Usefulness and possible problems of a biological filter (siporax) in a marine aquarium

[Anxur]

Salt Water. Siporax was a fresh water media from the beginning.

Sincerely Lasse

@Big E
@Randy Holmes-Farley
@BeanAnimal
@brandon429
@Faria
This morning i wash siporax in 6 liters of new salt water...


Dirty Literally vomiting! We go crazy to keep pollutant values within certain parameters and look at them....

We worry about 1 mg liter of No3 or whether the phosphate is at 0.09 instead of 0.03... And then that reactor produced that **** for me!! Watch the video carefully.. 6 liters of pure water, I poured the siporax in and put the movement pump to turn.. Now they are in two bags in sump..

 

[Big E]

This is normal without filters inside the reactor keeping the Siporax clean. You are basically running a canister filter which are popular in the freshwater side. All these filters have layers of sponges to keep the Siporax type media clean.

What you see is no different than what would happen with plastic bioballs if you had no filter sponge, fleece, ect............they get gunked up with bacteria and waste.

 

[Anxur]

Questo è normale senza filtri all'interno del reattore che mantengono pulito il Siporax. Fondamentalmente stai utilizzando un filtro a canestro che è popolare nel lato acqua dolce. Tutti questi filtri hanno strati di spugne per mantenere pulito il tipo di media Siporax.

Ciò che vedi non è diverso da ciò che accadrebbe con le bioball di plastica se non avessi una spugna filtrante, un vello, ecc... si riempionodi batteri e rifiuti.

In this way? It's OK to maintain siporax clean?

They work with that dirty?

And.. Po4 and No3 are influenced from that Mud and debris?

 

[Lasse]

The "dirt" you talk about is more or less bacteria biomass. It has grown with help of the nutrients in your water. They "dirt" is removed nutrients!

Sincerely Lasse

 

[brandon429]

They're useless without being placed in a restricted flowpath. Water is flowing around them, not through them, in those bags in the sump. They've never been helping your system in any measurable way, it's best to remove them and not ever use them again for this system

Because they make zero, none, difference to any measurable parameter in all of reefing. The system above them though is great: among the best on the site. That tiny amount of media isn't affecting nitrate or your ammonia in any measurable way at all, even if it's placed back in a reactor.

 

[Anxur]

The "dirt" you talk about is more or less bacteria biomass. It has grown with help of the nutrients in your water. They "dirt" is removed nutrients!

Sincerely Lasse

It seems to me that in the reactor, the siporaxes obstruct the flow of water and therefore everything gets clogged with debris.. It doesn't seem like a great idea to me... Free in the sump in a bag, I hope they don't get dirty..

Did the dirt I had between the siporax contribute to releasing No3 and Po4 into the water column?

They're useless without being placed in a restricted flowpath. Water is flowing around them, not through them, in those bags in the sump. They've never been helping your system in any measurable way, it's best to remove them and not ever use them again for this system

Because they make zero, none, difference to any measurable parameter in all of reefing. The system above them though is great: among the best on the site. That tiny amount of media isn't affecting nitrate or your ammonia in any measurable way at all, even if it's placed back in a reactor

2000 ml of siporax? Don't they act as bacterial support?

 

[Lasse]

It seems to me that in the reactor, the siporaxes obstruct the flow of water and therefore everything gets clogged with debris

The debris is mostly NOT particulate organic matter from the water column - it is mostly bacterial biomass that have been created inside the media reactor. You will see this in your bags to.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

Because they make zero, none, difference to any measurable parameter in all of reefing.

False - they have been produced inside the reactor - its bacterial biomass - they have taken up nutrients from the water.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Anxur]

The debris is mostly NOT particulate organic matter from the water column - it is mostly bacterial biomass that have been created inside the media reactor. You will see this in your bags to.

Sincerely Lasse

I still haven't understood how you would use them and if you would use them..?!

 

[Lasse]

I have used similar type of aerobic bio-filter (foam filter in my case) as biological stabilizers. I use a reversed flow DSB as a denitrification and biological filter. I have used siporax as the first part of my DSB but after major leakage of Si I have removed it. For the moment I use the space there my foam filter was placed in my sump for a GFO filter. will return to bio filter again. I think that it cleaver to concentrate the breakdown to a filter that you can clean instead to have it in the whole aquarium - but that´s me.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[brandon429]

Anxur

Do a test for any parameter in your tank

Lift the bags out for a couple days

Retest. Report back

=self discovery

ammonia and nitrate. Post the actual test kit vial pic before removal

then after, two days later when sampled again.

please post the pic of the test vial so we can see if the color drifts markedly, in the absence of those siporax media.

You asked if they support bacteria

I must ask: were you in a deficit of bacteria?

Who said more bacteria is better?


That's a reactor that can kill your whole tank as a weak link they're not telling you

 

[Lasse]

Do a test for any parameter in your tank

Lift the bags out for a couple days

Retest. Report back

=self discovery

To narrow the search: ammonia and nitrate. Post the actual test kit vial pic please so we can see if the color drifts markedly, in the absence of those.

The tests we use is not sensitive enough to discover any changes.

Still have you not understand that the dirt in the filter is just transferred PO4 and NH3/NH4/NO3 from the water into bacterial biomass. Take out an clean the filter is the same as nutrient export. If you do not use this type of filter - you get i elsewhere in the aquarium and cant clean it.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[brandon429]

In the reactor, vs the sump of open top, if the power goes out while you're away that canister hard, hard crashes due to unneeded biomass we were told to value above all other conditions

When the power restores, you pump lysed chemical poison into the tank and it dies

But not if you're home to unplug it first, it's a weak link I've seen crash tanks before: my own in 99


Because an optional, unmeasurable weak link was trained as required to run a reef that great

The truth is if you disconnect that risky reactor and run your media in the sump so that it still feels utilized, it's not harmful. That media will specifically not die in a power outage in an open-topped sump.


Since that media is extra, beyond what's needed and of no parameter that changes upon removal, keep it in the safest place.

 

[brandon429]

In the sixty page sand rinse thread where we move/relocate reef tanks like that using custom plans for each system, how many times did we say: don't forget to reconnect your reactor!!

That reactor has no impact on the tanks cycle at all, even if we added more fish. The normal levels of surface area on common reef rocks alone will run orders more surface area than we ask of them.

We ignore all surrounding surface area, all surrounding surface area beyond the live rocks, in the tank transfer thread for a reason. It's safer to not run those options. They're bells and whistles, extra, easily taken offline.

*of course, with power running through them, no harm is done* it's merely another tech device installed for max tech reasons. And it's a source of bioload you don't get to enjoy but it can risk your tank.

If nitrates needed control that wouldn't be my selected tool, it's a power outage link waiting to happen. Liability

I'd control nitrate by other means, starting with no sandbed allowed in the system.


If I had a wal mart tank with glo fish I'd run a reactor on it, because if the colony crashes I'm out nineteen bucks in fish.


If I had a thirty thousand dollar reef tank, there would be no reactors. I'd be detritus low, bacteria as a thin veneer on thinned- down surfaces, no sand, in high flow bright settings. Well fed like Paul does. Stocked within the bounds of careful disease prevention.

The more valuable a tank, the less reactors for farming bacteria it should have.

I understand a reef that complex will require external connections.


Just saying that in the continuum of important connections: that media factors zero %.

No expensive reef job we do in real life factors possible bad outcomes from ditching any reactor, because there aren't any. We know that more bacteria isn't better, it's a liability.


Getting rid of excess bacteria and the POM they rode in on got those results.

If you ditch that reactor, the biofloc won't collect there it'll land in a filter sock or as easily- removed detritus from a high flow, bare bottom reef tank with elk antlers as corals, as is above. That's a magazine picture quality picture there above!

 

[Lasse]

Its better to have all this "dirt" (read bacterial biomass) in the tank at power break down? You will have the same in a GFO reactor. If you have it in a reactor you can always arrange that it will not restart by itself after a power break down. In my case - the pumps to the biological filters do not start directly after a power breakdown and do not stop if a controller is going down.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Anxur]

In the reactor, vs the sump of open top, if the power goes out while you're away that canister hard, hard crashes due to unneeded biomass we were told to value above all other conditions

When the power restores, you pump lysed chemical poison into the tank and it dies

But not if you're home to unplug it first, it's a weak link I've seen crash tanks before: my own in 99


Because an optional, unmeasurable weak link was trained as required to run a reef that great

The truth is if you disconnect that risky reactor and run your media in the sump so that it still feels utilized, it's not harmful. That media will specifically not die in a power outage in an open-topped sump.


Since that media is extra, beyond what's needed and of no parameter that changes upon removal, keep it in the safest place.

Do you think it can be completely eliminated?

I wanted to use matrix or siporax in passive form in sump, without reactor

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Do you think it can be completely eliminated?

I wanted to use matrix or siporax in passive form in sump, without reactor

For what purpose do you want to use it?

 

[Anxur]

For what purpose do you want to use it?

Simple and great question.. To have additional bacterial support, a specific place where the bacteria (which ones and what type I don't know, positioning the Matrix in passive form in the sump) can carry out their beneficial functions with the aim of processing the organic, ammonia, nitrites etc...

I think the more bacterial support I have, the more I can easily manage organic fish waste and their nutrition

Is this correct?

 

[brandon429]

No

Because you're not in deficit without it. More was never needed, past your live rocks.

But, hundreds of thousands of reefers run reactors the back and forth will never end

Because there's no parameter that changes when you run it, there's no parameter that changes when you remove it.

It is merely a mechanical device to run, or not run

Important rule to manage loss in that beautiful aquarium: processing ammonia is never your limiter on carrying fish

It's disease imports. You need to be quarantining all entrants, inverts included, before addition to that fine balance in place. Focusing on bacteria, adding space for more, has nothing to do with the real risk to the aquarium

 

[Anxur]

NO

Perché non sei in deficit senza di esso. Non è mai stato necessario altro, oltre le tue rocce vive.

Ma centinaia di migliaia di reefer gestiscono i reattori, il loro andirivieni non finirà mai.

Poiché non c'è alcun parametro che cambia quando lo esegui, non c'è alcun parametro che cambia quando lo rimuovi.

È semplicemente un dispositivo meccanico per funzionare o non funzionare

Regola importante per gestire le perdite in quel bellissimo acquario: l'elaborazione dell'ammoniaca non è mai il tuo limite nel trasporto dei pesci

Sono importazioni di malattie. Bisogna mettere in quarantena tutti gli entranti, invertebrati inclusi, prima di aggiungere a quel delicato equilibrio. Concentrarsi sui batteri, aggiungere spazio per altri, non ha nulla a che fare con il rischio reale per l'acquario

It's completely without utility?