Ammonia Spike

[jdbrock]

pH all over the city is 8.5 to 9
Cincinnati is known for having horrible tap water. I use mostly rainwater here at the house (cistern) but have had to order water this year which of course keeps the pH high

Magnum is Magnum 350 (http://www.bigalsonline.com/Fish_Filters_Canister-Filters_Magnum-Canister-Filters.html?tc=default)

 

[Just Toby]

Thanks for the link...in my opinion that will be as useful as a chocolate teapot against the sort of waste and ammonia levels a Ray will produce.

I would look at a large external stuffed with bio media or better still a sump.

A fluvial fx5 is up to the job.

Trust me, I do not mean to be negative....you will continue to have problems until you get a big, mature bio filter on the job.

 

[jdbrock]

Thanks for the link...in my opinion that will be as useful as a chocolate teapot against the sort of waste and ammonia levels a Ray will produce.

Lol. It circulates the water almost 3x an hour by itself. The emporer 300 a little more than 2x per hour. Sponge filter not quite once an hour.

I am in the process of building a tower similar to the one Florence Big Fish uses. It's just a matter of finding the time and a decent pump.

 

[Just Toby]

Lol. It circulates the water almost 3x an hour by itself. The emporer 300 a little more than 2x per hour. Sponge filter not quite once an hour.

I am in the process of building a tower similar to the one Florence Big Fish uses. It's just a matter of finding the time and a decent pump.

Turnover is nothing without surface area for the bacteria to live on, you could have a swimming pool pump filtering through a tiny net and it would do nothing for the water quality but a small pump flowing through a trickle tower like you mention with a load of filter media would do a lot of filtration.

IMO turnover in freshwater is pretty much irrelevant once you get past 1-2 passes per hour.

 

[jdbrock]

I don't necessarily agree everything has media in it which provides surface area. The more movement across it the more effective it is. So increasing turnover rate seems to be generally useful. All the surface area in the world won't make a noticeable difference without water movement.

For instance the FX5 has a powerful pump in it which is one of the biggest reasons its as effective as it is.

 

[Just Toby]

I don't necessarily agree everything has media in it which provides surface area. The more movement across it the more effective it is. So increasing turnover rate seems to be generally useful. All the surface area in the world won't make a noticeable difference without water movement.


For instance the FX5 has a powerful pump in it which is one of the biggest reasons its as effective as it is.

You do not have to agree, I am happy for anyone to be wrong....(Joke)

Well this could go on and on. The FX 5 is actually effective due to the "bucket" of media and not the pump. If you added an FX5 pump to a tiny cannister filter it would be no more effective. An FX5 is designed with a very large (for external filters) media volume and the turnover has been designed to suit the applications it is designed for AND the marketing people love to quote litres per hour as it sells filters like BHP sells cars. You could actually slow the flow right down to 1-2 times per hour and it would still filter the tank efficiently assuming there is enough surface area within.

I agree that everything has media in it but there needs to be enough surface area in the media to support the bacteria AND enough oygen to support the bacteria too.

I agree that no water movement would not do anything but 1-2 times per hour would allow the bacteria to strip out the Nitorgen on first pass if given enough area for the bacteria to live therefore the turnover would simply pass the same water again. Ammonia and Nitrite are very easy to remove from the water in a pretty fast time (once the filter has had a few weeks to mature), if there was not sufficient area for the bacteria to grow then the bio load would not be stripped first time and may need a higher turnover.

Bacteria grows where it can, in volumes to support the bio load, they will live to the exact food supply as long as there is enough surface area for them to live on.

If you take a tea bag and filter through it hundreds of times per hour it will not have sufficient surface area to support the bacteria needed for Rays; if however you had a small pump pushing water over matting the size of a double bed then the bacteria would multiply to devour the bio load pushed across. The critical factor in the formulae is getting the turnover high enough to make sure the rays have not produced more waste before the water has got back to the tank after filtering - twice per hour would be enough.

 

[Gshock]

For instance the FX5 has a powerful pump in it which is one of the biggest reasons its as effective as it is.

Oh lord... You should head over to the filtration forum and read up on the stickies. It looks like you have no idea how filtration and bacteria even works. You still have no idea why your tank had an ammonia spike...

 

[Just Toby]

Oh lord... You should head over to the filtration forum and read up on the stickies. It looks like you have no idea how filtration and bacteria even works. You still have no idea why your tank had an ammonia spike...

Hi Gshock, not seen you on here for a while...looks like you are still brutally to the point

 

[Gshock]

Hi Gshock, not seen you on here for a while...looks like you are still brutally to the point

LOL, yeah, I didn't have internet back in Hong Kong so I was gone for a few months.

 

[wing888]

So if the fx5 is effective because of the pump flow rate why did they have to make such a big bucket to house all that filter media? Why not pump all that flow through something smaller?
I think the scientist behind the fx5 knows what they are doing.
What is better, 10 people trying to put a golf ball into one hole at the same time or ten people putting into 10 different holes? The putters being the flow rate and the hole being the bacteria!