take me an hour, too.
Yes! I mised that. That's exactly what I'm going to set up if I ever build a really large tank.
