Efficient monster filtration Design Discussion

[cvermeulen]

Only problem is the pump still needs some pressure to overcome the initial filling stage and resistance when the filter becomes clogged
j<><

That applies no matter what. I stated somewhere above that canisters combat the problem of throwing the energy away by conserving the pressure, so your whole filter chamber/sump is pressurized. What John is suggesting is making your sump into a giant canister.

 

[justin guest]

That applies no matter what. I stated somewhere above that canisters combat the problem of throwing the energy away by conserving the pressure, so your whole filter chamber/sump is pressurized. What John is suggesting is making your sump into a giant canister.

Not quite getting you on this one - do you find the canister design good because of conservation of water head or bad because of clogging of filter material slowing water flow?
j<><

 

[cvermeulen]

Not quite getting you on this one - do you find the canister design good because of conservation of water head or bad because of clogging of filter material slowing water flow?
j<><

Well every filter, canistor or not, has the same issue with clogging. You can combat this by putting bypasses in, but that has the problem of sacrificing filtration in leiu of flow when the media gets dirty. You can alternatively increase the filtration area so that clogging becomes less of a problem, but that's more a matter of appropriately sizing your filter to your needs.

I think in terms of efficiency the canister design is GOOD as long as it's maintained properly, because it preserves the water head instead of losing it with the fall into the sump. It could be more efficient if you eliminated the hoses and reduced the pressure drop across the media (I.E. Large in-tank filter, with a pump designed for zero to low head and high flow.)

 

[justin guest]

Well every filter, canistor or not, has the same issue with clogging. You can combat this by putting bypasses in, but that has the problem of sacrificing filtration in leiu of flow when the media gets dirty. You can alternatively increase the filtration area so that clogging becomes less of a problem, but that's more a matter of appropriately sizing your filter to your needs.

I think in terms of efficiency the canister design is GOOD as long as it's maintained properly, because it preserves the water head instead of losing it with the fall into the sump. It could be more efficient if you eliminated the hoses and reduced the pressure drop across the media (I.E. Large in-tank filter, with a pump designed for zero to low head and high flow.)

What you say has merit. The reason i´m not really into canister type filters (I´m still running one on my own tank but will be selling the tank next year when I move countries) is because of oxygen problems in the filter when water flow stops due to a power outage or a failed pump. The lack of degassing means the filter will keel over much quicker than a filter exposed to air. This is one reason why so many people run wet dry or pure trickle systems. Another problem is if the tank is heavily stocked (the very occasional monster tank ), then the oxygen produced by, for instance, a canister filter spraybar may not be enough to keep the fish at optimal health. Extra pumps/air pump usage then needs to be added to the total energy needs of the system. I guess I´m just too big a fan of trickle filters for keeping o2 at optimum levels. I´d rather go searching for the most economical pump i can find that will still run a trickle filter sitting next to or built into the tank. This way head loss is at least reduced to a couple of feet at the most but o2 is always high
j<><

 

[IITUFFTOBEATII]

I'm really not entirely sure what amuses you guys about this. If you don't have anything but comments like this to contribute, don't say anything at all. I'm not chasing a perpetual motion machine, I'm trying to use some reasoning, alongside a mechanical engineering degree to save some energy and hence some money. If nothing else, some people are learning a little bit about thermodynamics and energy conservation; if you're not, go ahead and continue throwing away 80% of the energy you put into your filtration system like there's no other way.

Ok, I'll bite.

You fail to see how it is amusing because in your arrogance you fail to see your ignorance.

Your reply is also amusing to me because as I read the thread I said to myself, "Here is another know it all undergrad with no practical experience regurgitating his lecture notes or an example from his text book." If you do indeed already have a degree, (which I have a hard time believing), I suggest you don't take up a position recruiting for your universities engineering college just yet. If you do have the degree, fine, but i suggest you don't throw it around trying to strengthen your position as you have no idea the qualifications of other board members, as some of us do not need to be schooled in thermodynamics or energy conservation.

Now with that unpleasantness out of the way, and I hope to not have offended you , I will try to contribute to your thread.

Another problem with below-tank filtration is that you basically waste all the energy of the water falling from the overflow level to the sump level. That energy turns into noise and heat in the sump, and your pump has to add energy back into the system to force the water back up to tank level.

The energy that goes to noise and heat is negligible, you know it, I know it, and anyone who has any idea what is going on in this thread knows it.

The energy of the water falling is not negligible, but its not wasted either, its is what drives the water through the media, and if you design your filter well, or buy a well designed filter this is a very efficient way to mechanically filter, bio filter and re-oxygenate your water, and in the case of canisters to aid in returning the water to the tank.

WTF am I going? Well, as much as it sucks to give up tank space for filtration, imagine dividing off 10% of your tank, with a generous overflow at the top, and cutouts at the bottom to closely shroud a few powerheads. You could push the water out the bottom of your filter section and as a result, more would flow in the top.

Well if this area is sealed, meaning that the only way for water to get back to the tank is through the powerhead, than this is nothing more than a sump. If the powerhead is at the bottom of the tank this is not a 0 head system, you still have the pressure head equal to the depth of the tank. And as already stated, the hydor pumps ability to move water drops dramatically with depth, and if you go deep enough it will cease to operate at all. I am not wasting 80%, (wherever it is you got that stat from??), I am using it to drive water though filter media.

If it were me, and I could achieve nearly equal turnover by putting the sump under the tank with the same amount of space for media but without giving up 10% of my tank space ill splurge and spend the extra 25 cents a month.

Polishing would be near impossible, but with a multi stage filter with a large cross sectional area, it ought to be possible to achieve adequate particle entrapment. One could also run an FX5 or something on the rig doing straight mech. And/or a larger mechanical filter that only gets fired up at feeding time.

If you increase the area of your filter, you decrease the velocity. Particles more dense than water (fish turds) that you want to filter out will never even come close to the mechanical media as there is no force to drive it there.

Maybe I'll fail, but if I never asked the question, how would I ever find the answer?

I am not knocking you for asking questions. It just blows my mind how stubborn you have been in this thread when you have people who know what they are talking about, people who may or may not have applicable degrees, but do have practical experience, comment on your ideas and you dismiss it as non-sense.

 

[cvermeulen]

Ok, I'll bite.

You fail to see how it is amusing because in your arrogance you fail to see your ignorance.

Your reply is also amusing to me because as I read the thread I said to myself, "Here is another know it all undergrad with no practical experience regurgitating his lecture notes or an example from his text book." If you do indeed already have a degree, (which I have a hard time believing), I suggest you don't take up a position recruiting for your universities engineering college just yet. If you do have the degree, fine, but i suggest you don't throw it around trying to strengthen your position as you have no idea the qualifications of other board members, as some of us do not need to be schooled in thermodynamics or energy conservation.

Now with that unpleasantness out of the way, and I hope to not have offended you , I will try to contribute to your thread.

I wasn't fishing, I was hoping you'd either make a point or stop being cheeky... buut now that everyone has stopped reading:

I actually graduated in '04. I guess I thought having spent several years and so much money learning about what we're talking about might lend a bit of credibility to what I have to say, but if you don't see it that way, fine, I was only asking that if you have a point, make it, instead of making useless comments. If you don't want to learn about thermodynamics (which... is actually what we're talking about), unsubscribe - noone has taped you to a chair and made you read this. As for the other board members, I realise your education doesn't define your credibility - I don't believe that I ever said it did, like I said before I thought maybe if you knew I'd actually spent a good portion of my life studying the subject matter, the haughty chuckling might stop. Put it this way I guess: I wouldn't have opened the discussion if I didn't think the members here could help.

The energy that goes to noise and heat is negligible, you know it, I know it, and anyone who has any idea what is going on in this thread knows it.

The energy of the water falling is not negligible, but its not wasted either, its is what drives the water through the media, and if you design your filter well, or buy a well designed filter this is a very efficient way to mechanically filter, bio filter and re-oxygenate your water, and in the case of canisters to aid in returning the water to the tank.

In ***most*** sumps (not all, to validate your point a bit), this is not the case. Unless your water is falling directly onto the filter media (most sumps I've seen anyway deliver the falling water below sump water level to cut down on noise, and it subsequently goes through the mech. stage). I also never said it didn't do a good job, I said it costs a lot of energy (40w for a 2200gph system I think I said). I don't know about you, but I spend a lot of time chasing kids around to shut off 60w lightbulbs, so 40w, 24/7, is something I wouldn't mind eliminating if I can. Also, even if the falling water's impetus helps drive it through the filter media, and break up particles... this is not really 'work' as it's described by physics, so the energy winds up somewhere, and that somewhere is eventually heat... whether you choose to believe it or not. Google "the second law of thermodynamics" - everyone, seriously. I think it was the most interesting thing I've ever learned about.

Well if this area is sealed, meaning that the only way for water to get back to the tank is through the powerhead, than this is nothing more than a sump. If the powerhead is at the bottom of the tank this is not a 0 head system, you still have the pressure head equal to the depth of the tank. And as already stated, the hydor pumps ability to move water drops dramatically with depth, and if you go deep enough it will cease to operate at all. I am not wasting 80%, (wherever it is you got that stat from??), I am using it to drive water though filter media.

Actually, head is the pressure change across the pump. Since the inlet of the pump is at the bottom of the tank as well, the ambient pressure change is zero. There will be a slightly lower pressure at the inlet and a higher pressure at the outlet, due to the water drag and whatnot, but whether the pump is on the surface or at the bottom of the ocean, there is zero head. I also am not trying to drive the water through, I'm suggesting a design where there is enough surface area for the water to pass through the media with minimal motivation (just like most sumps, contrary to what you're saying.)

If it were me, and I could achieve nearly equal turnover by putting the sump under the tank with the same amount of space for media but without giving up 10% of my tank space ill splurge and spend the extra 25 cents a month.

Great! go ahead and do that, and stop calling me names. I'm not sure what power costs where you live, but running a 100w pump here (about enough to sump filter a 150gal) costs: 100w, times 24 hours is 2400 watt hours a day, or 2.4kw hours. Really not a lot, but at 8c a kw hour, it's more like 20c a day, or $6 a month. Now if we increase the scale to monster size at 1500 gal (10 times the wattage) you get more like $60 a month. If you're a baller and don't care about $60 a month, good for you, but engineers where I live make squat, so I'm worried about it.

If you increase the area of your filter, you decrease the velocity. Particles more dense than water (fish turds) that you want to filter out will never even come close to the mechanical media as there is no force to drive it there.

I'm talking about velocity through the filter, so a slow moving turd will still get caught up in the filter media just as good as a fast moving turd. The output of the powerheads at the bottom of the tank would be a fairly focused stream of water through the tank. I dunno if you've ever run a koralia, but the set up pretty good water movement. I dunno about your fish, but with 2 big plecos and an oscar for mess, my fx5 with spraybar (I.E. No induced current) keeps the visible turds pretty much at zero.

I am not knocking you for asking questions. It just blows my mind how stubborn you have been in this thread when you have people who know what they are talking about, people who may or may not have applicable degrees, but do have practical experience, comment on your ideas and you dismiss it as non-sense.

Whose idea did I dismiss as nonsense? I am sorry if I've done so. I didn't start this thread to start a pissing contest, and I'd actually recommend any mods who agree might want to close this, as that's what it's turning into. IITUFFTOBEATII, you clearly have a problem with me, or the way I've expressed myself. I did not mean to belittle anyone or come off as holier than thou. I take issue with your open mockery however, and I suggest that you PM me if you want to prove to yourself that you're smarter than me or something.

 

[cvermeulen]

It actually occurred to me the other day to look up the energy consumption of HOB filters. Their water level is only minimally above the tank level, and their pump is purpose built, so they ought to be pretty good for energy use right? Right! an AC110 uses 20w to pump 500gph, so 4 ac110's would be 80w, and roughly the same as having a Q1 5000 in a sump under your tank, pulling 30% more power.

It's not 5x or 10x better, but it's something.

 

[Ill take that mean one]

my set up is simple guys i use 2 marine magnums one to pump water out and filter water into a sump tank 55 gallons filled with bio balls 3 inch thicck media inch of carbon then sucked back into my tank via the other magnum plus i run 3 400 bio wheels for my 220 gallons.. Is that to much or am i ok?

 

[cvermeulen]

I am not wasting 80%, (wherever it is you got that stat from??), I am using it to drive water though filter media.

Ok, I'll do the math again for everyone.

1liter of water = 1kilogram
1liter of water, 2 meters above the ground, at 9.81Newtons per kilogram (call it 10 for simplicity) = 20Newton Meters, or 20 Joules.
1liter per second being pumped from the sump, to the top of the tank, at 20 joules each = 20 watts.
1 liter per second = 3600 liters per hour, or almost 1000gallons per hour.

Enter the Quietone 6000 (yes, it's a ****ty pump, there are better ones, but I have this data sheet handy.) It flows about 1000gph at 6 feet of head (about 2m) and draws 140 watts.

20/140 = 1/7, or 14% efficient. So, 86% of the energy you are putting into that pump and paying for is going somewhere OTHER than pushing the water back into your tank. If you select a pump that is say, 30% better to do the same job, you'll still be throwing away over 80% of your energy.

 

[cvermeulen]

It actually occurred to me the other day to look up the energy consumption of HOB filters. Their water level is only minimally above the tank level, and their pump is purpose built, so they ought to be pretty good for energy use right? Right! an AC110 uses 20w to pump 500gph, so 4 ac110's would be 80w, and roughly the same as having a Q1 5000 in a sump under your tank, pulling 30% more power.

It's not 5x or 10x better, but it's something.

MY APOLOGIES, I screwed up on this, and did not re-check the Q1 Numbers, or did I account for the flow reduction for it being below the tank before posting. Please ignore this comparison, the correct numbers are:

It would take a Q1 6000 to throw 1000gph at your tank from 6ft below, so let me revise the numbers.

2AC110's = 40w, vs 1 Q16000 = 140w

That makes this particular HOB vs Sump a 3.5:1 win for the HOB.