# Filtration Capacity...This is ONLY a Test...



## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Well, I am testing the effects of filtration one variable at a time, which has proved to involve a lot more math than I expected. I have had to learn terms such as "pretty close", "close enough" and "just about."

So here's the test. I took a JBJ PicoTope 3 gal and set it up with a Red Sea 60 filter, which is pretty much the going rate filter for a tank this size. But to make sure I had at least one variable out of whack for the test I set the 9 watt fixture aside and grabbed the hood off of my spare 10 gallon and put on twin 10 watt bulbs for a total of 20 watts "twisty" lighting. I added foil baffles on the edge of the bulb fixtures to prevent a lot of light loss since the fixture is not very light efficient.

I am using old, established substrate at about 2" deep, and emmergent vegetation that will survive, but will also release LOADS of organics as the leaves decompose to simulate an overloaded system. I am feeding betta flakes at a rate that is "pretty close" to what i'd feed a dozen neon tetras, or maybe 5 female bettas, which is a bit much for this size tank to begin with.

The goal is to see what happens given a certain regimen under one filtration system and what happens with changing only the filtration CAPACITY...not flow rate. I'll change other things later on, but for now filter capacity is variable 1 (or V1 if you like to label things).

I'll post the first two weeks plus system stats in the next post with the first set of pics. I started this 2 weeks ago...so this will be just as soon as I can eat a bite with the kids...


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Here's the first set of pics. The bulbs are "Daylight" and I am pretty impressed with the color spectrum...very crisp and clean...

You can also see that the filtration rate is between 60-90 liters per hour, which is just under 10x the flow per the actual water capacity of the tank. The volume of the filter is about a cup, which isn't much IMHO. Filter media is a bunch of coarse black sponge, and you can imagine just how little actually can fit in there since the plumbing takes up a lot of the available space.

























Okay, so do your best to disregard the Darth-Vader look of the 10 gallon hood sitting on the 3 gallon aquarium...remember This is ONLY a Test...

You've seen the specs already, so here's the routine. I do 50% water change every other day and use tap water with a tiny bit of water conditioner. The plant sps are Anubias sps and 2 Crypt sps that were grown emmersed elsewhere. I have a lot of Anubias because I know I can count on it's emmersed leaves to decay pretty slowly compared to most others I've dealth with, and I knew it's transition would still be going strong well into the filter capacity test.

As you will see in the pics, the lighting, high organics and overfeeding, even with 50% water changes every two days, and approximately 10x water flow, has left a lot to be desired. The tank water is pretty green, and I had just changed it prior to taking these pictures.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

For the test filter, I took my spare 10 gallon tank, a small 5-drawer Sterlite organizer, 5 ft of 1/2" ID tubing, 8 ft of 3/8" ID tubing, some 1/2" pvc pipe, and a water pump.

The pump is rated at 150gph at 0-head and runs down to 0gph at 4.1'. In order to get my flow "close enough" to the original flow rate I needed have between 40-44" of head. I ended up with 42", and ran the pump outlet through the old filter's intake, which has a baffle built in for variable flow rates. I have it pretty darn close to what it was...

Here's about what I did...

Step 1 - move all of this mess to a room less likely to encounter a kick from a child, which would result in unhappiness.

Then I built an overflow. I did not drill a check-valve tap like I have seen elsewhere. The purpose is to get the air out and the water in, over the edge of the tank. This overflow is small enough that I could just turn the whole assemply under water in such as way as to release the air myself, then I plugged it all up until it was set in position. Then I opened up my hole at the end cap to prevent the siphon effect, and attached the drain hose. Perfect...the second time around...I made a couple of mistakes in the design at first, but that's another discussion altogether.









You can see the the water is slightly about the top of the pipe. This has to do with physics and with the flow rate. In a larger volume aquarium it's not all that big a deal, but in something this small it means the difference between an aquarium and a mess on the dresser and floor. It's function is a typical overflow.









And this is the exit...









It drains into the new filter, which would be like a sump. The stack organizer acts as a wet/dry set up. I had to play with the number of holes for the flow rate, but have about 1/2" of water in each of the top three trays. The bottom 2 are removed because they are at the water level.









Tray 1 is what was in the original filter. It hardly even looks like there's anything in there, and I did this only to demonstrate I have maintained the same flow rate, and now have my original filtration media, plus now beneath that I have another filter insert, and then a mass of poly-fiber. It's a polyester curtain screen fabric that's been in a box for many years. Melinda told me not to throw them out because we'd eventually use them...this is probably not what she had in mind 








Continued...


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

The return line was run back through the old inlet fixture to allow me to fine tune it beyond the head flow rate, and that was set in the chasis of the old filter so that the outflow would be just like it was when the old filter was still on. This was to keep it as close as possible to the original regimen, the only other change being that the water flows to the top for the overflow and not into the old intake.









The water looks great so far, and I used almost all of what i had in there. But with so much more new volume I will simply have to wait to see what it does over time. I don't think I will do a 50% water change every two days. It just depends. For now, here are some pics of the tank. I'll give updates as I have them...


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

I forgot to mention the light schedule. It's 4-on, 3-off, 4-on, 13-off. No CO2 injection, and no formal dosing of fertz aside from what comes from the food. The only inhabitants are a few ponds snails and some Malaysian trumpet snails.

Also, I am leaving for Junction, Texas for a week (M-F) and will not have a computer or internet capabilities where I'm going (while I'm going actually; I guess the availability is everywhere...just the circumstance that is the limiter)...

Melinda said she'd feed the system but would not do water changes, so I'll get to see it after a full week of no water change come Friday night.


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

I ca't wait to see the results of thsi test. My guess is that the tank will be much clearer with the larger filter set-up. I think the extra volume of bio-filtration will remove the waste from the water more efficiently than a small filter.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Melinda fed the system a floating flake food which got sucked into the overflow as soon as she fed, so most of the "goo" went straight into the sump. That led to a bit of cloudiness, but since this is all just part of the test, I am quite fine with it, plus wait till you see the pics...I think the bit of cloudiness is about as clear as many of the tanks I see posted here.

There has not been a water change yet because I've been gone, we got 400" of rain, and that means yard wrok, so it'll have to wait.

Melinda did however remove the curtain from the filter media. She said it was releasing a LOT of tiny thread particles that made the tank look like a snow globe. So we have blue filter media in the trays (picture below).

I also added the pump-portion of an old Whisper 2-10i to get some tubulence in the 10 gallon and provide better water movement.

Here are the pics as of this morning...


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

I'm interested to see how this experiment will work out. However as I learned recently there is much more to filtration than volume of the biofilter, "good" flow through the filter, and aeration.

Here's a Dutch website that talks in depth about many things planted tank including filtration. I am seriously thinking of translating the pages and posting them to the DFW aquatic plant club website. If you put the effort to translate you will read things that you have never seen on an English speaking forum. The Dutch indeed have ways to run a true Nature aquarium. One example is fine tuning the nutrient ratios by adjusting the feeding + water flow through the filter + the biomedia choice. Another example - raising a nutrient level by collecting algae from the tank and placing them in the filter where they die without light and release the nutrients in the water.

http://members.multimania.nl/brieneoord/aqua/startpag.html

The website is hosted for free and it has heavy banner advertising. The advertising banners do not let me scroll down a page. The only way for me to scroll up/down is to highlight the text and move the screen down by highlighting.


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

It's a good site isn't it (I'm dutch as well so easy reading)! Unfortunate the man who wrote it is not among us anymore. Would have loved to conversate with him.

But back on topic: because lot of dutch planted tanks use sumps, this experiment have been done many times before and some math can be found at the site given by Niko. But keep us updates about this experiment!


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Yo-han said:


> It's a good site isn't it (I'm dutch as well so easy reading)! Unfortunate the man who wrote it is not among us anymore. Would have loved to conversate with him....
> 
> 
> > Yes, I was pretty striken to read that the guy is not around any more.
> ...


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Johan, this is a big favor to ask, but could you translate all or part of the article for us? Goggle translations are notoriously poor for anything with specialized terminology.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Niko - thanks for posting that site!!! Wow, what a great load of information! I have checked the site and will have to rely on the the translator to help me out.

Yo-han - like Michael requested, some good translation would serve this community really, really well. Filtration seems to be one of the most misunderstood aspects, and one that can spark some pretty big debate. I guess it's a lot to ask, but you never know till you ask  please....?

I'll be out and about all day, but will have time tomorrow to do the online translator and read what the Dutch have to say about filtration...this is exciting to me. I love learning what is really going on and why certain things happen. It's cool to see that the water is clearing up by the hour as the nutrient load thins out and the filter media has increased by about 800%, but I want to learn WHY it's happening...

While I get to reading, the next part of this test will include letting the organics chill to a more typical situation and slow down with the feeding. I'll move a betta in there (she used to live in this tank before the experiment) as well, and increase the lighting schedule to a 5-4-5 "siesta" regimen. I am also going to add media, like the eheim hollow ceramic tubes or something similar, in the main body of the sump. This will happen after this week and will last two weeks just like this current round and the previous round.

Well, gotta run. Happy reading to anyone who wants to learn along with me...


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

Haha, I'm free tomorrow so I'll see what I can do... but keep in mind I'm dutch. I'll probably beat google translate (at least I hope) but it won't be spotless english either.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Thank you! Please post in a separate thread so we don't hijack this one any more than we already have.

If the information is as good as I think it will be, we'll make it a sticky.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

I was able to get through the Bio-Filtration portion of the website, but my translator left a lot to be desired. I picked up on the overall concept though, and if Yo-han is able to get some better translations posted here at APC then it will be a tremendous benefit to our hobby IMO.

In the meantime, this morning the water in the test tank was crystal clear. In the pic you can see reflections of the test equipment against the glass, but even with that little bit of glare you can still see how clear the water is. Melinda's hand was about an inch away from the glass on the other side.

Getting into what the website talked about, you can imagine what type of biofilm I had in the sump lately with the purposefully high organic content. I did a 30% water change yesterday and am no longer artificially ramping up organics, and by now much of the previous overload is beginning to break down. It's amazing to think of the different species living in that mess and where different species are at in different parts of the sump. 
I also am pleased about the all-of-the-sudden leaf sprouts as the plants transition from emmersed to submersed growth.
Here's a pic from this morning:


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Johan has posted the first installment in the "equipment" forum. Perhaps not the best place, but we don't have a filtration forum. We can move it and make it a sticky later if that is a good idea.
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/equipment/84781-biological-filtration-part-i.html


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Awesome...I like the idea of making a sticky somewhere for that thread. Yo-han really did us a solid favor on this.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Eh, who needs a filtration forum anyway?


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

niko said:


> Eh, who needs a filtration forum anyway?


ound: You'd think that with 2 moderators having posted here we could figure something out...

I'll ask in the mod forum and see what the rules are for that.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

A filtration forum would be a good place for the old "An excited word. . ." and "Laminar vs. turbulent flow" threads. I've adopted the conclusions and practices from those threads with good results.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Yes but some people got openly offended by my series of posts about filtration. Who knows how many more people quietly died in agony from my writings by being forced to read sentences with more than 4 words and having to think a little on top of that.

Now, with this translation things are black on white. Let's see what kind of a wave this will make. A tsunami or a storm in a teacup.

Also I think that the Laminar flow thread is not entirely a pipe dream as it may seem to some. I actually think that we can ultimately combine knowledge from different source into an optimal and reasonable guide to setting up and running a planted tank. No empty claims. The Dutch are not big on light periodization but Amano is. The Dutch do not believe in special water flow throughout the tank but Amano does. Things like that. To combine all that seems really promising but only if it is done with enough knowledge AND common sense.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

People who seem to get offended also seem to be those who are closed-minded...but then again there are also folks who would love to look into things but are just so busy that they are hoping for the quick answer. Unfortunately it's nearly impossible to give a quick answer to something so complex.

I am excited about the filtration information coming to us by the truck load because my goal is to not only have a beautiful and sparkling clean aquarium, but to understand what's going on inside it. This will allow me to better address issues that come up, and will probably prevent most issues from coming up to begin with. There's a reason folks say that knowledge is power...


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

I noticed something interesting last night in this tank. Under 5 Anubias leaves and 3 Ludwigia palustris leaves (still need to confirm that against L.repens) there were pearls. I don't dose CO2, and the lighting may be high for a tank this size, but 20 watts of pig-tail lighting can really only do so much. I guess the organics I started this experiment with are breaking down and are now in the water column.

The water is clear by the way. I moved some plants around and stirred up all kinds of junk, and within a couple hours it was as if I hadn't touched it. I don't ever test chemically for the usual things people test for. This experiment was mainly to show how different filtration set-ups effected the visual quality of the water. Maybe the tank is just too small to benefit from any increase.

Anyway, that's where I am for now.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Here are a couple pics...


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

I put a strainer on the inlet pipe and noticed that due to the size and spacing of the holes, very little of the biofilm goes into the sump now. The biofilm is not very thick, but it is there, and the fact that it does not easily break up and get sucked into the inlet while the strainer is in place leads me to want to explore what is in the biofilm. Fortunately I don't have to get as technical as I had originally planned because Niko posted that website link that Yo-han translated over in the Equipment forum under Biological Filtration. Bascially it is a living unit of bacteria and organics...I'll simply suggest that you read that post for details. It saves me being redundant.

Here are the pics of the strainer, and one of Mrs. Jane the betta who is back in her home.


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

I'll notice absolutely no algae in your plants or glass although there is quite a lot of light for this size tank. Have you cleaned anything since the setup? Added anything to prevent/kill algae?

Although I run the biggest filter Eheim has (2080) on my 100G, when I do some serious uprooting I'll never get my tank clear this fast. Maybe my next setup needs to have a over-sized sump...


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Now that you mention it, no, I've not cleaned it since I set it up, and I don't dose or add anything except fish food. This had been the coolest little experiment I've ever done because the water got so clear so fast that it actually caught me off guard.

Even when I mess with the plants or stir junk up on purpose, it's clear again within an hour. Filtler capacity is DEFINITELY a huge factor in how the water looks. I wish I had the stuff to test it chemically, but I've never bothered with that in the past so I don't have test strips handy.

But the plants are growing, there is no algae, the water is clear, and Mrs. Jane is happy...that's good enough for me


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

I have removed the Darth Vader canopy and replaced it with the lighting that came with the tank, which is a 9w pc or cf or whatever it's called. I can't stand the color, but I've not found a good one in that bulb and am not willing to invest money in a new fixture.

With the overdose of lighting, I stopped overdosing food (nutrient) and noticed some brown algae formation on the leaves and pipe. I'll let it go and see if it goes away in time. The water is still fine, except that with so much organic carbon load I notice yellowing after a couple weeks and have to do a 50% water change to clear it up (total volume including sump volume).

Since I reduced the lighting to less than half I have also removed most of the plant mass. I'm still traveling a bunch, so whenever I get relaxed enough to want to take pictures I'll post a few.

So far so good. Having played around in the Llano River a lot, I think if I were to set up a larger tank I'd go with about double the water flow (between 14-18x volume per hour) with an outlet that is more open (kwc1974 has one that would be an example) so not so much turbulence, but plenty of water movement. I like the drain as an overflow rather than the water being pulled near from within.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

I shot a couple of video clips showing the difference between "tubulent" versus "laminar" flow by stirring up the debris. I have never successfully uploaded a video, but I'll give it a try.



Okay, so I am a vitual caveman technologically speaking. I'll try stashing them and posting a link...


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Take 2...maybe this works.

You can see the ill effects of the 9w bulb (puke yellow, or bile yellow?) as opposed to the previous lights I had on it with the 10gallon hood. If anyone knows of a bulb that will work with the 9w pc fixture that is not horrendous please let me know...

Just click the pics; they are the video links to photobucket...(you may have to be logged on to APC to see them)


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

You know, about this laminar flow thing... I now have observed 2 tanks that had amazing flow rate and pattern from the cheapest HOB filter you can think of. And the water stayed crystal clear. One of the tanks I setup for a friend of mine who had never had an aquarium. He had 2 gold fish and the tank was 10 gallons. For a year this tank stayed crystal clear. No plants, no light but still - tank looked setup 5 min ago a year later.

The second tank I'm still playing with but I can see the big difference in it after properly placing the filter. The cheapest HOB works very, very, very well IF placed on the side of the tank. The tank is 29 gallons, the filter is a stupid small size HOB. It discharges an almost horizontal sheet of water close to the surface of the water. I guess that is as close to laminar as we can engineer it. The inflow is a few inches above the gravel (just like ADA's). The tank cleared up to crystal clear state within 30 min after I moved the filter. It used to hang on the back of the tank, debries where settling everywhere, and algae ate me alive despite 10% daily water changes (yes, daily) and feeding the 3 small fish once every 3 days. No plants, one 15 watt bulb and I was growigh algae at Olympic level speed. I blame all of that to the flow pattern AND the lack of biofiltration.

The problem with that filter is that has no volume to accomodate any reasonable amount of biomedia. For a long time now I've been thinking of a huge volume HOB filter. I've seen only 1 Japanese HOB filter like that. Basically and HOB with a huge box, that's all. 

Today I got an Eheim canister for this 29 gallon tank and will fill it with 100% lava rock. I will still keep the cheapo HOB - the thing really moves the water in a beautiful U-shaped pattern when placed on the side of the tank.

So how does the water in your small experimental tank look now after almost a month of no care?


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

I'm a little confused, Mudboots. Isn't the 9w less light than the Darth Vader light? SO with just the light change - filter staying the same- you are now getting algae?


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Niko, after your famous "excited" thread, I moved all my HOB filters but one to the side position, with the outflow closest to the front glass. I think this is absolutely the best way way to use them.

The only tank that isn't arranged that way is very visible from the sides and I really do not want to see the filter there. But I am thinking about changing it anyway!


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Niko, TexGal et al...

So far the water is still very nice. There is still a good amount of organic mess from the dead plants I had in there, but not much left. I do a 50% water change every once in a while, less than weekely.

The only issue is the algae mess, which TexGal asked about. The algae is that brown dusty stuff, so I guess diatoms? Not really sure. Maybe the extra light gave the plants enough juice to process all the excess nutrients I pumped in there via fish food and dead plants, adn the organic decomp provided CO2 like a med-high tech setup. Then with the sudden drop in light from 20 watts to 9 watts there was a sudden burst in available nutrients that are not being used by the plants (not enough PAR to keep them moving the cycle around). So I may just need to put the bright lights back on, or just leave it alone and let time take care of the excess, which shouldn't be too long from now since I don't overfeed anymore, and the organics are starting to go away.

Any thoughts on that from anyone???

One thing that is really cool is the flow pattern test. When the water exits from the old HOB chasis it seems to be high flow, but when I set the outlet hose in the water and let it come off the left side of the glass (near the corner actually) the same flow rate seems nearly invisible. And it's actually slight higher flow rate because I've dropped the head by two inches. It's like I could double the flow rate and not cause a mess. The water surface doesn't even shimmer with movement. I can't test this though because my overflow is too small to handle more flow, and it'd look pretty sick to have a 1" overflow pipe in a tank that small.


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## Silvering (Jun 10, 2011)

I have a 20 long with an HOB filled with biomedia mounted on the side, too. I can't imagine what a mess it would be to mount a single HOB on the back of a 20L, probably have stagnant spots everywhere! The trouble is, none of the commercial lids will fit if you mount the filter on the side. LOL Got some acrylic to make my own lid instead. :3

No useful comment to make about the lighting, I have no idea


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

About the placing of the HOB: The tank in which I moved the HOB on the side started with the HOB hung on the back and to the left. The entire right side was stagnant and that's where the algae grew even with my daily 10% water changes. Where there was water movement the algae was much less - maybe 25% of the algae mass on the right.

Then one day I moved the HOB to the middle. It hung on the back glass and was dead center. Within 2 days the entire tank got covered with algae. Some kind of dark green, almost grey kind. And slimy. It looked like a layer of algae mixed with mulm. It covered everything. It could be that since the HOB does not have enough area for biofiltration my biofilter was the actual tank. I don't know. 1/8" thick slimy layer over everything is a pretty rare and ugly sight. At that point I just abandoned the tank.

It all changed when about a month later I moved the HOB to the side glass and noticed the huge flow rate U-shaped flow.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

I'm about to post another video example that shows a little better what the Laminar looks like (just click the pic and it is a link to a photobucket video), plus is a better shot since the water cleared up following the disturbance.

For clarification, on flow rate the pump is rated at 150 or whatever, I may have noted that number in this thread at the beginning, and at the outlet height the rate is supposed to be in the upper 40's in gph, which is why I state between 40-50gph. If you look at the surface from inside the tank during the 2 minute or less video you can see the whole surface slowly migrating to the overflow as a solid mass. The water underneath moves with it, but not excepting the obvious laws of physics. I didn't vid-shoot the turbulent again because I think we all know what that looks like; the typical jet-steam that blows the plants sideways et cetera when the flow rate is between 16-20x tank volume (this tank only holds about 2.5 gallons).


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Photobucket will only allow me to see a few seconds, then closes the video and demands that I register. Since internet coercion is against my personal moral code, I'll have to take your word for it.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Well I don't like forced registrations either...you don't happen to know of another way I can stick video clips on here by chance? The only reason I have photobucket is because I had an account a LONG time ago and it seemed easy to navigate.

Anyway, it's pretty cool to watch, especially when I remove the screen thing off the top of the overflow and stir a bunch of stuff around.


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## kwc1974 (Jan 4, 2006)

Mudboots

The problem I an starting to see in my tank that has the laminar flow is this. Without any turbulent flow, by CO2 diffusion is not as reliable since we often use the turbulent flow to move the CO2 around the tank. Without this mix, even in a small tank (60P) I had issues. The most obvious fix is to reactor inject my CO2.

Beyond that water stays clean. Flow is very slow to the point that very delicate plants don;t move at all. Funny how a simple part change has a dramatic outcome like this. (to catch people up on a conversation mudboots and I had I am using the ADA metal pipes I started with the metal jet pipe and the tank was too turbulent, and with the standard metal outflow pipe no turbulence)


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Interesting point about the CO2; I can definitely see how it'd just go straight up, even in the flow volume in this test tank. So I'd guess in absence of wanting to do a reactor, dose a carbon alternative, or go NPT, tubulent flow would certainly be an asset in certain setups.

Kev, do you know the actual output of your pump that is running through the stainless ADA pipe? I was curious for a reminder about the flow rate.


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## kwc1974 (Jan 4, 2006)

It is an Eheim 2213 pushing 116gph on the output. Maybe more since I strip out the usual bio media and replace it with something a little more free flowing.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

HOOOORAAAYY!!!!! I've been roaming all over the place, which has allowed me to stay away from the test tank with only a few exceptions. Melinda has been feeding Mrs. Jane and said she has overfed most of the time. Anyway, the excitement is that the algae has all but dissappeared. There is just a little smudge left on some of the Anubias leaves, but for the most part it is gone. There are still some organics in there, but it's all starting to go away. Also, the Proserpinaca stems I stuck in there have started to show their submergent leaves, so the lighting is sufficient even at only 9 watts to grow moderate veg.


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