Yay new 75 gal planted tank

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
one you see a proven pair... only leave thoses two inside the tank if u want them to breed... idk if the other discus will cuz problems for the eggs or wiglers... i have only been told one of my MS is a male the rest has to play out :) good luck
 
That's actually about how much is in there. The stupid jack has been digging so its piled up in front. Theres about 120lbs of colorquartz s-grade
 
Ok so I haven't updated in forever because again I am too lazy to type stuff. Nowadays the setup is almost complete. I need to pick plants and and fertilizer and then fill my co2 cylinder. As far as the co2 loss problem for the wet/dry I think I have it worked out...mostly.... Right now I have the Biochamber, which is a 5 gallon bucket air tight. I used plumbers putty to secure it to the lid and then a pvc union so that I can disconnect it and remove the lid with the pipe attached to get into the filter. This created a problem of too much pressure building inside the chamber and then being forced out of the bottom of the chamber causing quite a bit of bubbling and such. Not good. To get over this hurdle I drilled a hole in the top of the lid and siliconed a piece of vynl tubing in and then I'm going to place the other end into my CO2 reactor. This should recycle any co2 loss from the water being aggitated inside my biochamber. So the current problem I am having is that for some reason the pressure inside the chamber is not great enough to push through the tube when its submerged in the reactor but somehow great enough to be forced out the bottom of the biochamber quite violently. My next idea is to attach the end of the vynl to the air intake of a powerhead and place it at the end of the co2 reactor and hopefully it will create enough "suck" to pull the air out of the biochamber into the reactor. I thought that this was a pretty clever solution for the co2 loss if I can get around these last few hurdles then I should be good to go. Anyone have any ideas?

k bye
 
Clarify that a little please. zI think you're saying, the water is being forced out of the bottom of the biochamber but CO2 is not being forced into your reactor from the biochamber, correct?

If that's the case, put a check valve on the tubing from the biochamber to your reactor with the flow headed to the reactor. Since you have inconsistant gas pressure on this line it may help, then again, if the pressure is too low to push the water out of the tubing it may not make a difference at all, but a check valve is a cheap attempt, and probably good practice either way.
 
The water is exiting the chamber fine is the air thats the problem. Air is being sucked in from my intake above and the because my bio chamber is air tight, the air pressure builds inside my biochamber. This pressure then builds and then the air bubbles out of the bottom of the biochamber inside my sump tank. What I'm trying to to is instead redirect that air pressure out of a piece of tubing in the chamber and have it bubble into my CO2 reactor along with the co2 line from my cylinder. This way any co2 loss from the water traveling down my intake into my biochamber will essentially gas off and travel out the vynl tubing in the top and then be recycled back into the system through the co2 reactor.
 
Sorry to be difficult about it but could you grab some pics when you get a chance? Namely the intake (while running), and the biochamber bottom.

Most likely you're going to lose your CO2 at the first point of strong agitation, the intake. Any air that's being pulled down would be exactly that, common air.

If you really want to avoid drastic CO2 loss I'd suggest putting your CO2 reactor inline with your return, post pump. I know your current equipment probably won't satisfy this but one way to get around big CO2 loss is to inject your CO2 post oxygenation. The water will retain CO2 and O2 until it hits the tank if your return is air tight. Since you're running CO2 injection you want low-to-no surface agitation while CO2 is being added, so you'll have to make sure any return outlets or spray bars you have setup are below the surface.

If you do this, keep an eye out on your pH as regardless of the O2 level, the CO2 will make the water more acidic. You'll have to tailor the BPM to your system as 1-2 will be far too low and, if injecting after the pump, 30-40 may be too high.

I'll do what I can to help as I ran CO2 and Sump when I first started setting up planted tanks. You can make it work, but it will cost you 5x the cost of a non-sump tank on CO2.
 
Ok this is the intake from the back side of the tank. Where the cap is there is a syphon break hole drilled there to prevent a complete syphon and cause my entire tank to drain to my sump. There is also a similar hole drilled in the intake because there is a U shape to put the end of the intake under the water level. The construction is simliar to a durso stand pipe design and makes the intake considerably quiter. The hole is there to prevent a syphon from draining the tank down to the level of the bottom of the intake opening. These 2 small holes are where the air is getting sucked in and mixing with the tank water.

IMG_0580.jpg

This is the top portion of my biochamber. I have the Union there so i can remove my lid. The lid is air tight because it came with a rubber o-ring inside it. The pvc is secured with plummer's epoxy. The small tubing is for my releaving pressure. The air builds inside my chamber and is forced out the bottom where the water runs out. The theroy behind this set up is that most of the aggitation of the water happens inside the bio chamber when the water exits the pvc and runs over the biomedia. The chamber since it was air tight built up air pressure and forced air out of the bottom. Thats where the tubing came in. Any co2 gassed off in the chamber was supposed to travel out of the chamber through the airline which will be placed into the co2 reactor and recycled to the tank. The problem now is that the pressure in the chamber for some reason will not push the air out of the t airline to the reactor but will still be forced out the bottom of the biochamber. Interesting eh?

IMG_0578.jpg

Sorry for the quality on this one...difficult angle and no light under the tank. This is my co2 reactor which is attached to my return pump to the main tank. The return outlet is completely submerged to prevent gas off there as well. I have a syphon break hole drilled there as well to prevent damage to my pump. So... currently my last hurdle, untill i find another problem, I need to get the air out of the chamber through the airline tubing into my reactor. Do they make an air pump that will suck from my airline and pump out the other end to my reactor?
IMG_0583.jpg
 
Ok, with the pictures I now understand the problem. What you're running into is a gas pressure problem. Basically the airline you have in place is allowing venting of gas pressure in the biochamber(red bucket) but is not of sufficient pressure to move the water out of the airline and into the reactor.

Now the pump idea would facilitate moving the air from the biochamber and into the reactor but honestly I would tell you to just cut the airline, so the biochamber can vent and up your CO2. That looks like that's going to be the only logical solution. Otherwise, there's a possibility, especially with the biochamber being almost completely sealed, that you're going to starve the bacteria of oxygen, causing the biochamber to no longer harbor the aerobic bacteria for the nitrogen cycle. You may even have to widen the hole where the airline sits to get sufficient oxygen into the bucket.
 
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