Tank turned 49 this year

[DianaKay]

If I could find live worms at my LFS, I would go buy my fish some too.
My white worm culture is not doing as well as I would like.
Still have some live worms but I think they need some fresh dirt
And a box made for growing worms that might work better.
I still haven't found any of the kind of worms you buy for your fish.
I am ready for the ice & cold weather to be gone.

 

[Paul B]

Hello there Diana. Plenty of worms here, plenty of snow also and I am itching to get on my boat. The water here is frozen solid so I will have to wait a while

 

[Paul B]

Doing some much needed maintenance. Once a year or so I stir up the gravel as good as I can all the way down to the reverse UG filter. This typhoon makes a mess and the pipefish are making nasty faces at me as I normally lose my bluestripe pipefish when I do this, but I am going slow and taking all day to do it to try to save them. I still see them so they may be fine, if not mad. The rest of the fish don't seem to mind and never do. This bit of maintenance is the secret to my tank's long term health and it would crash from Old Tank Syndrome (or boredom) if I didn't do it. I would like to leave this diatom filter on the tank all night but it is a terribly designed piece of machinery and if I kept it running it would burn my house down. I have 4 of them and out of the four, I have enough parts to get one working. The bearings are garbage the seals are useless and the overall design is horrible so I really need to re-design one because I need to do this all the time. I also have one Eheim running with some floss in it but that doesn't filter to well like that. I may design a diatom filter using the Eheim as a base. I just need time and I never have enough of that. It's been running for about 4 hours now and I keep stirring it up. I could do this for 12 hours and still find plenty of gunk to suck up but I don't want to make a career out of this today. The diatom is very hot and I want to finish before the thing stalls like I know it will.
Maybe I will do it again next week (but I doubt it.)
I realize most people don't stir up their gravel or sand but most people also don't have a very old tank. Don't stir up a DSB unless you want to take down your tank and take up stamp collecting

 

[DaveK]

Doing some much needed maintenance. ... I would like to leave this diatom filter on the tank all night but it is a terribly designed piece of machinery and if I kept it running it would burn my house down. I have 4 of them and out of the four, I have enough parts to get one working. ... The diatom is very hot and I want to finish before the thing stalls like I know it will.
...

You can get replacement parts for a Diatom filter. Here is a link to the parts page (offsite) -
http://www.diatomfilter.com/products/d1-parts.htm
You can get accessories here (offsite) -
http://www.diatomfilter.com/accessory_products.htm

I've used Diatom filters for many years also. Still nothing better for mucking out a tank. The motor does run hot but it should not stall on you. The motor and shaft seal do need to be lubricated. Diatom sells their own products, but I'd say you can use anything thats decent.

I do find the Diatom can clog quickly, and the water flow just about stops. Time to clean and recharge it then.

I can't tell for sure from the picture, but it looks like your using the original D-1. If you ever do need to replace it, I have found the Diatom XL does solve some of the problems of the D-1, especially in pre-coating and in the seal to the jar. The XL uses an O ring.

By the way, the company also makes reverse flow under gravel filters, in case you ever want to do another tank (grin)

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Hey Paul (or anyone interested...) did you happen to catch Jim's new vid he just posted using his diatom filter, this was actually the 1st one I have ever seen. it looked interesting

Gimmito's 450 L-shaped display

 

[Paul B]

Dave I also have the XL. Maybe two of them. I also have a bunch of diatom parts like seals and impellers. The problem with the filters is the motor bearings. They are bronze bearings and I do need to oil them every use, sometimes during each use. I even drilled holes in the housings so I can oil them better. I also drilled 1" holes in the motor end plates to allow more air in or the thing would overheat and stall. The shaft seals do not last very long and I change them all the time. I designed my own bags and just about every other thing on them. I know all about them and have been using them for almost fifty years. 3 of mine are probably almost fifty years old but they have been problematic since I started using them in salt water. The motor rusts badly and they usually also leak from the shaft seal or the jar seal. I keep one of them going but they are designed very badly.

 

[DaveK]

I'm wondering if you have a motor that is different or something. Mine is "only" 30 years or so old. It's got external holes with tubes that go right to the bearings, so oiling them isn't too bad. I've only had to replace a shaft seal once or twice.

Yes, the shaft seal can leak, and yes, my motor has some rust on it also.

I've not had too much trouble with the jar seal, although you do have to have the motor on it just right.

I would love to see the filter redone using more modern methods. Better motor, magnetic drive, internal valves for pre-coating, Quick disconnect fitting for the tubes and so on. Something more or less along the line of modern canister filters.

Maybe we should get together sometime and compare our Diatom filters. (grin)

 

[cracker]

Iv'e got an old Vortex .I have to kick start the motor, drip some mars on the bearings.set it up in a basin because it leaks and get the thing primed I had a hell of a time finding a jar for it. It can't have a lip along the top or it doesn't seal properly.other than that it works great! I used it to clear water after I used a bunch of calcium sand I got from a golf course. The water was so cloudy! LOL I loaned it to a buddy with a seriously yellow ciclid tank. Cleared the water in a day.Paul do you use pool grade diatom earth? I broke down and ordered some from the dealer. Old technology but still works great. I want to ask. Do You guys think" hypothetically" a new designed diatom filter could replace carbon?

 

[Paul B]

Dave a diatom filter and carbon are two different animals and nothing similar about them. Diatom powder is just a mechanical filter and will not filter out things like metals or medications. Mine also has those oil holes with the tubes to oil the bearings, but in 3 of mine, there is just a hole and no tube so the oil just goes inside the end cap and gets lost no where near the bearing. I drilled holes in the bearing housings to oil them. I do have to kich start all of them with a screwdriver if I don't use them in a long time and sometimes smack them when they start to whistle. A new model with a mag drive would be great as that would eliminate the seals which have always been a problem. Rubber seals and diatom powder which is really almost porous, glass powder don't mix and no seal would work wel there. The jar seal should be an O ring. I also drilled a valve in my plastic bottle to make filling and emptying it easier. I rarely open the jar unless to fix the bag which rots eventually. A well designed valve would be nice to start the thing also. I built my own but it would not be hard to manufacture. You can't start the thing like the instructions read, that would be just silly. I just connect the hoses together until the jar clears, then un connect them under water in the tank. I would imagine everyone does that. I may use mine again today but I will open the bottle and check the bag first as I think it leaks. It is not a device you can just fill, plug in and walk away and I would never use one if it was not in a bucket.
I don't get pool powder but they sell powder thaqt you can eat or give it to pets and it is much cheaper than pet store powder. It's medical grade diatom powder but pool stuff is fine and very cheap

 

[Paul B]

My workbench looks like a diatom re-design factory. The XL is on the left, I think I have two more units stored away somewhere in various stages of disassembly.

It is odd, that the motors are the same but the large XL unit on the left has a much smaller impeller. I never figured that out. I can probably figure out how to change it around to have the large impeller on the large unit.
The middle unit above has a custom built bag.

 

[Paul B]

I got one filter going great and made another typhoon because you can't have to many typhoons. This is s a good one as I can't see the back of my tank so I know I am sucking out a couple of years worth of muck. I think the diatom will last for the entire cleaning. I repaired the bag, stopped the leaks, oiled it up good and drilled more holes in it to cool it so I am sure it will work at least for this cleaning and maybe next years also.

 

[Paul B]

I picked up another shrimpfish today. I can't stand it, they are just to cool. They had two of them and one was dead. Although the dead one was very cheap, I took the still alive one. I am sure in a few days he will be in fighting shape in my tank.

Yes, I know these are not shrimpfish. I have a nice shrimpfish video but Photobucket says it is to big to post even though it is about 15 seconds. Does anyone know how to post those?


Here is a video without the shrimpfish.

 

[DaveK]

My workbench looks like a diatom re-design factory. The XL is on the left, I think I have two more units stored away somewhere in various stages of disassembly.



It is odd, that the motors are the same but the large XL unit on the left has a much smaller impeller. I never figured that out. I can probably figure out how to change it around to have the large impeller on the large unit.
The middle unit above has a custom built bag...

If you check the parts list for the current Diatom P-1 and the Diatom XL they both use the same impeller. I think that what we are seeing here is that the product underwent a redesign somewhere along it's 40 plus year life. As I recall the original impeller in a P-1 was X shaped, not unlike we see on some powerheads today. It was only later that they went with the spiral design.

Your XL looks about like mine does, and yes, I have had to "kick start" it if it's not been used for awhile. Like you I run it in a bucket. I usually let it run over night, if the flow is ok.

 

[Paul B]

The tank cleared up nicely after the 2 typhoons. I didn't even lost the bluestripe pipefish as I usually do. Maybe they took a trip when I did it. I may still do it again if I get time before boating season because I cant hit all the places because the corals are larger than they used to be and I really can't remove rocks. The 3 razor shrimpfish are doing well and I really like them.
I also need to make another strip of LEDs to supplement my lighting as I don't think my home made fixture is bright enough. I only have 108 watts of lighting over a 6' tank which is way to low for some corals. I would like to increase it to at least 150 or 200 watts so I need to either build an entirely new fixture or just add some strips to my existing fixture. If I make a new fixture, I will add a splash guard because my existing fixture has salt deposits all over it. I can keep my old drivers and just buy some more LEDs which are only $3.00 each so it is not a big deal. The big deal is having the time to do this because the lights will be off on the tank for maybe 2 days. Not a problem unless I get side tracked and the lights stay off.

This is the other side of my workshop that I rarely show.

 

[Paul B]

I took a video

 

[DianaKay]

Very cool video Paul!
It was worth watching several times
It amazes me how naturally reef-like your tank really is.
I hope the light fixture fixing can be done easy enough in a short time. Good luck with making it better

 

[Paul B]

Thank you Diana. Fixing and re building things is what I like to do, as long as I have the time. Designing it is a lot of fun for me.

 

[StirCrayzy]

Cheers to that ! Why not just add another driver, and do all the soldering and time consuming stuff on a separate strip. It seems like the least intrusive to implement, and Lord knows having an independent set of lights is good backup, since you could run off one or the other just in case.

 

[Paul B]

Josh, That is the path I was thinking about (and the easiest). But doing that will make the lighting un even. I have 3 strips of light now about 3" apart. So to just add another strip will screw up the layout unless I take the fixture apart and make the strips closer together, then add a fourth strip. I have a fan on top of the strips and would have to re wire the entire thing anyway if I did that and the holes in the channel iron and fan wouldn't line up any longer so I would have to make a new fan housing. I still may go that route because my old aluminum light is kind of salty. If I had a temporary light this would go away as I built an entirely new fixture.

 

[StirCrayzy]

My 2¢ again.
Use heatsink USA extrusions and saddle your current tubes. Just use thermal grease on the saddle contact points and your current fans should be able to effectively cool the new add-ons. I have used these extrusions for other non-tank projects, and actually find that 9 Cree XTE 3w diodes run about 90° at 1.3a on a 24" piece without fan cooling. I see four (15"?) long openings on your fixture that could easily fit additional 1" wide extrusions and that would keep the lighting even also.
Just some thoughts, I can't help but enjoy the prospect of a new challenge.