Mojoreef's Water Treatment Methods

[tankgirl]

Some of us asked Mike (mojoreef) if he'd talk about the water purification methods he uses on his awesome reef tank (500Gal of sps heaven).

Mike doesn't do water changes, but continuously purifies his tank water with a number of filters and other treatments.

Mike, can you explain the system to us?

 

[Maxx]

Mike,
I'm curious as well, please tell us.
Nick

 

[Pro_builder]

Yes Mike, Please enlighten us on the ways of your Wizzardry.

 

[mojoreef]

Ok well this thread looks to be a good one so lets see if we can get the ball rolling. As I mentioned above we must look at the whole system when we are breaking down a reefing method. As most know I run my tank a little different the most of the latest fads out there. Even though my system looks complicated it is designed to be as simple as possible.

Most of everything we do in our tank is in search for good water quality and mine is designed under that same way. Most everything we do in regards to filtration is for the removal of 2 elements (P and N). I learned along time ago that the simplest way to deal with these is to remove them and to not attempt to create complex systems to remanufacture or recycle them.

For this reason my tanks water flow is designed to remove them directly from the water column. All things bad in a tank are associated with detritus (food, waste, and so on. Basically P and N) the flow system circulates detritus in the water column, this makes the detritus available to corals and other critters that may need them for food (instead of sinking it in a sediment bed and feeding it) at the same time the detritus is alway being removed via the overflow (mine is 16 feet long). Once down into the sump it is pulled through a very large skimmer running wet (wet=pulling out more solids). I use UV (alot) to remove various nasties in the water column that may excape the skimmer. I am looking to kill pathogenic bacteria and protozoa, algal cells and spores, and pretty much any planktonic critters. The concept behind this is that I believe natural food sources to be very poor and loaded with the P and N that I am trying to get rid of, that and most of the pathogenic forms tend to be open water swimmers.

Every few weeks the detritus in the water column builds up to a point where I feel the need to put on a 5 micron felt sock. I usually keep it on about 2 days max. After removing it, the water is stripped of most all detritus, and thus I leave the process to start all over again. I do also have a carbon and phosphate chemical filters attached to the tank but only use them while the sock is on.
That is pretty much it, I do not use or have to use a DSB/plenum to break down or sink P and N because I remove it from the system prior to it being broken down (so no need for nitrification or denitrification) I also know that no matter how good my system is some will always get through, and this is where the LR comes into play.

On the water change front, I dont believe i them. Folks do water changes for two reasons, to dilute polution and to replace elements used up by the inhabitants. For me on the polution front, I choose to remove it on a constant basis and not to sink it or store it in the tank, so I dont need to do one for that reason. On the replenishment of elements, I perfer not to use the lowest food grade of additives that can be purchased (which is exactly what all salts mixes are). Instead I replenich the elements through the use of a calcium reactor and kalk addition. On the reactor I use a high grade media from rowa and on the kalk I use analytical grade calcium Oxide. for trace I use the same line of analytical grade additives but thier doseing is very few and far between.


Anyway thats about it.


MIke

 

[NaH2O]

....I think I've read that somewhere before

LOL...Troy....Wizzardry....I'm picturing Mike in a wizzard hat waving a wand at his tank.

 

[Craig Manoukian]

That's a very good and straight forward explanation, thanks Mike. When I move to a larger set-up I will really consider mirroring your set-up.

For now, my DSB and refugium are doing everything I need and I am doing weekly water changes. More than one way to skin the cat so-to-speak, eh?

Your set-up is fantastic!

:smirk:

 

[Pro_builder]

thanks for the input on a great system Mike.

 

[zy112]

I wanna be like Mike!

 

[Witfull]

Originally posted by Craig Manoukian
More than one way to skin the cat so-to-speak, eh?

this is a truly disturbing phrase...who came up with it? and how much research did they do?

 

[Maxx]

Wit,
Here we all are wondering in the glory that is Mike's tank, and your thinking about torturing small animals....shockingly poor manners!

 

[mojoreef]

Naw the wizard is Cos, and the walrus was .....?

Craig that is why I started my post by saying that you have to look at the system as a whole,and not individual parts. As you mentioned thier are different over all concepts, but I do believe that each system has to be taken as the whole.
In your case you probibly cant have the same kind of flow as me, and cant have it directed to the bottom of the tank, You DSB is going to sink and cycle material that cannot be removed through this flow pattern. In you case and as a total system Water changes are very needed.
In the different ways of doing a reef this is true and not true. The biology behind the tank will never change no matter what you are trying to do. What we can do is to is create a series of checks and balances to make up for short comings. These checks and balances alway come with more check and more balances, This is where we really need to watch how difficult we make our sytems. A system that relies on to many checks is like a house of cards, alot of times if you follow members trials and tibulations you can see them go from problem to another, this is usually a result of to many checks.

mike

 

[sharks]

Originally posted by NaH2O
....I think I've read that somewhere before

LOL...Troy....Wizzardry....I'm picturing Mike in a wizzard hat waving a wand at his tank.

ROTFL well the wand was a camera and he wont do that again

I have looked at your system in detail and I do have another question about the UV???

I was wondering about hooking up a UV and my plan is to use a separate loop from and to the sump.
I will draw water after the overflow sponge and the first set of filter pads.
It will return back to the sump before the final filter pad.
My though was that this will have the least impact on the “pod” population.
(Mind you I only have a 120G tank so the LR in tank wont be enough in the long run)
In this manner I hope to control pathogenic bacteria for the fish/corals and impact the planktonic critters as little as possible.
What do you think since I’m sure you considered this in your well thought out system?
Will this work in keeping the fish/corals healthy and have a less impact on the “critters”?
What are the drawback that you see here?

BTW I’m sure you know you are one of the few I consider to be a master reefer
S

 

[mojoreef]

Not a master my friend just a boob that has made most of the mistakes already .

Scott after reading your posts we are on different trains of thought on what we want to kill and what we want to keep. I do not want to keep any planktonic critters or related things, if they live no problem, if they die all the better.
Here is where I am coming from. Natural food, from pods to nekton to bacteria are not pound for pound anywhere as good as... lets say a equal peice of shrimp IMHO. if you say take that pod you want to save and line it up to an equal size peice of shrimp then look at the two. The pod is made up of meat, skeliton, shell, antenni and so on, the only portion of the pod that has nutritional value is basically the meat (maybe 40%???) where as the eual size peice of shrimp is all good 100%. this goes all the way down the food chain. Now if you take it a bit deeper eliminating these shels and antenii and so on will slow down the ammount of end product detritus you are allowing to sit in your tank.
Another thought, If you allow a population of natural food in your tank they are incharge not you, they will populate and die off when they want to, so you cannot control the input and output of a food source in your tank. When you use food that you put into your tank ou can control the ammount you want to put in, and thus also be able to export it accordly. One thing to remember is that you will always have a large population of bacteria, and bacteria is the main food source for most corals beyond thier photosynthetic processes.
So to answer your question make your UV the last filter in your setup, dont worry about the bugs, and make sure the water flow through it is slow.

Mike

 

[sharks]

OK gotcha
I believe that a dead pod is eaten as easily as a live one when pumped into a tank.
In my system the REF is pumped into the system and I have yet to see a fish turn up their nose at a dead critters pumped in.
I was more concerned with the bacteria and yes I have a sand bed that is my concern here. I want to keep it going as long as possible without feeding the system. I feed so light that the fish need to work for a living! A kole tang, Yellow tang, algae blenny, and few that need small feeding the ones that don’t hunt live pods. One of my main objectives is to keep a mandarin (hopefully a pair) for a long time.
So I can easily pump from the same spot in the sump but return to the tank and thus increase the flow again. The real question I have is what is the draw back with my idea here?
Also expect a PM real soon!
Mark

 

[EdgeKrusher]

Sweet setup Mojo!
Got any pics of the water treatment plant?
Peace

EK

 

[mojoreef]

Mark dont worry about your DSB, the bacteria and critter base are not really going to leave it (its a food paradise for them) and if they do they aint going very far. .
On the manderins your best chance of keeping them long term is to convert them to a regular food source you can supply. Ok a couple things on the pods. UV is not going to kill a pod, a good suntan, maybe some leg damage but thats about the worst a UV can do to a critter of that size. Second, a pod is not a DSB critter, yes it can live thier but usually it just goes thier to hunt. A pod is a critter that perfers the rock, that way its not as open to preditors, the most popular spot for pods is hair algae (or simular) if you have a clump near the over flow or accessable give it a yank and watch the pods scater.
On you UV set up it sounds fine, just make sure the out put of the uv falls into the filter pad, that way you can harvest the dead stuff.


Mike

 

[mojoreef]

edge here is a link, to a bunch of pics of the set up.

here

Mike

 

[tankgirl]

Yow! This thread sure took off. But, it went way too fast for me. Mike can we back up a minute - I'd like to hear first about that 16' long overflow!!! I guess that's the entire length of your tank, right? Do you have a pic of that I could see?

Also, what do you target with the charcoal filter?

Also, could you tell us about the water flow in your tank? What you use to get it? How you direct it around in your tank?

 

[mojoreef]

Hi Tg. The carbon filter is just for a polish once and awhile and is not really apart of the system on a day to day basis.
The flow on my system gets kinda tricky but I will see if I can discribe it for ya.
I have 2 closed loops on this tank. Each is run by an Aqua Sea 5000. Water is drawn in by 2 x 1 1/2 bulkheads into the pump then up to a 1 1/2 Motorized ball valve. Each valve has 2 banks of inputs into the tank (5-6) On the tank side of the inputs are 3/4 locline so I can dial in the flow. Approximately 6 inputs from the closed loops are 3/4" mixing eductors, multipling the out put by 5. Each Motorized bal valve is on a random repeat timer that switches them back and forth every 7 minutes. What this creates is areas of wild flow (waves crashing in) and then mild flow (ebbing of the wave) when it switches over. I am really happy with the flow in this tank and all in all it runs about 35000gph. Thier is also a spray bar behind the rock system (feed by a 3000gph return pump) this spray bar does not allow detritus to fall or settle behind or under the rocks. the overall system is designed to flow the water from the bottom back across the bottom, up the front and back across the top.

here is a pic of the overflow, its basically 3 normal overflows that are connected by a 4 x 4 troff.

mike

 

[dgasmd]

I am glad this actually came up. I think Mike did a great job at pointing out a few things.

There are a lot of misconceptions about UV and ozone in this hobie. Maybe just as many as there is about"plankton, pods, and bacteria" in our tanks.

Most bacteria are attached to substrate, whether that is rock or sand. There is a tons of free floating bacteria, parasites, and tons of other tings that are free floating too, none of which do any real good to corals or fish for that matter. If anything, they may be the source of a lot of diseases in captivity, that bleaching that came from nowhere, that disease outbreak in my tank that has no new fish for months, etc. UV and ozone are great ways to keep those to a minimun when used properly. Fish poop is also loaded with bacteria as yours and mine is. Please find someone that can explain to me how that is any good in a close system.

Like Mike said, pods and other bugs are not free floating in the tank. They reside in the rock and sand bed, so having water passing through a UV filter in your sump has no effect on that. If you really want your pod population to do well and continue to expand, limit the amount of live feeders in your tank and provide areas of "rubble piles" where they can savely reproduce without having predation there because fish can't get to it. There will always be more than enough for them to eat too in your tank so long as you have fish. Fish poop is a great source of undigested vegatable matter, which is mostly what pods consume. So all that algae your tangs and clean up crew graze on all day long is part of what is feeding your pods. UV comes to disturb that in no way here.

The only thing that I still can't be convinced of is to stop the periodic water changes. I respect Mike a lot for his obvious understanding of the hobie, livestock requirements, husbandry, etc, but this is one I can let go of anytime soon. and to make it worse, I have no scientific basis for my attachment to them either. There is something about water changes in my observation that I am not able to measure that does a great deal of good. I can't tell you what it is, but it jsut does it. Maybe it is my expectation of it feeding to results that are not there. Then again, even science hasn't been able to measure and identify everything. I mean, how do we know that hair doesn't grow or stop growing in some people because their skin melanin concentration absorbs some cosmic rays that we don't know of and therefore can't measure. OK, so I went too far there. :smirk:

Back to your scheduled programing.........