Bio Reactor Help....

[Darrell Ward]

I don't know how many people have seen a fluidized media bio reactor before using kaldness media, but I'm trying to make one. I took a 4" thick piece of Poret foam, and wedged it across half of my 55 gal. sump to act as the filter compartment. I then took a big air pump that I had from JEHMCO, along with a 2.5" ball airstone, hooked to 3/8" tubing, and put in a 750 gph powerhead with a cross made of 1/2" pvc on the outflow. I dumped in some Kaldness, and turned it on. After on, off, tinkering for about 12 hours, the media still tends to pile up in the corners. It's driving me crazy! Do you think doubling the pump size would help? Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Ed13]

I'm not using one but, I'm vigorously researching them. It takes a while for the media to develope the biofilm. After that, they'll start tumbling nicely. Remember that they are positively buoyant, a bit too much when new. Because of this, I often see the recommendation to start with about half the needed media and keep increasing during time. I've yet to find whether this is accurate or if it even makes a difference.

Sounds like you have a powerfull pump. Perhaps, it'll be better if you increase the output rather than having a single airstone?

BTW, half a 55 gal sounds like an awful lot of area for one tank, how much is the load(amount of fish and volume of water) for it?

[ZX10R]

I believe my brother is looking into building one of these also. I will have to keep a eye on your thread so maybe I can pick your brain later on when you get it all lined out.

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

I don't know how many people have seen a fluidized media bio reactor before using kaldness media, but I'm trying to make one. I took a 4" thick piece of Poret foam, and wedged it across half of my 55 gal. sump to act as the filter compartment. I then took a big air pump that I had from JEHMCO, along with a 2.5" ball airstone, hooked to 3/8" tubing, and put in a 750 gph powerhead with a cross made of 1/2" pvc on the outflow. I dumped in some Kaldness, and turned it on. After on, off, tinkering for about 12 hours, the media still tends to pile up in the corners. It's driving me crazy! Do you think doubling the pump size would help? Any ideas would be appreciated.

Key with bioreactor design is to have an even distribution of air. Rather than sticking a single diffuser in there, go with several smaller diffusers spread out on a manifold. Best design obviously is to use a round tank for even distribution, but with a square tank like you have, a diffuser in each corner, and 1 in the center should work fine. How much media did you put into the reactor? Also, how much air volume do you have going into the reactor? No need to have the powerhead in there either. So long as the air distribution system is designed right, and you have a proper fill ratio, it should be fine.

Shoot me an email: RyanKar@AquaticEco.com and I can email you a basic sketch of how I would do it with your system.

-Ryan

[Darrell Ward]

Key with bioreactor design is to have an even distribution of air. Rather than sticking a single diffuser in there, go with several smaller diffusers spread out on a manifold. Best design obviously is to use a round tank for even distribution, but with a square tank like you have, a diffuser in each corner, and 1 in the center should work fine. How much media did you put into the reactor? Also, how much air volume do you have going into the reactor? No need to have the powerhead in there either. So long as the air distribution system is designed right, and you have a proper fill ratio, it should be fine.
Shoot me an email: RyanKar@AquaticEco.com and I can email you a basic sketch of how I would do it with your system.

-Ryan

Right now, according to the box the air pump came in, there is about 20 Lpm going into a 3/8" line. I put in only a fraction of the kaldness media from the 1 cubic ft. box of media from Aquatic Eco. 1 cubic ft. of this stuff is a huge amount. There is about 2" of media on the surface of a 12"x24" space. Since infomation on this type of filter is limited, I really don't know how much of it to ultimately use for maybe 20 discus in a 240 gal. tank. I will cycle it of course with seeded Pond Matrix media until it gets going. Email sent.

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Right now, according to the box the air pump came in, there is about 20 Lpm going into a 3/8" line. I put in only a fraction of the kaldness media from the 1 cubic ft. box of media from Aquatic Eco. 1 cubic ft. of this stuff is a huge amount. There is about 2" of media on the surface of a 12"x24" space. Since infomation on this type of filter is limited, I really don't know how much of it to ultimately use for maybe 20 discus in a 240 gal. tank. I will cycle it of course with seeded Pond Matrix media until it gets going. Email sent.

20lpm of air is equal to roughly 0.70 cfm. Typical aeration requirements are around 0.15cfm of air per cubic ft of media, but in a circular tank where it will move around easier. For this size system, I would prefer to see closer to .50cfm of air, but redistributed better. So you are covered in terms of flow rate. I would look at using 4-5 of our AS2 diffusers:
http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/3881/Sweetwater-Air-Diffusers/as2/0

As stated above, when the media is new it is not going to sink or circulate very well as the biofilm has not developed on it. Give it several weeks while the media colonizes with the bacteria and adds a touch more weight. Once a good biofilm has developed, the media will weight a bit more and will make things a bit easier to circulate. But, if the distribution of the aeration is not right, it wouldnt help much anyways.

How much media the system will require is going to be totally dependent upon how much food you will feed per day, along with the protein level of that food. Knowing those numbers, I could calculate how much media would be required.

Im off work tomorrow, so i'll respond to your email on Friday.

-Ryan

[Darrell Ward]

That makes perfect sense. Thanks Ryan, I may get this thing going yet! :D

[kirkp]

Here's an article I found online. It recommends filling the tank approximately 65% full of media. Maybe the article will help in some manner.
http://www.raingarden.us/kaldnes_bio.pdf

[Darrell Ward]

Here's an article I found online. It recommends filling the tank approximately 65% full of media. Maybe the article will help in some manner.
http://www.raingarden.us/kaldnes_bio.pdf

Good information. Thanks!

[Darrell Ward]

After further playing around with this thing, I finally got it up and running. I ended up sliding the Poret foam in to make the filter space 12"x 11". This made it easier to fluidize the thing. The great thing about using the foam as a divider, is you can adjust it, and it acts as mechanical filtration as well. I took Ryan's advise, and installed not 5, but 6 airstones, one at each corner, and 2 in the middle, powered by a 20 LPM air pump. I attached them to sand filled 1/2" pvc pipe to keep them from moving around. Another piece of Poret on the top acts as a prefilter. Seems to work fine. I put some cycled Pond Matrix bio media in the sump to seed it. Went ahead and put a small group of 6 young Heckles from a 75 gal. in the tank to try it out. The Heckles really seem to approve. They are more active than they have ever been. The bigger tank, and super oxygenated water certainly account for this I'm sure. I'll just have to watch for possible ammonia spikes for a while. I'm not done tinkering yet. I have plans to change the lighting, and a few other things. I've decided that I'll make this tank a South American wild fish tank, made up of peaceful wild fish. Should be fun!

[ZX10R]

I kind of done something like your last pic in my sump filter but I used two 4" round air stones and pot scrubbies.

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

After further playing around with this thing, I finally got it up and running. I ended up sliding the Poret foam in to make the filter space 12"x 11". This made it easier to fluidize the thing. The great thing about using the foam as a divider, is you can adjust it, and it acts as mechanical filtration as well. I took Ryan's advise, and installed not 5, but 6 airstones, one at each corner, and 2 in the middle, powered by a 20 LPM air pump. I attached them to sand filled 1/2" pvc pipe to keep them from moving around. Another piece of Poret on the top acts as a prefilter. Seems to work fine. I put some cycled Pond Matrix bio media in the sump to seed it. Went ahead and put a small group of 6 young Heckles from a 75 gal. in the tank to try it out. The Heckles really seem to approve. They are more active than they have ever been. The bigger tank, and super oxygenated water certainly account for this I'm sure. I'll just have to watch for possible ammonia spikes for a while. I'm not done tinkering yet. I have plans to change the lighting, and a few other things. I've decided that I'll make this tank a South American wild fish tank, made up of peaceful wild fish. Should be fun!

:grin:

You would be surprised at what the addition of a few air stones will do for the overall activity and health of the fish. Not to mention a more efficient biofilter.

-Ryan