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Unread 11/02/2016, 12:43 PM   #51
OzIA
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Experiment

Sorry forgot the graph.


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Unread 11/02/2016, 03:44 PM   #52
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I was struggling to figure the chart out, but I think I get it now. This is generated from a single ORP probe and graphed as both ORP and PH using the single probe? So when the ORP flat lines at 0 the PH data set take over shown as a rising value?

Assuming my interpretation is correct, I agree it certainly looks like a nitrate knee just after 8:00 AM when the rate of change accelerates as the nitrate gets quickly consumed and the ORP reading plunges (rises on the PH graph).

I am not sure how the Apex is for custom programming, but if you can implement a rate of change detection function, that should get you a long way to making this a basic filter capable of dynamically adjusting to nitrate levels in the water column.

Dennis


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Unread 11/02/2016, 05:44 PM   #53
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The intent behind the experiment was to determine exactly how all of this might work and to see if I could get the CerMedia, housing the bacteria to perform the way this DyMiCo filter does, at least from a nitrate and phosphate removal process.

A few updates since this morning’s post.

I found that the Apex does not know how to handle the lower millivolt ranges that the probe hits. The Apex bottoms out with a zero ORP reading and won’t go negative. However, I can set the probe up as a pH probe and it will continue to read. I have a request in to Apex to get the raw milli-volt readings for both the pH and ORP values so I can convert to milli-volts.

I also saw what I believe is your “knee” effect on the pHX (actually an ORP probe). Once the probe started to read about 10.5 it started to rise (or fall in reality if I were looking at the mv reading of the probe) rapidly. Check it the thumbnail below.

I also noticed that I don’t need to dos the carbon that often. A small bump of water added will keep things from crashing. Also, the actual pH probe I moved into the filter is running a pH of around 7.2 to 7.3. I am not sure what that is a result of but I assume it is related to lower O2 levels.


Aaron
As far as I know ORP is kept between 0 and -200mV in the dymico system where ORP is the sole measure regulating flow and dosing of carbon. The bacteria responsible for converting your NO3 into N2 (that you feed with the carbon source) also produce CO2 hence the lower pH in the reactor. The Dymico system only injects additional CO2 for the 'calcium reactor' function if needed to keep CA/KH at required levels in the aquarium. So it is not required if other means of supplementation are used or non calciumcarbonate media is used in the filter.


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Unread 11/02/2016, 06:51 PM   #54
OzIA
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Experiment

Dennis, you are correct. Unfortunately the Apex ORP bottoms out at zero, which is the value, zero mV. At -200 mV, the only way to get the Apex to read that low is to tell it that it actually has a pH probe connected to it, not the ORP probe that is actually connected to it. Also, the values are upside down, graphically. High pH is actually low or negative mV or ORP.

Apex did respond to me today and the 10.5 shown on the pH scale equates to -203 mV, so it seems this is the target number.

Also, pH continues to drop within the core of the filter. It is now down to 6.8. I now have the system set up to bump on the main pump for 7 seconds when the ORP is below 175 mV. This feeds a small amount of fresh water into the system while a small amount of nitrified water is pushed out the exit pipe. Without this activity, the ORP range will dip into the -300 to 400mV range.

I have not added carbon since earlier today when i manually purged the system too much and the reading got down into the 0 mV range.


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Unread 11/02/2016, 06:56 PM   #55
OzIA
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Experiment

In regard to the programability of the Apex, it is pretty much unlimited. It can be annoying sometimes but there is a good user forum and you can usually find some programming examples for just about any task.

Now I just need to figure at what points to trigger what activities and make any fine adjustments as necessary. The graphical data is nice to have as well.

Aaron


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Unread 11/02/2016, 07:00 PM   #56
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Clarification

The pump bumps on every 10 minutes if the ORP value is below -175 mV.

Also, this is the correct graph.


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Unread 11/04/2016, 06:47 PM   #57
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Updates

A few updates to my test.

Since the nitrate knee seemed to be occurring at the same point (-200 mV) I decided to set a trigger point there. I actually set it at -175 mV, hoping to keep the reaction from getting out of control, although I am not really sure what control would look like.

So anyway, I increased the 125ml dose of fresh water to 325ml. I was hoping it would even things out. Based on what i had observed earlier, a larger fresh dose of water would pull the ORP value back up momentarily. I also used this set point to turn off the small carbon doses (1.5 ml) I had been administering while trying to drive the ORP values more negative.

I let the system run like this over night. As you can see from the graph, it sort of worked, but not really. Mostly the ORP just bottomed out (around -300 mV) and stayed there for hours. Once it did finally get enough fresh water to drive the ORP to around 0 mV for about an hour. The system dosed some carbon and slowed the water dose rate to 125 ml again and the ORP came back down, again to -300mv (which I found out is a limit of the Apex).

The really bad affect was that I found the tank water very cloudy. The pH in the filter had bottomed out to around 6.0 and there was a slimy coating in the sump. I am assuming this was a bacteria bloom since the water parameters in the tank never seemed to get too far out of range and the fish didn't seem to be distressed.

i decided to put the skimmer back in and see if I could clear out the cloudiness, assuming that if it is a bacteria bloom then the skimmer should remove some of it. I also stopped all dosing and control and just let the pump push water through the Marine Pure continuously. I will do a 50% water change if necessary tomorrow. I will try to start things back up in a couple of weeks.

Aaron


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Unread 11/04/2016, 09:12 PM   #58
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Yikes. Hopefully nothing was lost in this endeavour. 1.5ml is a lot of carbon (depending on the carbon source), and if you are injecting this often, then that will definitely contribute to a bacterial bloom.

I believe the DyMiCo filter doses carbon only once per hour, and I suspect the amount of the dose is varied based on the number of cycles per hour. Based on what their manual says, I think they are targetting 15 cycles per hour.

The other thing that I was able to glean, is that they control the flow (amount) of water entering the filter by having the return pump set to a known flow rate and then timing the on time to only add the desired amount of fresh water. As you are using a more precise pump, you could easily add a fixed amount. The DyMiCo folks seem to be adding only the amount of new water that will occupy the sand bed layer, and the water that was in the sand bed layer already gets pushed into the anaerobic layer. In your case, you only have the anaerobic area of the filter.

Dennis


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Unread 11/04/2016, 10:33 PM   #59
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Yeah, definitely not the result I had hoped for. Nothing lost, again it was only a temporary tank I had set up with 4 fish and some rock. They are fine. Cloudy water is clearing but I may still do the water changed tomorrow. I guess if this had been a reef tank, some of the bacteria would have been consumed by the tank inhabitants. Maybe this wasn't the best test.

For a carbon source, I water mine down significantly. 1 cup of sugar and 200ml of Bacardi in 2000 ml RO water. This is the same recipe I use when I dose my other tanks.

I can work on the set points and vary the amounts based on those. It was all just a test for now. The time it takes to restart the reaction after pulling it back from the brink sure seems to take a long time. I don't know how they get 15 cycles an hour. I can definitely see that once you have established the bacteria population, you really don't need to dose a lot of carbon but it sure seems like it takes the bacteria longer than a few minutes to start the cycle.

One other factor, the time it seems to take read the effect from the fresh water doses is an issue. You really can't see the effect until 4 or 5 doses. The fresh water has to work it's way to the probe. By then things are headed south, out of the target zone, and you are trying to restart things. I imagine this would be the same with the sand bed too.

Aaron


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Unread 11/05/2016, 04:18 AM   #60
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To get the cycle started initially, they have the filter cycle once per hour, whether they have reached the target ORP level or not. Extra cycles are added as the filter matures, and are needed to prevent the filter from becoming anoxic. Also they are using a fairly large volume of water. The sand bed layer on my filter which is modeled after their 2000 version, has a sand bed that is 36 x 18 x 5. So several gallons of water. I am also not sure if you have a process pump in your test filter? This is the pump that mixes the carbon and draws the water through the lower substrate and this pump would help to expose the ORP probe to both existing water and water freshly added to the filter.

The other thing that may be impacting this, is that the DyMiCo version has 2 layers, and the lower anaerobic layer is really only be exposed to water that has already progressed through the sandbed layer. This water (where the ORP probe is located) is not really "fresh" water, but water that had entered the sandbed on the previous cycle. This would probably help to keep the ORP reading from too big of swings.

Dennis


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Unread 11/05/2016, 09:32 AM   #61
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I was thinking about that last night. I have a small pump that I can use for a process pump. I will install it in the middle, near the probe and exit pipe. I will add a small valve so that I can vary the volume for my next test. This will allow me to circulate a small volume of water within the filter. The current version relied on the dosing pump to move water in.

Do you have the manual on their system?

Aaron


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Unread 11/05/2016, 08:11 PM   #62
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Do you have the manual on their system?
They have the manual online (http://www.dymico.com/manual/DyMiCo%...nual%20V13.pdf)

Dennis


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Unread 11/07/2016, 08:44 AM   #63
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Interesting.

I see that the return pump runs a maximum of 16 minutes per hour. Any idea how often they run the process pump?

It seems that using this on a FOLR tank was probably not the best test. There is nothing to consume the bacteria. I did test the water after my bloom subsided. Nitrate was significantly reduced to 1.0 ppm but Phosphate was the same at 0.16. i also noticed that they are using GFO and activated carbon filtration to supplement the system. Also, the expected operational levels for phosphate were around 0.1. In my experience, this is pretty consistent with a normal carbon dosing regiment. I have never been able to get phosphate below .08 but nitrate near zero can be achieved.

pH in the tank came back up and settled around 8.1. Also, the NH3 on the Seneye I was monitoring the tank with, started to climb after the bloom from .001, prior to the test, to a peak at .009 yesterday. It has since started to come back down. I never did the water change.


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Unread 11/07/2016, 08:19 PM   #64
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Not sure about the duty cycle of the process pump. I expect it either runs for a short period after carbon is dosed, or runs periodically to assist in mixing the anaerobic layer. Because the PH is controlled in this layer to assist with the Ca/Alk supplementation, the PH being triggered (added), may also be another input that turns on the process pump. Heck, it could even run continuous, but I doubt it runs during the period when the return pump is running. Also since they instruct you to monitor the water level difference between the process compartment, and the media chamber "while the process pump is running", there must be some amount of off time.

The filter will sequester phosphate, but that is only a temporary PO4 sink. This would take the form of the bacterial film being populated and using phosphate during that growth period. The other phosphate sink would be in the surface of the calcium media and I would expect that once the sandbed and coarse media, have both reached equilibrium with the tank water's phosphate level, the PO4 will start to rise and keep rising.

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Unread 11/16/2016, 10:27 AM   #65
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Brilliant thread, dartier - I just saw the DyMiCo system featured on Advanced Aquarist and immediately started trying to reverse engineer it using the patent/user manual. I'm glad I'll have help working out some of the operational details, particularly the computational side of things - I've been wanting an excuse to teach myself coding, and this looks like the perfect opportunity.


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Unread 11/16/2016, 09:11 PM   #66
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Brilliant thread, dartier - I just saw the DyMiCo system featured on Advanced Aquarist and immediately started trying to reverse engineer it using the patent/user manual. I'm glad I'll have help working out some of the operational details, particularly the computational side of things - I've been wanting an excuse to teach myself coding, and this looks like the perfect opportunity.
One of the reason that I intend to use the Reef Angel as the basis to automate my filter is that they are completely open source and have a decent user community. Assuming I get the operation of the filter worked out, I plan on it making it available to the RA community. Lots of hurdles to overcome before that happens though.

Dennis


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Unread 11/16/2016, 09:23 PM   #67
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Interesting.
It seems that using this on a FOLR tank was probably not the best test. There is nothing to consume the bacteria.
Even though your test tank was lacking corals, this is an application that the DyMiCo filter lends itself to (FOWLR) according to Eco Deco. I suspect that your carbon addition may have been too aggressive. In fact they mention in the manual (or some other info that I read) that the carbon addition is staggered with the cycling of the filter and only comes online after the filter has been operational for a period of time.

The other thing that may have been different about your test, is that the DyMiCo filters are really large filters. I believe the suggestion is to size them to about 10% of the tank footprint. This may be key to the vibrant food web, that comes to develop. With the higher lifeforms that we typically keep at the top of the food chain.

Dennis


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Unread 11/17/2016, 05:19 PM   #68
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90 Upgrade and second test implementation

No doubt I was a little aggressive on the carbon and the size if the filter is very small, for sure but it was just a test to see if I could simulate the reaction described your your system. Having said that, i have an update:

I decided to see if I could convert the existing sump in my 90 gallon tank to operate more like the sytem as described.

I was up against some limitations. First the home-made sump was only 16 inches deep and had a running depth of 12 inches, so I couldn’t implement the sand bed exactly as described. Luckily, I had already been running a modified deep sand bed with two sets of stacked trays, each filled with about 1” of fine sand. In the old system, the water was allowed to pass from the bottom up and around each tray in order to maximize contact time.

I removed both sets of trays and installed two modified boxes. The first holds a combination of fine sand (5inches) and course, seperated by the drain sleeve. The second is all course sand / aragonite, (9 inches) for a total of 18 inches. Water flows up through both these sand beds, instead of from the top down.

I installed a main return pump on the left side. This pump runs all the time, returning the water that has been filtered by my home made Roller Mat, to the tank, through a check valve.

The second pump, on the right, is the “flush” pump. It’s basic function is to pull fresh water through the sand bed and return it to the tank. This pump currently runs, at most, 4 min per hour. I will explain how in a second.

Finally there is a process pump on top of the deep sand bed that returns water that has passed through the deep sand bed back to the bottom to start again. Organic carbon is also dosed into the flow path, when necessary, via a BRS 1.1ml/min dosing pump.


Using the Apex, I set up the following logic:

The process pump cycles on for three minutes and rests for two minutes, continuously.

I set two levels of carbon dosing:

Dose 1X (.11 ml, dosed every 5 min)
Dose 3X (.33 ml, doesed every 5 min)

I set three levels of ORP trip points:
ORP Low (ORP readings below -175 mV)
ORP Mid (ORP readings between +58 and -174 mV)
ORP High (ORP readings obove +59 mV)


Finally, four flush cycles:

Cycle 60 Turns on the flush return pump for 15 seconds, every hour.
Cycle 15 Turns on the flush return pump for 10 seconds, every 15 minutes.
Cycle 5 Turns on the flush return pump for 10 seconds, every 5 minutes.
Cycle High Turns on a second, 10 second flush return cycle, every 5 minutes.

The logic is pretty simple:

If the ORP is High, then carbon is dosed at the 3X level every 5 min until the ORP reaches 58mV. Also, the Flush pump is only cycled once per hour during that period. This is the priming phase. The long rest periods are needed start the reaction.

Once the ORP reaches the mid-range, I reduce the dose to the 1X level and increase the Flush cycle to every 15 minutes.

Finally, once the ORP drops below -175mV, I stop dosing carbon and begin to cycle the Flush pump every five minutes. If the ORP continues to drop below -230 mV, I add the second Flush cycle during that 5 min period.

So far, everything seems to be working, as I would have anticipated. The ORP fluctuates from about +50mV to -300mV. I will see if I can tighten this up to stay in a more narrow range but since I really don’t know what is the ideal zone, I am not too worried for now.

Aaron


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Unread 11/17/2016, 07:48 PM   #69
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Very neat OzIA. I am pretty sure that there are several ways to accomplish the same result as the DyMiCo filter. It will be interesting to see how your implementation does.

The ORP range that an actual DyMiCo filter operates in is from -250mv to +250mv according to their manual. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the filter typically stays between 0mv and -200mv. Actually I think it is further back in this thread. I just looked back, yup MabuyaQ said as much earlier.

I am glad to see you are still experimenting with this type of filtration. The more the merry.

Dennis


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Unread 11/18/2016, 04:40 PM   #70
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I updated the program, slightly, this morning at around 9:30.

I added separate trip points for carbon dosing (higher ORP) and also cut the dose in half.

The 3X dose is now 0.165 ml and the 1X dose is 0.073 ml, per dose.
I increased the ORP Low reading to -116 mV from -175 mV.

Carbon is now dosed only when the ORP is zero mV or greater.

I am getting about one cycle per hour. The flow through the filter is about 4gph, so I would turn the tank over about once every 24 hrs. Carbon is being dosed at about 1 ml per hour.

pH in the filter is running at about 7.4. I thought about changing my carbon mix to vinegar to see if the acidity would pull the pH down enough to start breaking down the aragonite. It wouldn’t need to come down much to start doing that.

I know it’s early but overall, I am pretty pleased with the results. I wish I could tighten the top end up but it continues to cycle all the way up to +260 mV. I have managed to smooth out the bottom, which is now pretty consistently at around -230 mV. I believe if I add a routine that adds a dose as the cycle is starting to go back up from the -230 bottom, instead of waiting till I get past 0 mV, it might smooth out the top as well. This would probably allow me to increase the number of cycles per hour. However, there is something elegant about the nice waveform I am getting so I am a little reluctant to mess with it too much, just yet.


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Unread 11/18/2016, 07:31 PM   #71
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I would let it run like this for a few weeks and watch your tank closely. What should happen is that the cycle period should speed up and you should start to see multiple cycles per hour. That is of course assuming that your control loop is able to adapt to the increased duty cycle.

As for the PH you are seeing (7.4), I would not worry about lowering it too much at this point. The suggested starting PH in the DyMiCo manual is 7.6, and at 7.4 you are definitely dissolving aragonite. The dissolution rate is probably pretty slow, but it is occurring. As your cycle period goes down, the amount of Alk/Ca being added will increase (if the PH remains at or below 7.6). One of the reasons that the DyMiCo filter is able to supplement at higher than Ca reactor PH's, is due to the size of the aragonite bed involved. Yours will be more modest, but it will still contribute to your supplementation. It will most likely not be enough depending on the demands of your tank, but for light demands, it might be helpful.

I agree that your graph is looking more stable since you have adjusted your control loop.

At 1ml of carbon per hour, that is still a fair bit of carbon per day, depending on the type of carbon you are using, and its strength. I would keep a close eye on the duty cycle and be prepared to back off the amount of carbon dosed to avoid a bacterial bloom event. Ideally you want all the carbon to have been consumed during the cycle and the flush to be returning low nitrate, low carbon water.

Dennis


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Unread 11/18/2016, 08:26 PM   #72
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Good advice.

I can control it remotely but I don’t have a camera on the tank so I may have to turn it off or put it in bypass, if we leave for the holidays. The carbon is not a full strength vodka sample (10% plus some sugar).

The attenuation has dropped off some since the last post, now between 125 and -125 mV but I am still getting about one cycle per hour. Carbon consumption also decreased to about .75ml per hour. So there appears to be some correlation or balance between the right dose and level of the swings.

I wonder if they are counting the cycles the same way I am? It is very possible that the way I have this set up, is limiting the number of cycles but I am getting throughput that is pretty close to what is described in the manual.

How close are you to getting your system set up?

Aaron


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Unread 11/18/2016, 09:33 PM   #73
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Ok, good. So your carbon source is not too potent. That will probably help to minimize the filter from becoming too unstable and running out of control. Speaking of which, you may want to consider adding some safety checks if you have not already. Just to cover off ORP probe failure, etc. Like a maximum amount of carbon that can be dosed per hour and the maximum amount of cycles per hour, etc. This way you can set them conservatively and then increase the limits if you find you are bumping up agaist them. Kind of like a speed limiter on a car

My best guess is that they have a control loop that tries to get the filter to cycle at n cycles per hour. In the manual they mention that the return pump will run for a maximum of 16 minutes per hour. Earlier in the thread I calculated the amount of time that the return pump had to run to push out (and pull in) the approximate volume of water that the sand bed layer holds. I think it was 60 secs of on time per cycle. They also mention that the minimum time that the return pump will run per hour is 30 seconds. So if the filter is not yet cycling once per hour, they force a half cycle to keep a reduced amount of water flowing through the filter. At least that is what I am thinking if my calculation is right about the time required to do a full flush (of the sand bed layer).

My best guess is that the carbon dose is tied to the cycle period. Because the carbon is the food source for the bacteria colony in the filter, constraining it too much will limit the colony's growth, and on the opposite side, over supplying carbon will cause unused carbon to be flushed out to the tank. I suspect there is a correlation between the two, keeping the carbon dose balanced to the filter capacity. They also mention that the filter can also reduce DOC (Dissolved Organic Carbon) that is in the water column, which does make sense. That is what we are essentially doing with the carbon dose (adding a very specific DOC that the bacteria can easily assimilate).

If my tank is setup by Christmas I will be happy. The tank is not here yet. I have not been rushing Miracles, the tank builder, because my floor where the tank is going still needs to have some porcelain tiles replaced to account for the larger tank. I have been slowly ordering parts for it though. Today I ordered 132 lbs of Reborn media, 300 lbs of sand along with 400 lbs of Reef Saver Rock. The last thing I need for the filter is another Reef Angel controller.

Dennis


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Unread 11/20/2016, 10:20 AM   #74
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Yesterday, I changed the parameters, yet again. The attenuation was decreasing, which may be a good thing but I didn’t like the fact that it was starting to work it’s way down to zero mV so I started dosing at the bottom of the cycle, instead of the top. Remember, my graph is opposite because it is reading the ORP probe as a pH. (12.2 is equal to -300mV. Zero mV is 7.0 and so on…

The latest results are running between -214mV and -116mV. I averaged 4.25 pump cycles per hour. Each cycle equates to about .67 gallons per cycle or just under 3 gallons per hour total, through the system. This is less than I had hoped for but I am also using less carbon, at around .435 ml per hour.

The ORP cycle is still over an hour long. I don’t know if there is anything that can be done to adjust it. It doesn’t seem to matter where the ORP goes up to, it still takes about the same time to recover back to the -200 mV range. This would seem to indicate that this is the “frequency” of the system, similar to a R-C oscillator.

Other than trying to emulate what is known about the DyMiCo system, we really don’t know if it is better to have the ORP near zero or -200 mV. A larger sand bed might allow you to operate longer in the lower ranges.

If the attenuation continues to go down, I will increase the size of the flush cycles. This may be something that their system does on it’s own as the system breaks in and should get me closer to turning the tank volume over once a day.

Aaron


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Unread 11/20/2016, 07:11 PM   #75
dingodan87
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Join Date: Jan 2014
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Think im unable to see some of the more explanatory build photos. How exactly did you orientate the baffles and how is even flow through the sand beds achieved? Do you have more pics?

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