DIY Water Polisher

[Chief Tang]

Hello everyone,

I am seeking ideas to put together a "rig" to make tank maintenance a little less disturbing for our pets.

I have a 60G cube with a 20 gallon sump that I have running as a QT full time packed with ~80lbs of sand (3in thick) and ~75lbs of LR. 1 Maroon Clown lives in there and keeps everything alive for new additions. 2 years old now.

My goal is to be able to siphon the sand bed with a hose and siphon tool, into a filter sock or another "contraption" with a significant capture rate to minimize the cloudiness of my tank afterwards.

I have read about Vortex Coat on filters that are old school and could polish a tank off within 5 minutes or so. I hope to be able to achieve a close to normal clarity within an hour or two following such maintenance.

Reason being is that I would like to siphon and capture as much pollution as possible, before actually doing the water change. Usually, I siphon then W/C back to back. But there are times where there is a gap in between the two activities (life). If we are successful, water changes can become that much more effective.

 

[Diesel]

2 words............... MicroNano Bubbling.





















@Cruz_Arias

 

[Chief Tang]

How would the nano bubbles going to help me extract the suspended "junk"?

 

[clownfish chris]

Think of it like a skimmer. Not really but sort of. You want a very fine bubble. If you can easily see the individual bubbles it's not fine enough. When it starts, you shouldn't see anything really. Right at the end, your tank should be slightly cloudy from the bubbles. I am at 6 hours starting at lights out.

 

[Diesel]

Running MNB now for 18 months and not using a skimmer anymore.
Water is crystal clear and yet I have a hard time to keep my Po4 at 0.05 and No3 at 8ppm.
That only with 4 hrs of MNB
Sand is sparkling clean, rocks are looking if I'm scuba diving on a reef and yet I clean my glass everyday not due to algae but bacteria on there.

 

[Chief Tang]

I'm gonna have to give it a shot guys! Thanks for the input. I also derived that filter socks decreasing in micron size could do the trick while actively siphoning. I'll continue to brainstorm

 

[camaroerik21]

Does Micro Nano Bubbling only work on certain types of coral tanks or beneficial on all reef tanks? I personally keep bubble tip anemones and clownfish in my tanks.

 

[Diesel]

On all reefs.
The thing is with MNB that if you bring only about 5% of the air that you pump into the sump area in the tank.
That's not a whole lot but indeed the most effective way.

 

[Cruz_Arias]

How would the nano bubbles going to help me extract the suspended "junk"?

Floatation separation. We use this in water treatment facilities everywhere in the world.

 

[Cruz_Arias]

Fresh air and the very very fine size of the micro nano bubbles is the key to this method's success.

Controlled micronized bubbles...

 

[Cruz_Arias]

Thank you for the tag, @Diesel

I'll call you tomorrow, sir!

 

[Skydvr]

The decreasing filter socks, siphoning into a bucket, and returning the water after it settles (if necessary) would work. You could probably just siphon to the sump through some socks.

I remember coming across a battery operated gravel vacuum for fresh water tanks that dumped the water back in the tank after passing it through a filter bag. As long as you keep the bag on the water side of the glass you were okay. Not too great for planted aquariums and it wasn't exactly executed as well as it could have been. Maybe something similar with a remote filter bag to prevent dumping outside of the tank using a small power head.


There are diatom filters that used to be big back in the day for the freshwater side. removed all kinds of junk and polished the water really well. Not sure how easy they are to find, but they pop up fairly regularly at the local auctions around here. You could probably fashion something similar with some filter cartridges and a power head.

 

[Psneary]

Honestly, I just use my scraper without the attachment and stir my sand gently every other day. I do it in two sections and my skimmer does the work if it's mainly the sand your worried about. I also run aquaforest carbon. I would like to see how the zeomix from them works.