Steve_Warner
07-19-2003, 02:11 AM
Hi all,
I went over to our sister property, the Mirage, again today to meet and chat with the curator in charge of the filtration and water quality in the Dolphin habitat and the aquarium this time. He's a very nice guy and we chatted for 2 hours-extended lunch ;D - about a bunch of different stuff. I wanted to ask him about their Ozone method of treatment in the tanks and the other methods they used as well. Boy did I have a wonderful time. Let me see here, first we went down below the "birthing pool", into a below water observation room the biologists use to monitor the dolphins. They recently had an addition to the family with the birth of a baby dolphin. This was the one whose mother(still pregnant with him) I did the "interaction" with on my last tour. It was the most beautiful sight to see with the light penetrating through the ABSOLUTELY crystal-clear water, into the room as the dolphins frolicked in the B.B tank ;D. The dolphins knew he and I were in there, as they kept coming over to the glass right where I was standing and staring in at me. The "Grandmother" of the group gave me a nice stare and blowhole acknowledgement with a burst of bubbles as I reached out to greet her through the glass. He then took me to the room with the "controller" that has a LARGE range of measurements such as temp, pH, Ca, ORP, and on and on. We then went to the Ozone room and he showed me the coronal discharge generator..........that thing was HUGE and costs a serious penny. They use a combo of Ozone AND, hold onto your seats,.........Chlorine to disinfect the water. They have the coolest thing called a Chlorine GENERATOR that utilizes amperage somehow to split the Sodium Chloride molecules into Sodium and Chloride ions that runs through there(salt water) and creates Sodium Hypochlorite. It does precipitate Calcium, which must be cleaned off the plate between the cathode/anode(?) with a good ol' acid wash. The tanks have 8 or 10(can't remember) HUGE sand filters which move 15000 gals per MINUTE each.(yes, this is not a misprint-they could drain my pool in 1 minute and then refill it in another minute with ONE of these!). Anyway, we went into his office where the "brain" of the system is, the computer. You should see the stuff on that thing, it blew my mind! It is FULLY AUTOMATED and can do anything, including your laundry! ;D We spent some time chatting about marine stuff and he suggested I fire up a salt tank and try it out. Hmmmmmm, jury's still out on that one. I have so much info in my head right now that I need to sit down and write it down to sort it out. I will post a little write-up about Ozone in the water works section soon. By the way, the MOST IMPORTANT filtration factor in the tanks he said was the surface SKIMMERS......they filter 80% of the total water in the tanks due to the dirt/dust/crap that settles on the water surface on top.
Steve
I went over to our sister property, the Mirage, again today to meet and chat with the curator in charge of the filtration and water quality in the Dolphin habitat and the aquarium this time. He's a very nice guy and we chatted for 2 hours-extended lunch ;D - about a bunch of different stuff. I wanted to ask him about their Ozone method of treatment in the tanks and the other methods they used as well. Boy did I have a wonderful time. Let me see here, first we went down below the "birthing pool", into a below water observation room the biologists use to monitor the dolphins. They recently had an addition to the family with the birth of a baby dolphin. This was the one whose mother(still pregnant with him) I did the "interaction" with on my last tour. It was the most beautiful sight to see with the light penetrating through the ABSOLUTELY crystal-clear water, into the room as the dolphins frolicked in the B.B tank ;D. The dolphins knew he and I were in there, as they kept coming over to the glass right where I was standing and staring in at me. The "Grandmother" of the group gave me a nice stare and blowhole acknowledgement with a burst of bubbles as I reached out to greet her through the glass. He then took me to the room with the "controller" that has a LARGE range of measurements such as temp, pH, Ca, ORP, and on and on. We then went to the Ozone room and he showed me the coronal discharge generator..........that thing was HUGE and costs a serious penny. They use a combo of Ozone AND, hold onto your seats,.........Chlorine to disinfect the water. They have the coolest thing called a Chlorine GENERATOR that utilizes amperage somehow to split the Sodium Chloride molecules into Sodium and Chloride ions that runs through there(salt water) and creates Sodium Hypochlorite. It does precipitate Calcium, which must be cleaned off the plate between the cathode/anode(?) with a good ol' acid wash. The tanks have 8 or 10(can't remember) HUGE sand filters which move 15000 gals per MINUTE each.(yes, this is not a misprint-they could drain my pool in 1 minute and then refill it in another minute with ONE of these!). Anyway, we went into his office where the "brain" of the system is, the computer. You should see the stuff on that thing, it blew my mind! It is FULLY AUTOMATED and can do anything, including your laundry! ;D We spent some time chatting about marine stuff and he suggested I fire up a salt tank and try it out. Hmmmmmm, jury's still out on that one. I have so much info in my head right now that I need to sit down and write it down to sort it out. I will post a little write-up about Ozone in the water works section soon. By the way, the MOST IMPORTANT filtration factor in the tanks he said was the surface SKIMMERS......they filter 80% of the total water in the tanks due to the dirt/dust/crap that settles on the water surface on top.
Steve