The Puffer Forum

Greetings,

I started this just to lay out and sanity-check the basic plan behind the progress of my puffer tank build; a 300g Deep Dimension from Marineland - I have some equipment right now, and am in the process of getting more of it. This build should be up and running by mid January.

As a consequence of cooperating in the design process of a number of skimmers many years ago, there are a lot of big skimmers which I would love to offload, but that is perhaps post for a different area, so enough of that.

Right now I have a 60+" x 12" x 12" Aquanetics BioReactor which handled a few thousand gallons of marine fish [hundreds of fish] at a pet store as my primary biofilter. In addition to this I have a Marineland C-530 packed with Seachem Matrix, Fluval Bio-Max, Purigen, Chemi-Pure, Carbon and open cell foam, which is currently supporting my puffs, and will be transferred over to the new system. For the skimmer, I have custom designed a Lifereef VS3-72 to handle dual 1" Mazzei 1078-2 injectors in a recirculating fashon. Until the new base comes in, around mid to late 2013, it will need to run at half capacity. If the need presents itself, I have a Top-Fathom TF8-HE behemoth I can add to the system. That would put me at well over 10000G of skimming capacity, between the two units, if i need it.

I have some terrible pictures of this stuff I need to crop and decrapify before posting, but needless to say I do not estimate any problems arising in the nutrient export domain.
For nutrient recycling I will later employ dark refugia and RDP lagoonal stacks as well as other refugium techniques, but that will happen around 2014 I think.

I have been out of the loop with pumps for so long that I don't know what is out there anymore, but this tank will be as a headboard for my sofa, and since things on the order of LG TE-5.5-MDQ-SC are needed for the skimmers and I really don't want a pump that loud...I'm sort of at a loss for pump options. If you have never heard one, imagine a jet engine mixed with a hair dryer, that wants to kill you by liquifying your bones I wonder if one of those Orca pumps would still be able to pull air with almost 7' of water over it, if its recirculating?

I was looking at some sumps from MRC, but I can't justify $1600 for an acrylic box made from stock which is $11 per square foot. I need something large enough to not overflow and have a constant water level in an area big enough for a large aspirating impeller skimmer [if the wife makes me step down to that because of noise], and yet small enough to leave me enough room under the tank for a large set of refugia.

So...initiate sanity check, and if you can think of any pumps, sumps or what-not that will fit the bill, fire away.

Keep in mind that I already have enough skimmers to skim Caladan, and that it was hard enough getting the wife to sign off on a $5k tank...so unless I can prove a massive cost savings by doing something differently...

Ian

As promised, here is an admittedly poor photo of the first stage of my custom Lifereef VS3-72. It is actually about a foot taller now, and will grow more later when I get the 10" base and 8" main body.


Here is the 5.5'+ Aquanetics Forced Air BioReactor, capable of handling a few thousand gallons:


Ian

The thing that annoys my wife most is the noise from my overflow. If I turned my tank into saltwater, she would not approve a skimmer.

What is a Aquanetics BioReactor?

I've read on other forums that overskimming is not good. Since you've designed skimmers before, is this the previous sentence true? Explain please.

Just DIY a sump from a tank from craigslist like most of us. Get something big enough to fit your skimmer, refugium, and pump. Nobody can justify a $1600 of a manufacturer's sump unless there is money laying around doing nothing. I'm awaiting your plans for the refugium.

As for the pump, I have the danner mag-drive supreme. I am totally satisfied by it. Read carefully about the return line pipe size (probably should call them about it just to be certain). Max flow is stated on the box, but they require a minimum size for the return line for the max flow to occur. They have a Danner Mag-drive supreme 36, which can pump ~2700gph at 7ft. It might require a drain line of 2" or bigger.

Your setup sounds complex, but its fun tinkering around with a system and adding stuff to it.

What is a Aquanetics BioReactor?

It is essentially a giant rigid fixed media wet/dry, but air is forced through it, and instead of utilizing drip plates or rotating spray bars, it uses a large misting device. The misting device prevents uncolonized areas on the media, and by virtue of air being forced through it performs to some degree degassing (including limited VOC stripping), oxygen enrichment and limited evaporative cooling.

I've read on other forums that overskimming is not good. Since you've designed skimmers before, is this the previous sentence true? Explain please.

If you check out advanced aquarist (I'll snag the links for you later) they did some pretty thorough testing of skimmate and skimmers, and found that only around 30% of the TOC in a given tank is removable by skimming regardless of relative bubble size or method of air induction, though those attributes will affect other things like cost of operation and time until critical threshold (max DOC removed) is reached.

Skimmers do a very nice job removing phosphate and carbonate compounds though, and apparently that is what most of the sludge in a skimmers cup and neck consists of with the addition of bacteria, algae and other microfauna.

So basically I do not believe that over-skimming even exists in any empirical sense, if what we are measuring is directly related to TOC removal and no other interpretation.

Ah, here are the links:
The Development of a Method for the Quantitative Evaluation of Protein Skimmer Performance
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/1/aafeature2

Further Studies on Protein Skimmer Performance
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/1/aafeature

Types of Phosphorus in a Reef Aquarium and Comments and Observations of Removal by Protein Skimming
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/10/aafeature

Total Organic Carbon (TOC) and the Reef Aquarium: an Initial Survey, Part I
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/8/aafeature3

Total Organic Carbon (TOC) and the Reef Aquarium: an Initial Survey, Part II
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/9/aafeature2

Elemental Analysis of Skimmate: What Does a Protein Skimmer Actually Remove from Aquarium Water?
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/2/aafeature

Shulin Chen wrote some pretty nice papers, as did Escobal, if you feel like tracking their work down.

There is a lot of unfounded hoo-doo zealotry surrounding skimmers these days, unfortunately. Hopefully true empirical fact can propagate to the point of dispelling a decent portion of it. Mass transfer and foam fractionation are very well researched areas.

I think there are other nice articles around AA too, but its early and my time is limited this morning, as I have a 3hr drive ahead of me (betcha I make it in two....hahahaha), but I would be happy to go into this topic in more detail at a later date if it is your desire.

Just DIY a sump from a tank from craigslist like most of us. Get something big enough to fit your skimmer, refugium, and pump. Nobody can justify a $1600 of a manufacturer's sump unless there is money laying around doing nothing. I'm awaiting your plans for the refugium.

I am starting to lean more towards a DIYish sump, but I have neither the time or inclination to do it myself...I guess it would be more of: Done By Someone Not Me...DBSN, hahahaha

I think the Refugium and sump will not be coincident constructs, and will only have a tenuous and passive physical connection with one another. The direction I go with that will depend entirely on the amount of room left under the stand once the sump is accounted for.

As for the pump, I have the danner mag-drive supreme.

The pump will need to drive a 1" venturi (Mazzei 1078-2) on the skimmer, but for a return pump I think that will handle the job well. I guess Danner fixed the whole problem with arcing out and nuking the tank? It wasn't as common as Rio cataclysms, but did happen.

http://www.mazzei.net/tables/1078.pdf

Your setup sounds complex, but its fun tinkering around with a system and adding stuff to it.

Guilty on both accounts.

With this setup though I want to take a monolithic approach, and not muck around with anything unless something literally breaks. I do not intend to even plumb it myself, but only direct and design.

It is looking more and more like I will need to get a pump on the order of 3/4hp, and figure out some muffling apparatus.
I wonder if frequency inversion noise nullification methods would be capable of practically taking care of the issue? Its not like the waveform would be highly variable or anything...hmm...

Ian

Clarification of opinion presented above:
I wish to clarify my statement regarding over-skimming in case reefers stumble across my post at some point, though the information provided here is generally A Good Thing(tm) for everyone.

I said that I do not believe that over-skimming exists in any empirical sense when viewed with respect to a TOC removal perspective and nothing else. I do feel this way, but I was not specific enough to avoid inadvertently tripping someone up. Not cool. So, here it goes:

For creatures whose diet is comprised of, or for whom a substantial portion of their energy is provided by some ancillary organism, such as is the case with most coral species and other filter feeders, the things removed by skimming can be important, and if such nutrients are extracted at a rate greater than they are imported, it is obviously bad.

But what does this mean?
Over-skimming for me has the following definition:
General degassing and removal of nonspecific particulates, carbonates, phosphates, trace elements and microfauna, at a rate greater than such would occur or be naturally produced in the artificial microcosm without human intervention.

The way I see it, this is actually not a problem at all, because this allows us greater potential for control of nutrients and general chemistry. Some may consider this to be bad, because over-skimming as I have defined it practically REQUIRES this level of monitoring and intervention.

We can replace many nutrients through increased periodic, or application of a near constant feeding regime. In nature most reef animals feed constantly at a low rate of intake. Without targeted research of published marine biology studies, I cannot correlate the total daily quantity of food consumed through natural constant feeding with either of our artificial periodic or constant feeding methods.

It is, however, safe to say that what comprises the diet of reef animals is far more diverse than what we can hope to provide currently. Thus, I expect there may indeed be a nutrient gap between what we provide to our charges versus that which they would normally be exposed to.

In addition to the feeding methods outlined above, over-skimming grants us greater ability to drip dose kalkwasser for the purpose of binding phosphates through immediate reaction and via the Calcium-Phosphate cycle.

It should be noted that the specific gravity of flocculate is lower than the main water body.

I do not know this for a fact, but I expect that the SG increases the closer to wet skimming you get; I expect the rate of trace element and microfauna export would increase as well ...but this is only a hypothesis and should not be taken as fact. Keep this in mind though.

Any further trace element loss can be overcome through the use of a GOOD salt and the addition of broad spectrum trace elements appropriate to the species you intend to flourish.

OK, now what do you DO with this information?
It is often overlooked that the ocean in general has TOC levels far in excess of that found in our tanks, but it is also true that the animal density per unit of water is also much higher in such artificial ecosystems. FYI Aquacare.de actually ran a skimmer on the Red Sea, and it went crazy.

As the links I provided from Advanced Aquarist indicate, most of what a skimmer actually removes are phosphate and carbonate compounds; this is most of what the funky solid amalgam found in the neck of skimmers is, along with microfauna/flora. Due to this fact skimmers are actually a really good phosphate sink. I think it humorous that foam fractionators are actually better at this than they are are removing dissolved organics in general.

According to the results of the testing performed by Advanced Aquarist, regardless of bubble generation technology, skimmer shape, and other ancillary attributes, skimmers don't really go above 30% dissolved organic removal. Obviously, since this basically establishes that it doesn't really matter what shape or technology your skimmer uses, you can pretty much get whatever skimmer you want which fits your dimension and power requirements.

This does not mean you can just slap on a skilter and the world will be all puppies puking rainbows while riding winged unicorns or anything, your skimmer still must be able to remove the organics and carbonates at a rate sufficient to prevent a gross buildup of either. This just means that you all can stop caring if your skimmer is this brand or that, cone or not, beckett or whatever; this is all now reduced to personal preference and cosmetic frivolity, unless some other reproducible empirical evidence presents itself.

I am in favor of taller recirculating skimmer designs for the following reasons:
a) Loose coupling of skimmer through-flow rate and bubble generation, giving us more control
b) Enhanced binding potential for bipolar compounds of lower gas/liquid interface affinity

If the air/water ratio is equal between two fractionators, I will take the taller one any day. Obviously this is just one persons view on this issue, but it is supported by the work of many; see the references at the end of this post.

Final thoughts:
As always, a good understanding of the ecological interconnection of the creatures from the environment you are attempting to replicate [and it is advisable to pick ONE environment], as well as a working knowledge of chemistry, microbiology and marine biology is HIGHLY suggested.

If you do not come into the hobby with that kind of skill set, one having as well as using the desire and capability to learn, the patience to take it slow, the resources to properly take care of your charges and the responsibility to think critically will generally put you on the right track.

I consider these traits to be an absolute minimum to ethical husbandry and long term success.

A few other things I have found generally helpful in life:
1) Mistrust of those having a material interest in your choice of product
2) Healthy skepticisim of anecdote
3) Hatred of unfalsifiable claims
4) Referring to peer-reviewed material adherent to the scientific method prior to blind adoption of generally anything

Do not forget that while your aquarium may be a microcosm hybrid of the biological and technological, it is essentially comprised of systems more well researched than you may at first think, though you may at first not know how to look for this information, let me assure you that it exists.

Between the fields of Aquaculture/Aquaponics, Chemical Engineering, various computational fields of simulation and analysis, Logic/Mathematics in general, Wastewater Treatment, Microbiology, etc... you will find nearly everything you could ever need but it may not always be currently applied to or known by the hobby at large.

I could seriously write volumes on these concepts and other unmentioned yet possibly more relevant issues, though were I to do them the justice they well deserve through expansion upon what has been communicated fractionally at best here without prompt, I would probably be asked to leave.

If anyone is curious about anything I have said or how to go about finding the sort of cross-disciplinary analogues applicable to our mutual interests as such, I will be happy to help out however I can.

While there is none who can know all things, if I can spare another any mistake I have made since the early ninties, I'll gladly do so; all the better when puffs end up more content as a result.

I hope this helps someone!

Ian

Additional references, beyond those from Advanced Aquarist:
Ahmad, S. I. Laws of Foam Formation and Foam Fractionation. I. The Effect of different Operating Parameters on the Foam Fractionation of Albumin from a Solution Containing Organic and Inorganic Materials. Separation Science, Vol. 10, No. 6. pp. 673-688, 1975.
Ahmad, S. I. Laws of Foam Formation and Foam Fractionation. II. The Influence of Different Association Conditions on Surfactants, Glycerides, Sugar, and Salts on the Foam Fractionation of Albumin. Separation Science, Vol. 10, No. 6. pp. 689-700, 1975.

Ahmad, S. I. A Survey of the Laws of Foam Formation and Its Applications in Separation Processes. Separation Science, Vol. 10, No. 6. pp. 649-672, 1975.

Armstrong, Daniel W., Zhou, Eve Y., Chen, Shushi. Foam flotation enrichment of enantiomers. Analytical Chemistry. v. 66 (Dec. 1 1994), pp. 4278-4282.

Shulin Chen, Michael B. Timmons, James J. Bisogni Jr, Danel J. Aneshansley. Modeling Surfactant Removal in Foam Fractionation: I -- Theoretical Development. Aquacultural Engineering, 13 (1994) pp. 163-181.

Shulin Chen, Michael B. Timmons, James J. Bisogni Jr, Danel J. Aneshansley. Modeling Surfactant Removal in Foam Fractionation: II -- Experimental Investigations. Aquacultural Engineering, 13 (1994) pp. 183-200.

Grieves, R. B., Ugonnaya Ogbu, I., Bhattacharyya, D., and Conger, W. L. Foam fractionation rates. Separation Science, Vol. 5, No. 5, pp. 583-601, 1970.

Harker, R. Rethinking current trends in protein skimming. Marine Fish & Reef USA. pp. 57-66, 1999.

Lemlich, R., ed., Adsorptive Bubble Separation Techniques. Academic Press, New York, 1972.

Lemlich, R. Ind. Eng. Chem. Vol. 60, No. 10, p. 16, 1968.

Leonard, R. A. and Lemlich, R. Amer. Inst. Chem. Eng. J. Vol. 11, p. 18, 1965.

Shih, F. and Lemich, R. Amer. Inst. Chem. Eng. J. Vol. 13, p. 751, 1967.

Somasundaran, P. Separation Using Foaming Techniques. Separation Science. Vol 10, No. 1, pp. 93-109, 1975.

Uraizee, F., and Narsimhan, G. A Model for Continuous Foam Concentration of Proteins: Effects of Kinetics of Adsorption of Proteins and Coalescence of Foam. Separation Science and Technology. Vol. 30, No. 6, pp. 847-881, 1995.

Excellent info here, thanks for taking the time to post this!

Pufferpunk wrote:Excellent info here, thanks for taking the time to post this!

NP, Feel free to direct people confused about skimmers to that info if you want.

If people are interested, I would be happy to expound upon the many types and nutrient pathways of Refugia [or other subjects] as well. However I can leverage what I have learned, or whatever I can do to help people and Puffs, I will, within the time I have to do so.

It seems much has been lost by the collective mind of the hobby over the years.

Wikipedia quite incorrectly credits some dude in 2009 with the body of Refugium discoveries; I beat that date by 13 years with the articles I wrote for Albert Thiels' NetClub, mailing lists, Fish N Chips, EPARC and other online resources.

The Wiki issue has been a source of much consternation for me, as I am sure you can imagine. Albert was going to fix that for me when I spoke to him back in September of 2012..I should check back with him... [We were quite the team a few epochs ago]

In all fairness, though I published information on the topic as early as 1996, I think it likely that I was not necessarily the first to discover some of the techniques I wrote of, though it remains that many Refugium types are still not utilized or remembered by the hobby. Sad, really. [Googling "ianrefug" will find one of the first installments I wrote in 1996. Yeah I wrote pretty crappily...I was 16...leave me alone :p ]

Man, that brings back some memories..I remember lively debates with Craig Bingman, my allies Ron Shimek, Bob Goemans, Albert Thiel, Sanjay Joshi, Chris Paris and many others in many newsgroups, Thiels mailing list and #reefs [I was the 5th member :p ]...those were the days...up hill, BOTH ways! [GET OFF MY LAWN!!]

Heh...I suppose if there were a medal for digression I shall have won it through this post.

Ian

Albert & I are FB friends. I've been searching for him high & low, since I started dosing vitamin C with incredible results. I found his article about 6 months after I started dosing.

Pufferpunk wrote:Albert & I are FB friends. I've been searching for him high & low, since I started dosing vitamin C with incredible results. I found his article about 6 months after I started dosing.

Albert is a great guy, IME. The other guy from Biozone, Matt Cama-somebody, who was responsible for building equipment is a different story, again IME, and IMO is the cause of much of what Albert was blamed for long ago...but I will stop commenting with regard to this subject.

I have Alberts' personal E-Mail address in my Outlook archive from my time with Glaxo, which should present no problem of access I expect. I am happy to PM/E-Mail his VCF to you, provided that you give me some few days to perform the task, and if your desire is as such.

With regard to and in retrospect of the prose in my practically ancient articles, such was beyond reprehensibly horrific despite the fact I was 16. I would love to be granted an opportunity to take a mulligan, and further expound upon the operative precepts from some of my older articles. I will not do this if the consensus is indifference, however. Time is money, after all.

Ian

I am also emailing Albert but he seems to have lost all his VC data due to a computer crash. Since my dosing results are only anecdotal, I get laughed at by such folks as Eric Borneman but others like Marc Levenson (Melev), would love to see an article from me on this. Without scientific data though, this would be very difficult for me to do. There is, however, a several hundred page thread I started on this about 4 years ago, at RC, where hundreds of folks have had fantastic results by dosing VC to their system.

Pufferpunk wrote:I am also emailing Albert but he seems to have lost all his VC data due to a computer crash. Since my dosing results are only anecdotal, I get laughed at by such folks as Eric Borneman but others like Marc Levenson (Melev), would love to see an article from me on this. Without scientific data though, this would be very difficult for me to do. There is, however, a several hundred page thread I started on this about 4 years ago, at RC, where hundreds of folks have had fantastic results by dosing VC to their system.

Wow Borneman is still around?! Well whaddya know.
Him and I had some...lively..discussions on the AOL boards so very long ago.
We agreed on some things, but not all of course.

<rant>
My General Opinion on the Reporting of non-scientifically rigorous observation or an otherwise properly structured experiment:
One very important concept which is lost on those who, in their interactions with others in a general way are of a vacuously pedantic persuasion, is that the foundation of ALL science is the old standby process: Observation, Hypothesis, Experiment, Theory and Peer Validation through Replication.

Best practice is not to simply dismiss out right the observations made by a person, simply for the fact they do not possess a doctorate, or are reporting anecdote and presenting it as such. Conversely, I believe it foolish to blindly accept the assertions made by those with a doctorate as well. There is too much of both in this hobby, in my opinion.

We would not even have the sciences were it not for exploration of anecdotal observation; thus it is a loss to us all if such a hostile environment exists as to be sufficient to dissuade a given individual from reporting their experience.

So, I say post what you have observed to be locally reproducible, label it as anecdote and ignore the antagonism of such tools as the pedant and troll.

People should not be afraid to report their experience.
Remember; "Even the fool may be sage in advice".

</rant>

Ian

Were you with Albert during his VC studies?

gdsentropy, I applaud that "rant".

Folks unfamiliar with science confuse the issues. Science is not a body of knowledge, a compilation of facts. Science is a process, a technique, not an end result.

Experimental design and control when studying a multipotent material such as vitamin C is a nightmare. That does not mean that anecdotal evidence is worthless. It only weans that we cannot evaluate it in the same way that an "elegant" experimental design is reviewed and replicated. Anecdotal evidence is the material from which one hopes to mine an elegant experiment. That does not mean that we cannot ever use the results of uncontrolled experiments - we can and do. But we have to also be aware that this is groping in the dark because we cannot from such anecdotal evidence draw "proven facts". Anecdotal eveidence amy show us results which are desirable, but the results may not allow us to draw valid conclusions which hold up in attempts to replicate the trials.

Anecdotes and scientific facts are apples and oranges. Both may be useful and desirable, but they are not and cannot be interchangeable. They are two quite different things.

Does that help or just make the confusion worse?

Lol, it clears it up in my head, and I am extremely unscientific, I cannot get my head around many things. I learn through trial and error and also from what people tell me they have learnt through science etc. Our brains work in different ways and we interpret thing differently, it's what makes us interesting lol