# Quest for a most effiecient large tank setup



## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

I've been thinking of this a while and got a little off topic talking about it in a similar thread. I think it deserves its own thread.

With energy prices going up and up, saving a bit on the bill is of paramount importance if you have a large setup - not just for your pocketbook but for the environment.

As a professional computer programmer of many years I of course care about efficiency more than most but even if you don't care too much about efficiency, there is more to efficiency than saving a few bucks or even helping a bit with the environment. Perhaps to many the less obvious but more tangible appeal will have more weight - with more efficient setups you can have more and bigger tanks!

1. LED Lights. Obvious and simple. Costs a bit more up front but can save a lot over time. If you don't have plants then probably you don't spend much on lights anyway. One t8 across the top is more than enough for most tanks. Maybe too much even. One that spans half or 2/3 of your tank is probably enough if you don't have a heavily planted tank.

2. Heater. Only so much you can do there. I like to get heavily insulated windows in all the rooms of my house, and a space heater for winter in the room my tanks are in. Keeping the whole room a good temp at all times helps a lot here. It also helps that I live in a warm area. Eventually I stopped using a heater completely. That is only partly because of efficiency, though. I have broken heaters before and almost got shocked a few times after that forget it - if it can't live here without a heater I am not going to have it.

Water is 72 right now but it goes up to 78 much of the time and doesn't really drop below 70. Having acrylic tanks seems to help quite a bit - glass seems to get a lot colder. I prophylactically nuke any incoming fish with ich cure in a separate little tank and ich has not been any problem. Fungus can be a problem for some fish if it gets down to 70 but in spite of what 99.9% of internet knowitalls say, salt works great to prevent it - a little salt and you will never see fungus in your tanks.

It's not going to work with rams or discus, but it should work with almost everything else - especially large cichlids. Another benefit is that lower temp means more oxygen. More oxygen means fewer diseases and more stocking capacity.

3. Filtration and oxygenation. This part I will cover more in following posts because it is the meat of the matter. Here is the area we can make improvements.










For starters pumps have a wild variation in efficiency. Unfortunately even some rather rinky dink pumps can be quite expensive, though - mainly I presume the more quiet and efficient ones are the most expensive. So you have to balance between longterm costs and initial purchase price. Paying 66 bucks for a pump that moves 80 gallons per hour seems crazy, but on the other hand it is quite efficient and probably quite reliable and quiet as well.

First off how can we measure filtration? At first we might look at the flow alone to determine it. But what if all we have is a thin mesh for a filter? It won't filter all that much. But obviously the more water we put through it the more filtration we will get. So something like flow rate x media size is the best measure. But we quickly run into another problem. The thicker the media and the more it impedes the water, the harder we have to push. We don't really get 350 gallons per hour any more, we are quickly reduced to maybe 150, or even less depending on how much media we have to push water through in our canister.

So initially it seems like our canister filter saved the day, and it probably does better than a HOB of equal rating, but we are stuck at some point. Adding dense media will just slow up the water flow and eventually clog the canister a lot faster - at some point (probably fairly quickly) we get no more returns.

But there's more going on than that. I have a canister filter and a HOB from the same company, Marineland. The HOB is 20.4 watts while the canister is actually 35 watts. Yet both of them are rated as pushing 350 gallons per hour. It would make sense that you have to have more power to push through a canister's larger media - but as stated already, these ratings are empty ratings!

So why would the same company use a motor that is 75% more powerful on a canister than it would on a HOB? If it were different companies than I perhaps might guess that it was a cost cutting measure - maybe the HOB has a more efficient but pricier motor than the canister. Since it's the same company then I assume that is not the main reason though there is no guarantee that motors from the same company have the exact same efficiency. But it's probably a good assumption there's a reason behind it beyond "just because".

To add to the confusion we also have sumps. Sumps have a lot of benefits over the other filtration methods. They actually add to the total water amount in your system for starters. They can be any size as well, without any additional operation cost. So if you really want to you can put a 100 gallon sump on your microreef. Some would consider this cheating but you can be assured that you won't have to worry much about water quality any more!

When speaking of filtration, perhaps more important is that unlike canisters and HOBS there's no limit of diminishing returns on filtration except the physical size of your sump. The only thing pushing the water through the filter media is gravity itself. You can have all the diatomic foam, sponges, bioballs or other media you can physically fit in there and you will still get the exact same flow - at least until the sump starts to clog anyway.










They can be quite costly to run, though. And look how much water those sumps push out. As we realized earlier, the flow x filter area is how much filtration we get. But for a sump the filtration level can be HUGE. In a saltwater setup the flow hardly even matters for filtration - the skimmer and any reactors can only handle a tiny amount in the first place. MOST OF IT IS WASTED when it comes to the discussion of filtration. Salt water tanks usually need a good amount of circulation and aeration but we can attain those benefits with a combination of powerheads and bubblers much more cheaply instead. So for now we are looking ONLY at filtration.

For freshwater sumps it's another story. They are easy to pack with useful filter media of varying kinds. In fact you can pack them with so much that it is impossible for the water to all go through the filtration quickly enough for the return pump to keep being fed. And if you can, you should! Moving the water around is NOT the goal here, it's filtration. And again, the filter media in a sump is pulled through by gravity. So if you want filtration and efficiency, instead of limiting your filtration media, you should be packing in as much as possible and then reducing your return pump power (and energy usage) instead!

So if we can manage 10 times, or 20 times the filtration media in a sump what does that mean? Well, we can now get the same filtration as the canister using only 1/10th or 1/20th the water flow!

But not everything about the sump is great. While gravity drains water into the sump, just as in the canister, the return pump has to fight AGAINST gravity on the way back up. The amount of water in the return pipe below the level of the water will directly press back on the pump.

The further down the sump is, the more force it must exert. That is also why each pump has a maximum so-called head distance. This also seems to affect canister filters to some extent in practical use.

http://www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/20 ... -pond.html



> The implications here are important for mating an effective UV Sterilizer to the correct filter (if a canister filter is to be used to drive water through the UV Sterilizer). As noted previously, few canister filters rate their "true" flow rate. Another example is the Fluval FX5 with a 0 head pressure rating 925 gph, when in reality the typical head pressure flow rate is 600 gph or less after the added resistance in the filter media and tubing are applied (as well as the addition of a UV Sterilizer).
> 
> Though it's far from an exact formula, a typical pump/canister filter flow rate with an under tank placement is about 50% to 60% of the published 0 head flow rate.
> This is the number you should use for mating your UV Sterilizer.





> Here is an actual test using the Filstar S and timing its flow to fill a container.
> 
> Level with the aquarium - 164.53 gph
> 24" below the aquarium - 153.00 gph
> 52" below the aquarium - 142.87 gph


So, suddenly our difference in wattage between HOBs and canisters is explained! A free powerhead and a HOB probably both have very little resistance to the flow. Not so with a canister.

It's even worse with a sump, though. There is no siphon effect to lessen the effects of gravity. But this also depends on the design of the pump itself.



> Most aquarium water pumps are open impeller designs that are greatly affected by head pressure. Propeller pumps, just by their design can handle almost no head pressure and thus are only intended for under water applications with no lifting of water out or into an aquarium.
> 
> A few pumps, in particular those designed for ponds or large aquarium systems such as the Rio HF Pump series have closed designs that can handle much more head pressure and are thus better suited for lifting water through multiple devices, water features, or deep sumps.
> 
> ...


To my mild surprise, it seems that we get the same real world results for canisters dealing with head pressure as we do for return pumps. My expectation was that head pressure would have some effect but that pushing through the media would matter much more, but head pressure seems to have almost the same effect as in a sump and the media drag has only a small effect but is in addition to this.

Now that I ponder a minute it makes sense. This is actually largely the same situation. The canister's inlet and outlet are both at the top. So it's actually gravity that pulls the water through the media. There is air in the canister so the syphon effect really makes no difference, either. Probably if there was too dense of media the system would simply stall out or fill with air maybe. Which is what happens when your filter gets too dirty, so obviously my line of thought is correct.

The rest of the article has some calculations that are somewhat incorrect but is still interesting.

However, now we have a moral to the story.

1. HOB - no flow restriction but doesn't have much space for media. You have to use a strong flow or it's useless.
2. Canister - more restricted but also can hold way more media. Much more filtration for the buck but you still have to keep a fairly strong flow. You have a hard limit to how much media you can have, otherwise you get clogs and slower pump rate.
3. Sump - Flow efficiency is, somewhat surprisingly, just as good as a canister. Plus you have the added benefit that you have no cost to pump speed or hard limit on media size. You could put 1000x the media in a sump and get 1000x the filtration for the same flow...or reduce the flow by 1000x times and still get the same filtration!

So if you want maximum filtration efficiency clearly the sump is the way to go. You can filter a truly huge aquarium this way with very very little power usage.

But wait, there's more!

While a sump is generally kept under the aquarium, head pressure is something you can affect yourself. You can have the sump anywhere you want so long as it's a little lower to allow gravity to syphon out water from the main tank.

In fact you don't really need a sump at all per se. You can just as easily get the same effect from a water bridge to a tank filled with media. Simply put your canister return feed from one tank into the far end of the tank and a water bridge on the near end and you are set. This has no additional cost at all! This behaves much like a mattenfilter but you also get the benefits of the canister itself. Or you can skip the canister filter entirely (which will have negligible filter media compared to what you can stuff in an entire canister filter). Then you can ditch your 35 watt canister pump and use a tiny 10 watt pump to filter even a very large aquarium.

Costs up front will be more and will make you work a little bit as well, but benefits will be huge.

Now of course some worrywarts will speak up now. But I need flow in my aquarium! That's true, you do. And that's what powerheads are for. If you use a canister or some for aquarium flow you are being robbed by the head distance causing difficulties in pumping. They are also much cheaper than a return pump in addition to being more efficient.

I see someone else is worried about oxygen. You should be! People never even talk about oxygen even though it's the most important thing! Oxygen comes from flow, but that doesn't have to be the case. It's much much cheaper to deliver oxygen with an air compressor than indirectly through a water pump. I use both. However, you can use just one if you don't like the look. For saltwater you probably don't want to use a bubbler, either. And you usually need a lot of flow. But powerheads are still a cheaper and more efficient option in this case.

How much cheaper? I don't know, but a lot probably. I will look it up and append that to this thread when I get a chance.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

Looks like my bubbler is just 5 watts btw. It puts out a prodigious amount of bubbles, enough for a really big tank. So indeed this is a much cheaper way to oxygenate the tank. In fact without a venturi and without positioning powerheads or canister output just right, you probably get very little out of them anyway.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

A carry over from the other thread and not a bad idea at all. This deserved a new topic.

One thing I do not see mentioned is tank size. IMO, for anything 90 on down and in the 48" range, you can't do much better(filtration or efficiency) than two AC110s. For that size tank there's plenty of flow and plenty of media capacity. Unlike the AC70s, you can't realistically run 2 sponges but you don't need to either. You can fit all the bio you need and more. Price is right, flow is right and energy consumption is pretty dang good, too.

I tend to agree with you on temp and heaters. When I do winter water changes the temp drops below 70 every single time. My Africans want 2 things during those conditions; food and sex. That tells me it can't exactly be terribly bad for them. Other species don't fare the same. While some do fine, silver dollars in particular will lie on the sand gasping for their last breath for hours if the temp drops that low.

A lot of interesting thoughts. I hope to hear more.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

BTW....if energy was our primary concern in filtration, air driven sponges would be awful hard to beat.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

Power filters' biggest benefit is they are pretty foolproof. If you just have one tank then that is probably the simplest thing you can do, then get another when it craps out. But for efficiency they are not that great, not to mention noise.

But for this thread anyway I am speaking about efficiency.

Sponge filter is a great comment. It's basically free as far as power consumption goes, so long as you have a bubbler it is no extra cost at all.

They can be pretty bulky to get one that is useful for a larger tank, though, not to mention expensive. I looked into one to replace one f my bubble wands and it was 60 bucks or so. But they could make a good addition to a sump or bridge filter, or you could attach small ones to your airstones.

I probably should have mentioned undergravel filters, too. I used to use those but now I never do. They are pretty efficient but there's many problems.

1. Messy to clean.
2. No go for plants.
3. Fish love to dig up the filters.
4. Never know if it's really working until too late.
5. Fish crawling under filter to die.
6. Fry sucked into filter to die.
7. Fish knocking off powerhead then getting pureed.
8. Fish crawling into the tube and breaking their neck - happened to a bichir, really liked that guy too.
9. If filter uncovered or too dirty or bad flow or gravel is too big or too large or too uneven, it doesn't work.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

http://www.swisstropicals.com/library/mattenfilter/

Also worth a mention that mattenfilters can apparently remove nitrates completely. I haven't tried it myself but I have heard talk about this more than once, including someone here claiming they ran a tank for two years without a water change just to test it out.

This won't work in a HOB or canister though because the poret sponge must be exposed directly to both air and water at the same time.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

Also, mattenfilter is basically like a giant sponge filter but better. You don't ever have to replace the media. You need some kind of pump, but you need a pump for any filter, and can use a filter inlet or sump intake as your pump.

Only problem there is if your pump is too strong then the sponge can't keep up. Also looks kind of ugly in a tank. Best for a sump or bridged filter tank instead of in the tank.

Basically what I plan on next is replace one of my old tanks with a new 75, then use that one as a bridged filtering tank full of poret foam dividers. Maybe with some floating plants and a small bulb to make them grow.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

http://www.thatpetplace.com/koralia-evo ... egory=2964

Wow. This circulation pump is 5.5 watts and moves 1150 gph. So for circulation alone it's astonishing how much more efficient it is to use one of these instead of relying on your filter system. It also moves around randomly which is great for plants. I might pick one of these up tomorrow. A little expensive but a steal for how much circulation it creates.


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## nodima (Oct 3, 2002)

Interesting subject - I've thought for a long time that there is a significant difference between filtration and circulation. Aquarists and manufacturers have merged the two over the years. I'd rather have a relatively low flow rate through a large amount of media and augment with circulation pumps than the opposite.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

I have never heard or read that Mattenfilters remove or reduce nitrate, can you provide a link?

It is also not true that Poret media can not be used in a HOB or canister filter, I use it in both and it works fine. There is no requirement that it be exposed to air and water at the same time. It does need water flow to expose the aerobic bacteria to oxygen.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

Swiss Tropicals makes that claim on their website.

Is Poret actually any better than the foam that comes in an Aquaclear? Those sponges are cheap and last me forever.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

I can't find that claim, can you post it here please?

I find that Poret does not shrink like the Aquaclear sponges do now.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

Sure, it's in the FAQs under, "Q: what is the working principle of Poret®?"

http://www.swisstropicals.com/faq/

Yeah, they changed the sponges at some point. I'm still pretty happy with them. I thought about buying some generic ones from Amazon to try and may still do that at some point.


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## dusanmal (Jan 24, 2016)

Deeda said:


> I can't find that claim, can you post it here please?
> 
> I find that Poret does not shrink like the Aquaclear sponges do now.


On their page go to FAQ and half way down is a good quick explanation:
" A: Poret® acts as a habitat for filter microorganisms that clean the water. Like all other filter media (with the exception of diatom filters, which are the only purely mechanical filters) the filtration efficiency of clean Poret® foam alone is really not that great. The highest efficiency is reached after several months, when some of the pore volume is filled with a flaky brown mud that smells much like moist garden soil. That mud is what cleans your water! The mud consists of more than 50% living organisms that depend on your fish waste. It is a whole zoo of little critters that form a microbial community, including aerobic bacteria and archaea that oxidize ammonia and nitrite, anaerobic bacteria and archaea that reduce nitrate, and protozoa, rotifers, and worms that consume bacteria and serve as fish food."

I would offer a testimony that it works exactly like that even in relatively minor application. I modify my Penguin 350s with removal of original pads and placement, instead of them a media holder with ammo-carb media and in front of it fitting 1" thick 30ppi poret foam. As I have overcrowded tanks and few plants (Mbuna...) fight with nitrates is endless. Two months after installation of Poret, I get dramatic drop of nitrates for my conditions and foam indeed gradually browns-out in the process.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

Deeda said:


> I have never heard or read that Mattenfilters remove or reduce nitrate, can you provide a link?
> 
> It is also not true that Poret media can not be used in a HOB or canister filter, I use it in both and it works fine. There is no requirement that it be exposed to air and water at the same time. It does need water flow to expose the aerobic bacteria to oxygen.


One of the moderators here made such a claim. It sounds like he (she?) thoroughly tested it.

You can get benefits from poret foam filtration without direct contact to air but I am fairly certain that you will not attain nitrate removal.



Mcdaphnia said:


> Well, you can denitrate your aquarium water. You can get a 4" block of Poret foam and put at one end of the tank opposite your Mattenfilter. Low oxygen bacteria will convert nitrate to nitrogen and it will leak away into the atmosphere. I have several Cell Pore denitrator blocks and I do use them, have for thirty plus years. In theory you could purify the water so well you don't need to do water changes. I tested this for a couple years in a 75 gallon tank I grew out African cichlids in. I did not change water in this tank for two years, and the test kits showed nothing wrong with the tank. Fry grew up in this tank as fast as any other tank. But eventually I gave up this experiment. Two years without a water change seemed long enough to prove a point, but I feel better changing water. About half of my tanks have either Cell Pore or Poret denitrating blocks. I change water on all of them. Fresh water is cheaper than salt mix, so throwing a lot of it away instead of revitalizing it is economical. Also there are probably waste chemicals and other things our filters and our test kits don't measure, so water changes take care of the unknowns. I do like to use a carbon block inline whole house filter to remove chlorine, chloramine, odor, taste, and reduce copper, lead, and other things. We moved and that is one thing I have not done yet. I only have about 40 tanks set back up, and have not even started on the second fish room.


I've seen similar testimonials, but I assume you have to have things working just right for this to be the case and would not stop water changes completely.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

I was going to get a circulation pump today but in case I get some fry, maybe I should not. I assume it will kill the fry?


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

Also, I am very interested in using the poret foam, but I would want to know how much flow it can handle before trying to design a filter system with it.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

Moving water wont kill the fry but swimming through a pump will. My display tank yields fry with a large circulation pump. The young fry generally stay in little rock crevices until they're brave enough to sneak out for food among the big ones.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

What kind of fry, though?

Maybe I will give it a try. I'd like to have my danios in my planted tank breed and they have tiny fry. But I'd probably have to remove the adults a while anyway, so I guess turning off a pump is no big deal compared to that.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Thank you, I must have skimmed that section. It does say reduce nitrate but not eliminate it.

FWIW, I do use Poret for the Mattenfilter style filtration in all 18 of my air driven (Jet lifter) tanks (40G and smaller) in the fish room and just love it. Water flow is great as is circulation and I average yearly cleaning or longer of the Poret. As noted on his website, once you see the water level behind the Poret reduced, it's time to clean the HMF.

Fish Jerk, all media does experience reduced flow once the media begins to clog so I'm not quite sure what your question is. I am using Poret 20PPI in my big Eheim canister filters, as well as other mechanical and bio-media, and have not noticed a reduction in water flow with clean media. How often the media needs to be cleaned due to media clogging will vary depending on fish bio-load, dirt, debris and other stuff that gets trapped in the filter.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

Deeda said:


> Thank you, I must have skimmed that section. It does say reduce nitrate but not eliminate it.
> 
> FWIW, I do use Poret for the Mattenfilter style filtration in all 18 of my air driven (Jet lifter) tanks (40G and smaller) in the fish room and just love it. Water flow is great as is circulation and I average yearly cleaning or longer of the Poret. As noted on his website, once you see the water level behind the Poret reduced, it's time to clean the HMF.
> 
> Fish Jerk, all media does experience reduced flow once the media begins to clog so I'm not quite sure what your question is. I am using Poret 20PPI in my big Eheim canister filters, as well as other mechanical and bio-media, and have not noticed a reduction in water flow with clean media. How often the media needs to be cleaned due to media clogging will vary depending on fish bio-load, dirt, debris and other stuff that gets trapped in the filter.


What I mean is how much water can go through them? That is important information for designing a filter because I need to select a pump. Can I use my canister intake to run water through it for example? Or will that be way too much throughput as I expect.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Water flows through the Poret well once it is saturated with water. On my Eheim 2260 filters, I'm running at least 500GPH with clean media. On the HMF filters with the large Jetlifters, it's probably over 75GPH.

What type of filter are you planning on using?

I don't understand your last question unless you are asking if you can use Poret as a pre-filter on your intake strainer.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

The problem with most DIY prefilters I have seen is that they are too small. I use filtermax IIIs on all my ACs. While I love them, it's still a little small for an AC110. They should be about 6" long in my opinion.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

Deeda said:


> Water flows through the Poret well once it is saturated with water. On my Eheim 2260 filters, I'm running at least 500GPH with clean media. On the HMF filters with the large Jetlifters, it's probably over 75GPH.
> 
> What type of filter are you planning on using?
> 
> I don't understand your last question unless you are asking if you can use Poret as a pre-filter on your intake strainer.


If you have it in a canister or power filter it's not really a mattenfilter.

Mattenfilters partition off a part of the tank with foam, then you have a pump inside there (or inlet) which sucks the water out and puts it back in the tank. Gravity then forces an equal amount of water from the tank into the partitioned off area.

So the question is, how strong can the pump be? Probably I need to get a new pump, but maybe I could just use my canister filter.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

I have never tried an HMF but I have always liked the idea. I can only identify two differences between and HMF and any other sponge filter: (1) Massive in comparison, (2) as an air driven filter there's probably way less water going through it per square inch of surface area than any other commonly used filter.

I would imagine that the combination of the two differences is what could potentially lead to anaerobic areas that allow nitrate to be processed. This is much the same idea as a DSB, lava rocks and etc.

If I were to give it a shot with denitrification in mind I'd plan on having it air driven. It'll surely work as well as any other filter style if driven with a high output pump, but potentially at the expense of the purported denitrification.


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## Narwhal72 (Sep 26, 2006)

Remember that Poret comes in several different pore sizes. I started using the 20 ppi on my central system tanks but I found it clogged up too quickly. So I replaced with the 10 ppi foam. I use the 20 ppi foam on my breeding and fry tanks which use the air operated uplifts. Poret is just open celled foam. Same material as used in most canister filters. Just thicker which makes it stiffer and able to be used in the mattenfilter style. I wouldn't use anything less than the 10 ppi in a canister filter as it would likely clog very quickly. At the very least you could use a layer of 10 ppi followed by a layer of 20 ppi to prefilter it and extend the time between cleanings.

One thing to consider is that more media does not necessarily mean that the filtration is any better.

Mechanically: If all the particulates are trapped in a single mesh layer, additional mesh layers are not going to trap any more. The exception to this is nonwoven filter floss. This material essentially becomes a smaller mesh size the thicker the layer. But for the typical nonwoven-filter pad the denier of the material basically determines the mesh size. The higher the denier the smaller the figurative mesh. Adding additional layers of pad doesn't decrease the mesh size proportionally.
Biologically: If all the ammonia and nitrite are consumed in 1" of biological media, additional inches of biological media does not remove any more ammonia or nitrite.
Chemically: Here is where you do see a major difference. If all your waste material is adsorbed in the first inch of media then more media does not make the water cleaner. But once that first inch is exhausted, then the media behind it will begin adsorbing waste product. So it doesn't make the water any cleaner, but it does increase the time between changes.

Turnover rate: Turnover rate in an aquarium can be calculated by T= 9.2(V/f) where T is the number of hours it takes to pass 99.99% of the volume of the aquarium through the filter one time, V is the volume of the aquarium, and f is the flowrate. 9.2 is the purity coefficient. Generally one complete turn every 24 hours is probably acceptable. Nothing wrong with more frequently than that, but less than that and no matter how clean the water is going back into the tank it will not be able to keep up with the daily production of waste products. Working that out it's a really low number. (About 50 gph on a 150 gallon tank). Nearly all filters will have flow rates much higher than that. But if you were to compare it to an undergravel filter from 1970, air operated with two uplift tubes that would have a flow rate maximum of 90 gph (and often less than that). And people were pretty successful keeping fish like that back then.


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## Narwhal72 (Sep 26, 2006)

I should point out that turnover rate is also dependent on bioload.

If your bioload is low such that it takes 24 hours or more for toxic metabolites to build up to harmful levels then one turnover per day would be sufficient to prevent them from accumulating to toxic levels.

If your bioload is high such that toxic metabolites can build up within an hour, then one turnover per day isn't going to cut it and you should look at a much higher turnover rate.

Andy


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

You can have multiple layers but putting them right next to each other won't be very useful. Gravity pushes it through and only the water in between will be doing the pushing.

If you have an intank mattenfilter then one piece is probably better. The site recommends 2 inch think pieces to be stiff enough to stay firm.

For a dedicated filtration tank you could have several dividers of increasing fineness with enough space in between to allow gravity to do its work. This has not just the benefit of more filtration but of spreading around the biomatter to make it take longer to clog. In the intervening space you can have equipment like UV sterilizer, or else plants and a light, refugeum, whatever you deem useful.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

Hmm.

Mechanically, more media, especially if a situation where it is not stacked on top of one another, would mean that the particulate is spread out over a greater area leading to less clogging. That's how I wrap my head around matten filter versus normal sponge. Even if both were able to handle mechanical filtration needs of a given aquarium, the matten filter would surely need less maintenance. Every cubic inch is responsible for filtering much less water than a regular sponge filter. Putting media behind media, sure. But that's not the only way to use "more" media.

Biologically, I always figured that if depth were added to the bio media (increasing the quantity) then the bacteria would be spread throughout but at a lower density. Maybe that's not the case, but it's hard for me to imagine that bacteria would cease to exist at a certain depth, unless we were talking an incredibly unrealistic filter design. In this case more isn't "better" in the sense that it would be more effective, but there are a few other reasons why it would be better to have more.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

Probably a thicker one would initially move water almost as fast, but would become clogged less quickly and over time do better than the thinner one. That is my intuition anyway. Complicated things probably need testing to be sure.


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## Narwhal72 (Sep 26, 2006)

> Mechanically, more media, especially if a situation where it is not stacked on top of one another, would mean that the particulate is spread out over a greater area leading to less clogging. That's how I wrap my head around matten filter versus normal sponge. Even if both were able to handle mechanical filtration needs of a given aquarium, the matten filter would surely need less maintenance. Every cubic inch is responsible for filtering much less water than a regular sponge filter. Putting media behind media, sure. But that's not the only way to use "more" media.


You are absolutely right. If more media means increasing the initial contact surface area then you are definitely gaining filtration ability. But more depth of media does not.



> Biologically, I always figured that if depth were added to the bio media (increasing the quantity) then the bacteria would be spread throughout but at a lower density. Maybe that's not the case, but it's hard for me to imagine that bacteria would cease to exist at a certain depth, unless we were talking an incredibly unrealistic filter design. In this case more isn't "better" in the sense that it would be more effective, but there are a few other reasons why it would be better to have more.


Because the nitrifying bacteria need oxygen to metabolize ammonia and nitrite they tend to concentrate in oxygen rich areas of the biological media. As you travel through the bio media the oxygen depletes as does the available ammonia and nitrite. The bacterial fauna changes to anaerobic bacteria that reduce nitrate to insoluble nitrogen gas and oxygen. In a mattenfilter setup with a very slow flow rate per square inch this probably can happen but how you would be able to measure that would be pretty difficult to do. In a wet/dry with a fairly rapid rate through the biomedia, the anaerobic conditions never quite develop and the anaerobic bacteria don't really develop. Unless of course you design special chambers with slower flow into the system.

Andy


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

> > Biologically, I always figured that if depth were added to the bio media (increasing the quantity) then the bacteria would be spread throughout but at a lower density. Maybe that's not the case, but it's hard for me to imagine that bacteria would cease to exist at a certain depth, unless we were talking an incredibly unrealistic filter design. In this case more isn't "better" in the sense that it would be more effective, but there are a few other reasons why it would be better to have more.
> 
> 
> Because the nitrifying bacteria need oxygen to metabolize ammonia and nitrite they tend to concentrate in oxygen rich areas of the biological media. As you travel through the bio media the oxygen depletes as does the available ammonia and nitrite. The bacterial fauna changes to anaerobic bacteria that reduce nitrate to insoluble nitrogen gas and oxygen. In a mattenfilter setup with a very slow flow rate per square inch this probably can happen but how you would be able to measure that would be pretty difficult to do. In a wet/dry with a fairly rapid rate through the biomedia, the anaerobic conditions never quite develop and the anaerobic bacteria don't really develop. Unless of course you design special chambers with slower flow into the system.


That's what I am saying. In most common setups (HOBs, canisters, and sumps) with typical flow rates and media capacities I don't believe we could even come close to having so much bio media that last of the it is completely anaerobic and starved of ammonia and nitrite. One could engineer such a filter, sure, and people have done so. And again, I have no experience with mattenfilters but it absolutely makes sense that this could occur within one.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

In a HOB or canister you just pass it over the media, not all the way through it. That is the big difference.


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## Narwhal72 (Sep 26, 2006)

> That's what I am saying. In most common setups (HOBs, canisters, and sumps) with typical flow rates and media capacities I don't believe we could even come close to having so much bio media that last of the it is completely anaerobic and starved of ammonia and nitrite. One could engineer such a filter, sure, and people have done so.


I would give partial credit for that statement. A Canister is not the same as a wet/dry. These are closed systems and the oxygen can deplete rapidly. Wet/dry's are open systems with a much higher air/water interface. HOB's have much smaller volume of media and some designs have wet/dry type interfaces so you are probably right on with those designs. So in 2 of the 3 major categories of filters what you are saying is true. But probably not in a canister.

As a personal anecdote, I installed a 110 gallon peninsula setup (viewed on 3 sides) years ago with a Fluval 404 under it. For aesthetic reasons the tank was drilled on the bottom with inlet and return both on the bottom (opposite sides of the tank). Even with the outlet shooting the water straight up, we could not keep a high dissolved oxygen level in the tank. Live plants did great because of the high CO2 but we would lose fish at night. It wasn't until after adding an airstone to the system that the low dissolved oxygen was eliminated.



> In a HOB or canister you just pass it over the media, not all the way through it. That is the big difference.


Not true.

In a canister that is filled properly, the media fills the basket/canister from one side to the other. So as a whole, the water _must_ be flowing through the filter media. It cannot go around it as there is no alternative path for the water to flow.

In a HOB, once the media becomes clogged, the water can bypass over the top of the media so then it can go over it. But that only happens when it is clogged. When it is not clogged, the water is flowing through the media. Same applies to a wet/dry filter.

Water will flow through a foam block the same way whether it is in a canister filter, HOB, or mattenfilter. Only difference will be how long it takes for that foam to clog and what happens to the water flow once that happens.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

Narwhal72 said:


> ...I installed a 110 gallon peninsula setup (viewed on 3 sides) years ago with a Fluval 404 under it.


That doesn't exactly fit into my qualifier of "most common setups". Yes, it's a canister, but it was installed in an atypical manner and with substantially less flow than most setups I see among cichlid keepers. Maybe it wasn't a cichlid tank but that's what most of us are here for.


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## Fish Jerk (Mar 9, 2016)

Narwhal72 said:


> Not true.
> 
> In a canister that is filled properly, the media fills the basket/canister from one side to the other. So as a whole, the water _must_ be flowing through the filter media. It cannot go around it as there is no alternative path for the water to flow.
> 
> ...


Oh boy you just keep going no matter what.

In a mattenfilter all the water goes through the mattenfilter. Period!

That's not true for a canister or HOB. Not even all the water even goes into the canister's media container!!! Not to mention you don't have a piece of poret foam that is exactly shaped like a canister.

No doubt SOME goes all the way through, but there is no guarantee ANY of it goes all the way through let alone all or most of it! Period. Fact. End of discussion.

How about you just leave this thread, you constantly argue against facts or make attacks based on not understanding what I say and bring up incorrect facts like saying head distance doesn't matter for a canister filter and distracting nonsense like this.

You're not welcome in here and I don't think you have anything constructive to say just random jabs that are not helpful and not presented in a constructive manner and it's very exhausting to deal with this nonsese. The reason I started this thread was mainly to avoid arguing with you in the first place.


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## Narwhal72 (Sep 26, 2006)

Absolutely right that it's an atypical setup. But the point of the example was the effect of lowering oxygen levels caused by the biological filtration of a canister filter stripping the oxygen out of the water.

In a typical setup, the canister discharge is at the surface where the high CO2/low oxygen water exiting the canister can exchange gases and regain equilibrium.

This doesn't change the effect of the biological filtration on oxygen levels in the filter.


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## dledinger (Mar 20, 2013)

Fish Jerk said:


> You're not welcome in here and I don't think you have anything constructive to say....


That might be going a bit far?


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## Narwhal72 (Sep 26, 2006)

Fish Jerk,

So I should not challenge you when you present your opinions as facts when they are false? I am sure that would make life easier for you but that would be a disservice to the other hobbyists here.

So let's look at what you just stated as facts:



> In a mattenfilter all the water goes through the mattenfilter. Period!


Assuming the mattenfilter is cut correctly from one side to the other and flush to the bottom you are absolutely right. No argument there.



> That's not true for a canister or HOB. Not even all the water even goes into the canister's media container!!! Not to mention you don't have a piece of poret foam that is exactly shaped like a canister.


This is false. There are plenty of good canister designs like Marineland C series and Eheim's where the water absolutely must pass through the baskets with no bypass. And each unit has a form fitting foam block or granular media that can fit the basket exactly. This is EXACTLY the same as a mattenfilter which you just stated all the water must go through. You claim to have experience with canister filters yet you contradict yourself with these claims. If water did bypass the media then the canister would never clog. Which you claimed they did in the other thread. So which is it?

I am not going to leave this thread unless instructed to do so by a moderator. And I will support you 100% when you state facts that are true and accurate. But I am not going to sit by and let you spout your opinions as facts. Especially since they can be easily challenged and disproven.

As dledinger has also attested in the other thread, head distance doesn't matter in a canister filter. Just friction in the lines. It's a function of Bernoulli's equation. Look it up.

A discussion needs to look at all viewpoints. Not just the ones that agree with you. Some views will be right and some will be wrong. Unfortunately, many of your views are on the wrong side of the truth. I wish it were not so. If you believe I am wrong please provide evidence or data that backs up your opinion. I am not afraid to admit when I am wrong.

Andy


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