Water Quality

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
This is a concern i have as well. What happens when you stop dosing the bb in a bottle ? Drop off ? None at all ?


When you weaned your system off the bb in a bottle do you feel the normally cultivated bb had a large enough colony to keep on chugging ?
When I weaned off of pdb yes I don't remember any negatives at that time. Off microbactor 7 I had a small cycle. Not sure why tank had been running for over 5 years at the time. I noticed within 3 days a couple wrasses and a tang started to look red around the gills. I immediately checked ammonia and sure enough it was present nitrite too. In 5 years since the first month of operation I'd never had ammonia or nitrite show up on a test. Took pics and multiple people confirmed ammonia burn. Also had a few reefers state same issues when they stopped dosing bb also.
 
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Zilch Zilch tetra safestart plus works great. One dose and you should be cycled in less than a week. If using dechlorinator wait 24 hrs after then dose the safe start
 
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Zilch Zilch tetra safestart plus works great. One dose and you should be cycled in less than a week. If using dechlorinator wait 24 hrs after then dose the safe start
Already dosed that a few days ago and I've got nitrites and nitrates going so I'm just waiting on the colony to get big enough to keep up with the load. Figured id pick up some prodigest to help seed future projects and the denitrator when I get it started since it apparently has a nearly endless shelf life
 
Angelphish said:
Not yet. I still need to order a couple things. I'm going to use ptc fittings rather than barbed.

I think one of the easiest ways is to use uniseal type rubber grommets in the 4" pvc. Uniseals absolutely will not leak if the hole is drilled the right size and the pipe or tubing fits into the uniseal snug.

Here, an 11/16-3/4" hole in the thinwall 4" pvc holds the uniseal. 1/2" cpvc pipe (O.D. 5/8") or 5/8" O.D. vinal tubing fits very tightly into the uniseal. Vinal tubing is a slightly better option than cpvc because it can flex to accomadate the very slight oblong hole in the pvc. (A hole will be slightly elongated in the direction of the bend around the 4" pipe, so I drill a smaller hole (11/16") and use rolled up sand paper to increase the hole diameter mostly in the vertical direction.)

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A 90º elbo extends the input down to the bottom of the 15" tower. The ouput hole is at the top of 4" pvc opposite the input (not pictured).
 
Nice build.mike....i think the uniseals would have been a better choice than constantly applying silicone...took 3 attempts for me
 
Couldn't you also use reducers and an elbow to move from reactor to reactor? Sorry, not a PVC expert by any means, just curious since I know they make 4" to 1" reducers
 
Couldn't you also use reducers and an elbow to move from reactor to reactor? Sorry, not a PVC expert by any means, just curious since I know they make 4" to 1" reducers

You could if.you were reducing down from 4 to 1 inch but we are talking about connecting multiple 4 inch pipes/towers...daisy chaining them
 
would this work to put a line off the intake of my filter for a tower? im going to be hard-lining my fx5 plumbing to all pvc to do a custom dual skimmer style intake and to include an inline co2 reactor since my knife likes to chew on suction cups and i dont want him ruining an expensive glass diffuser in the tank, and im thinking of putting another T with a ball valve diverting some water off the intake line (like in the UV sterilizer photo) to a reactor tower or two filled with the denitrate or something porous. then having it plumbed back into an angled T on the return line from the filter, so the reactor towers would bypass the fx5- im hoping that by using the angled 3 way fittings i will achieve some sort of venturi effect instead of a straight T pushing water across the flow path of an already semi-restricted system. or could i have the 2 T's on the same side to make it easier. pull water from one T earlier on the line and put it back in further down the same side. I considered doing it off the filters output line so the water would be thoroughly scrubbed mechanically and hopefully allow the media to go for a longer period of time before clogging. just a thought for now as i purchase the supplies to hardline the Fx5. Heres some pictures i googled of the plumbing style im going for. the intakes will be 1" then meet at a T and go to 1.5" pvc, to 1.5" hose for the last couple inches to the filter. output will be 1.5" the entire way until being reduced for higher pressure at the spray bar. might do the output at 1" the whole way, i need to do the math for the friction loss and head pressure to figure out how big of a difference it will make (never would have thought my firefighter math for hose lines would be used in my fishkeeping lol) and which would give me the better working end pressure for desired turnover rate.

sorry for the long post. just lots of ideas going through my head with this subject.

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would this work to put a line off the intake of my filter for a tower? im going to be hard-lining my fx5 plumbing to all pvc to do a custom dual skimmer style intake and to include an inline co2 reactor since my knife likes to chew on suction cups and i dont want him ruining an expensive glass diffuser in the tank, and im thinking of putting another T with a ball valve diverting some water off the intake line (like in the UV sterilizer photo) to a reactor tower or two filled with the denitrate or something porous. then having it plumbed back into an angled T on the return line from the filter, so the reactor towers would bypass the fx5- im hoping that by using the angled 3 way fittings i will achieve some sort of venturi effect instead of a straight T pushing water across the flow path of an already semi-restricted system. or could i have the 2 T's on the same side to make it easier. pull water from one T earlier on the line and put it back in further down the same side. I considered doing it off the filters output line so the water would be thoroughly scrubbed mechanically and hopefully allow the media to go for a longer period of time before clogging. just a thought for now as i purchase the supplies to hardline the Fx5. Heres some pictures i googled of the plumbing style im going for. the intakes will be 1" then meet at a T and go to 1.5" pvc, to 1.5" hose for the last couple inches to the filter. output will be 1.5" the entire way until being reduced for higher pressure at the spray bar. might do the output at 1" the whole way, i need to do the math for the friction loss and head pressure to figure out how big of a difference it will make (never would have thought my firefighter math for hose lines would be used in my fishkeeping lol) and which would give me the better working end pressure for desired turnover rate.

sorry for the long post. just lots of ideas going through my head with this subject.

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I need to read this again...kids are a p.i.t.a but find gadget talk very interesting. I like the idea if using the fx before the denitrate filter, my understanding of venturi is that is creates more oxygen ?


One suggestion pass on the ball valve and go for a gate, much easier to make smaller finer adjustments. The ball on my denitrate filter is a pain in the butt.
 
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