Bed Filters and UV Sterilizer needed?

[DB junkie]

^^ well, no offense, but nobody forced you to spend all that money on rays, and buy so many of them. I have one large tank, a 300 that I set up after one full year of researching on this forum, and I have two rays, of the smallest species available, hystrix and ocellata. I think it's important to keep things simple, but a sump, UV and 24/7 drip were things that I considered essential before I even bought the tank.

I'm no expert, and I haven't been here 5 years, but 'start small and work your way up' should be common sense to starting any hobby.

Nope, they sure didn't. But, being new to rays and listening to the "experts" should be the right way shouldn't it?

Hey if you did your research before buying your first tank then great. Sounds like you would be a much better person to accept advice from.

 

[dxdx]

Nope, they sure didn't. But, being new to rays and listening to the "experts" should be the right way shouldn't it?

Hey if you did your research before buying your first tank then great. Sounds like you would be a much better person to accept advice from.

Well, it's unfortunate you got bad information but I don't really consider anybody an expert on a semi anonymous internet forum. I like to read as much info as I can from as many people as possible and pick & choose what works for me. I still lost 2 rays in the beginning, and it almost kept me out but it is pretty addicting, keeping rays.

This thread had no responses after 2 days, so hopefully these responses will get him researching and he can choose what works best for his setup.

Good luck OP, and if you are keeping rays, just be ready for some ups and downs.

 

[DB junkie]

Well, it's unfortunate you got bad information but I don't really consider anybody an expert on a semi anonymous internet forum. I like to read as much info as I can from as many people as possible and pick & choose what works for me. I still lost 2 rays in the beginning, and it almost kept me out but it is pretty addicting, keeping rays.

This thread had no responses after 2 days, so hopefully these responses will get him researching and he can choose what works best for his setup.

Good luck OP, and if you are keeping rays, just be ready for some ups and downs.

It's unfortunate that you don't consider the guys breeding these things day in and day out experts. Maybe semi anonymous for some but I've met many people from this forum, been to their homes, seen their fish, and consider them friends.

Some people are perfect and never make mistakes. They're never wrong cause they were blessed at birth with perfection.

Others like myself screw up all the time, learn and do it again, then when it's right we try to make it better. I've spent the last "5 years" doing stuff wrong, and I've learned a lot from it. Don't have any plans of changing anytime soon either......

 

[Pazzoman]

If you buy a Ferrari are you going to fill it with 87 octane and go to jiffy lube for oil changes with their cheap bulk oil?

I REALLY wish someone would have explained the cost of keeping rays to me BEFORE I had them swimming in my tanks. Everyone said keep it simple and everything would be fine. Well after 5+ years I can tell you that BS. UVs might not be needed, but guess what? Look at most of the people keeping nice healthy rays year after year and tell me how many DON'T use UVs.

Never understood why people are willing to drop so much money on rays then skimp on the life support system for these animals. UVs are supposed to nuke all the living stuff in the water column. This is supposed to increase 02 in the system, along with destroying unwanted illness. Makes for an overall healthier environment.

Moving bed filters or bio reactors tumble the media so the expired old unefficient bio is sluffed off the media and are either whisked away by cracking a valve in the bottom and draining out or it will end up in your filter socks. Very low maintenance but the important thing is you don't deal with "mum" that accumulates in bio balls and REALLY bad in pot scrubbies. Mum left unchecked led to bacterial outbreaks in my tanks. Either break down bio towers and wash all the media 2-3 times a year or run moving beds and never have to worry about it.

UVs can be tricky to find good ones. There's a lot of junk out there. "Terrible twists" are the first that come to my mind as I bought a good sized one for my pup tank and after having the kill rate run it barely works as a clarifier and nowhere near any kind of sterilization, and I even bought a bigger one then recommended.

A lot of us run reactors or moving beds from a smaller auxiliary pump in the sump. I run a pair of 3.5K GPH return pumps, but also run a little 1K gph that runs through the UV then to the reactor/moving bed. Neither UVs or reactors like the high flow rates we run on ray tanks so it's best just to use a separate pump and give them the lower flow rates they seem to work better with allowing more contact time with the bio.

Like I said, I followed the advice given here and after years of fighting with issues I know what works for me and really wish someone would have enlightened me when I was getting started cause I would have spent the first few years acquiring decent life support and big enough tanks to do what I wanted to instead of filling all the tanks with rays then realizing my life support systems were junk.

Defiantly understood, I will be looking into UVs however Ive never owned one...so most likely it will take awhile for me to be comfortably enough to purchase what I would think be best. Thanks for the info of the bed filter, so basically its the same of pond matrix...but it can be tumbled with an air pump which helps eliminate gunk build up as well as constatly keep healthy BB? Ask this because Im trying to figure out if I add it to the sump I will have to figure out where is the best spot...

What other life support system equipment do you mean? Just wondering.

^^ well, no offense, but nobody forced you to spend all that money on rays, and buy so many of them. I have one large tank, a 300 that I set up after one full year of researching on this forum, and I have two rays, of the smallest species available, hystrix and ocellata. I think it's important to keep things simple, but a sump, UV and 24/7 drip were things that I considered essential before I even bought the tank.

I'm no expert, and I haven't been here 5 years, but 'start small and work your way up' should be common sense to starting any hobby.

I wish I could set up a drip system...for some reason I find it complicated to set up. Maybe if I look into it more in detail I could figure out if itts possible...however how would Prime added to the tank at a right amount?

i do agree.... I got a UV close to a year ago, and i am so glad i did. It ended up changing the health of ALL my fish IMO. Like DB said, and from what i have learned, a good quality UV, one that you know the kill rate is sufficient for more than clarification, is the one to go with.
It is this simple, if you have some money invested in rays, spend some money to protect your assets/pets to HELP prevent bad things from happening..

Thanks will keep that noted one looking and setting up a UV sterilizer.

Zero maintenance on the moving bed filter. The air pump (or submerged pump as some people use) keeps everything moving, so no detritus gets built up anywhere.

I did use egg crate and suction cups to build the "chamber" which required me to use K2. K1 is too small and will spill out through the holes in the egg crate.

It was super easy to set up, you just need the space. I made the chamber, then put in two air stones:
AS110X10 - http://www.jehmco.com/html/air_diffusers.html

and a pump. Now I can't remember which size I got, but I think it was the 20:
http://www.jehmco.com/html/diaphragm_air_pumps.html#DAPMH8-15


If you have 2 drains, use two filter socks. If you have one drain, you could split it and also use two socks - this would give you more time between cleanings which is nice. So, yeah two socks is always better than one.

As for UV, I have the Aqua UV and am very satisfied with it.

Thanks A Million looks like a bed filter can be easily added to the sump, will look into it more. Is thier a certain speed of "tumbling" of the k2 needed for best results?

First time have a double corner built in over flow tank...I think that means to drain pipes...so should be able to attach them to socks.

Thanks for all your help so far!

 

[dxdx]

I wish I could set up a drip system...for some reason I find it complicated to set up. Maybe if I look into it more in detail I could figure out if itts possible...however how would Prime added to the tank at a right amount?

I've kept mine very simple, water line with a drip emitter going into the tank, and a hole in the sump for excess water going out into my back yard. All gravity driven. The two key things to have are a water line and a drain, you can work anything out if you have those within reach of your tank.

On my water line, I have an activated carbon filter from The Filter Guys. Our water only has chlorine, so it is pulled out with the filter, I do not have to use prime.

Thanks A Million looks like a bed filter can be easily added to the sump, will look into it more. Is thier a certain speed of "tumbling" of the k2 needed for best results?

First time have a double corner built in over flow tank...I think that means to drain pipes...so should be able to attach them to socks.

Thanks for all your help so far!

There is no tumbling speed required, just that it should all be moving. I tried using the biggest air pump from Petsmart, but it did not move all of it so I upgraded to the Jehmco pump which works perfectly.

This design is a little more complicated than mine, but you can see the motion of the media at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzY7PZycmc4

 

[Drstrangelove]

i do agree.... I got a UV close to a year ago, and i am so glad i did. It ended up changing the health of ALL my fish IMO. Like DB said, and from what i have learned, a good quality UV, one that you know the kill rate is sufficient for more than clarification, is the one to go with.
It is this simple, if you have some money invested in rays, spend some money to protect your assets/pets to HELP prevent bad things from happening..

+1

UVs will be a tiny fraction of the cost put into your pets. Add up the cost of the fish, tank, equipment, water, electricity, food, medicine, not to mention your actual time, etc. UV's are probably 1-5% of that total. They work.

I'm not saying, bar no expense, but cost alone should not be the deciding factor.