Anemone

Quite a dramatic example of *bad* plumbing luck, Origami.

And thanks Origami, good plumbing luck is much needed.

Good points Matt. I'll have to be really aware of where the pipe run is. That's actually one of the reasons for the PVC, at least that gives a little protection for the aquarium tubing inside, instead of bare tubing in the walls. Friction could be a problem too, especially if there have to be a couple extra bends along the way. Maybe I'll have to pull out all the tubes any time I want to change just one. Pain in the neck, but liveable since it should be rare. Might be a good idea to check out how they look occasionally anyway. Other caveats or suggestions from anyone? Keep them coming, this is the best time.

I'm trying something a little different. Might start a separate thread about it, but first I have to flesh out some things and think about whether the idea is too dumb to share.

Thanks Origami! It sounds like this might actually work out. I'm trying to get together with the plumber tomorrow or over the weekend; hopefully he doesn't rain on the parade.

This will look pretty weird but that is what sumps are for. I wonder how much flow I'd get, that is really not what the engineers at Hydor were thinking about. Time to go play in the bath tub. *knock* *knock* "Honey, what are you doing in there?" "Um.... Nothing!"

How about a nano sized circulation pump with the business end jammed into a PVC tube? Something like a Hydor Koralia Nano pump (2" diameter) but even smaller.

The water flow is modest. I'd probably run a pump for a few minutes per hour on a timer. The DIY might be above my skill level. Let's move the finish line a little. Besides airlift, any suggestions for the pump you would expect to kill the fewest pods? Very slow, weak output is fine, probably even preferred.

Thanks for the thought Origami. Sweeping elbows look good. I hadn't thought about the code issues much. Let's see, there may be a way down without crossing any framing studs. Behind the wall there is a dead space under the stairs where we could get to. It'll be closed off when we're done, so no reason not to drill through the floor, eh? Or straight down through the base plate might work (luckily the joists go the right direction once we are through the floor so we can run between them all the way to the utility room). The PVC isn't going to connect to the home plumbing so hopefully no other issues with code. It is just a path to the basement. I wish I could find where I had read about this before. Searching Google for "aquarium PVC plumbing" obviously finds a lot of unrelated topics, I'm not sure how to narrow it down.

125 gallon tank. Reading back I think I was too terse and didn't do a good job of explaining. At first I was thinking I would've have the plumber just run 3 flex tubing lines through to the basement, for siphon, refill, and top off. Then I started thinking about the possibility of leaks. Or what if I want to add a 4th line for some reason? Thinking through that, I vaguely remembered reading some time back a suggestion to run a fat PVC pipe as a *conduit* with smaller fill, drain, and ATO tubes inside. That way if you want to replace one of the three tubes, you just pull it out and pull something else through. Also, any leaks would run down the PVC and drip into the basement, instead of inside the walls. So, siphon and refill lines would be there, hooked to pumps as suggested.

You right of course Origami. Along those lines, maybe a peristalsis pump would be good here? More expensive than I wanted though, unless there is a really cheap or DIY option. Flow does not need to be precisely controlled so the quality can be much lower than the typical dosing pump. If only I had a spare lying around.

I've got only a few days to tell the plumber what to do, so this is urgent. We're having some work done and as long as the wall is opened I thought it'd be nice to run some plumbing from behind the tank stand to the basement utility room. I'm thinking of running a 2 1/2" or 3" PVC conduit that I would use to run flexible tubes for siphon, salt water, and makeup water. The thinking was that the PVC would let me pull through different tubing for whatever reason (leaks, clogs, or just tweaking stuff) or control wires for the basement pumps. More importantly, any leak would drain down to the utility room where there's a floor drain. To give a couple details, the conduit is going down one floor and across about 10 feet. Any comments from anyone about this plan? If you've done this, any lessons learned? Did it work out how you hoped? Thanks!

So, I spent a few minutes on Wikipedia and maybe what I want would be an "axial flow" pump? Basically it's a propeller in line with a tube, with the flow running along the pump axis. Compared to the centrifugal pump design the pressure is lower (Wikipedia a gain), so (maybe) less pod death. I'll look more but if anyone knows about a small, salt water rated option that would be helpful.

Thanks for the input everyone, I hadn't considered the simplicity of an air lift. The geyser pump is neat design I hadn't seen before. I'll look into availability or DIY options. Some combination of air lift and geyser should cover most of what I'm trying for, but there is one place where air bubbles might be a problem. Does anyone know of another very Pod-friendly alternative? I say "very" friendly since I'd like the vast majority of pods to survive the trip. I'm assuming that the standard pumps probably shred a lot of pods, but I'll freely admit that this is only an assumption as I haven't seen any experimental verification on this. Thanks again!

I'm looking for a pump to run in my refugium to add some circulation for a little experiment. Any suggestions for one that won't shred my pods? Looking for pretty low flow, maybe 10 gph with at most a foot of head. Can run intermittently on a timer if the pump is stronger than that. Main purpose is to move water and pods around. Any suggestions, hopefully not too expensive? Thanks!

Have to get the kids to swim lessons or I'd pitch in. I'm right near by in Falls Church. Good luck with the move!

Gorgeous and inspiring tank build, thank you for sharing. If you have a chance I'd like to hear about how how you got the corals to grow so well.

Thanks for the link Wil! Now I just need to figure out some finishing / skinning that my wife will like!

Thanks for the link Wil! Now I just need to figure out some finishing / skinning that my wife will like!

A couple of university extension publications suggest using activated carbon or aeration to get hydrogen sulfide out of drinking water. With the caveat that aeration might let other sulfur compounds form from reactions with oxygen. Maybe if I pilot this I should build in an aeration or filtration stage. Have to make sure it doesn't kill the pods though. Sources: http://extension.psu.edu/natural-resources/water/drinking-water/water-testing/pollutants/hydrogen-sulfide-rotten-egg-odor-in-pennsylvania-groundwater-wells http://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.cfm?number=C858-15

From what I gather, they (DyMiCo) monitor redox in the effluent from the denitrification to control flow rates and carbon dosing. Redox potential below a certain point would allow hydrogen sulfide today form, so they stay above that level with less dosing or higher turnover. In the right redox range they get denitrification and also nutrient uptake into bacteria or plankton. The water gets recirculated through anoxic substrate and pods thrive above the substrate. Some of the pods make it back into the display to become food. The feedback control in their system is probably beyond my DIY skills but I was thinking about whether manual adjustments could get to a workable version of this concept. I'm imagining a reactor in the sump area with a slow feed to / from the sump, carbon dosing, and an under gravel filter to circulate the water through some rock rubble or similar substrate. Reactor would be covered or sealed to keep oxygen low in order to encourage facultative denitrification. Redox could be monitored with a Hanna checker and I could try to tweak the flow and dosing to stay above the hydrogen sulfide territory (research needed here). Something like a 10 gallon reactor paired with a 180 gallon system (tank and sump total), aiming to run perhaps one tank volume per day through the reactor. Sorry for the thread jack. Your experiments got me thinking more about this concept. I might start my own thread once I've had a chance to look into this some more. Any thoughts at this point would be appreciated, though just writing it out was helpful enough! One question, if hydrogen sulfide can't be removed by aeration, is there another way to get rid of it? Activated carbon maybe?

I can't wait to see what you've got cooking next. Have you seen anything about DyMiCo? Seems similar to what you were going for, they use carbon dosing with denitrification. Rather than skim the resulting bacteria, they let pods eat them, then the fish or corrals get to eat more pods.

Vodka dosing with the coil seems like a pretty cool idea. Any updates? Someone mentioned the risk of hydrogen sulfide. Maybe you could aerate the return water vigorously if this was a concern.

>Just following the old rocketengineer thread on RC. Can you please post the link? (I'm new here, would much appreciate it.) Thanks!