Tyree's Zonal Approach

[nyfireman3097]

Cali I have heard that from others about his tanks yet he has amazing stuff

 

[lfsmarineguy]

Tyree's zonal approach (even if looked at only in theory) should work based on high school science principals. The nutrients should diffuse through the barrier between the zones into the cryptic zone housing the filter feeders and other organisms that feed on/process DOC, lowering the overall nutrients in the tank. Our tanks strive to acheive homeostasis. If we have high nutrients, bacteria and other organisms will flourish and populate to a point that the existing levels can support. As the nutrients are depleted by the growing population of organisms the organisms numbers will level off and finally balance out with what the nutrient source will support. Techniquely if the proper ratios can be acheived in a tank and kept in balance over time, a tank could require no skimming and minimal filtration beyond the natural processes it conducts on it's own. It would take awhile for a tank like that to mature but once it did it would remain stable mostly on it's own.

 

[fritz]

Where's Paul for this conversation?

I agree and disagree. I agree with the principals but in reality your source water will never be at a stasis which will in turn prevent your tank from achieving the same.

As a kid I helped many of my friend's and their parents build ponds in their backyards. Ultimately each pond would succumb to algae. I would always be asked how to deal with the "green water". Usually something as simple as a tufa rock or sea shells would solve the problem. By placing something that will raise the PH in the direct path of the return water the water parameters were ever so slightly changed so as that another algae would out compete the current dominant one. As this new algae began to take a foot hold the said piece of tufa rock or sea shells would be removed. By constantly changing the parameters no single algae could dominate for long enough to reach pandemic (and ugly) proportions.

The same is true in a tank, your IO salt may contain more iodine than your current batch does, more phosphate or trace elements of nitrate. A star may die of old age, etc. These slight variations in our closed system will have very magnified effects. A slight bloom of one type of algae, or sponge etc. This boom will cause the decline of a semi competitor or neighbor.

While Paul's tank is relatively "stable" it is victim to constantly changing cycles.

 

[lfsmarineguy]

the larger the tank the easier it is to come close to achieveing stasis. However, even in a small tank that has reached maturity, the death of an inhabitant shouldn't throw off the entire ecosystem so much that it can't metabolize the excess nutrients. Nature is always working to sustain balance and it is no different in our tanks. Unless you have a full grown angel in a 30g and it dies, a properly stocked tank shouldn't have any serious problems when an inhabitant dies (barring the release of toxins or pathogens). I'm also talking about the filtration portion of Tyree's zonal approach. I understand that chemically a tank is always in flux and natural processes are using and releasing trace elements. With respect to bioloads though, if the tank is properly setup and matured reaching a balance over time is a natural occurence.

 

[kimoyo]

I came up with some designs for my new tank. The fuge/cryptic area won't be too large so I'm not sure how effective it will be. I'll start my tank thread soon but I thought the designs are cool.


(click to enlarge)







The fuge teeth are about 1/4" taller than the intake area of the sump section. So water shouldn't flow into the fuge from the display but even if it did its not a big deal. I made a sorta external overflow but I will be using it for calc/alk additives (0.5G sections each) and top off water (2G section). The display is a little more than 40G measuring 30"*24"*14". And the entire tank measures 48"*24"*15".

Some of the panels will be black acrylic but its hard to see if I do it in the designs and the entire tank is made from 1/2 acrylic and braceless.

 

[masterswimmer]

I was from the understanding that the dirtiest water should flow through the fuge section first. You seem to be running it from the skimmer to the fuge. Exact opposite of generally accepted reefing principles. Why?

Oh, nice design work btw.

 

[kimoyo]

Hey Russ,

There's two answers to your question. First, I don't believe a skimmer can pick up everything out of the water. So hopefully the stuff that doesn't get caught by the skimmer will be caught by the small fuge (with the fuge so small I'm not sure it will help with filtration at all).

The second is I'm going to be running a das ex-2 skimmer in the beginning. So I was planning on putting a pump to the skimmer in the intake section and splitting it to the fuge. But even if I didn't and I plumb the fuge off the return I wouldn't have an issue with it. If nothing else the fuge will be a great place for pods.

 

[cali_reef]

Paul, how will the water flow from the fuge to the display? 2G top off is kinda small for a 40g display?? Do you think you need that large of baffle area for a tank\sump this size?

 

[lfsmarineguy]

The whole basis for this design is the ratio of cryptic fuge:display area. By building a tiny fuge area it kind of defeats the whole purpose of even doing it this way (not that the design isn't impressive). I would have gone with a much larger fuge partitioned from the main tank and maybe an overflow behind that into a small sump area for chemical filtration and maybe a small hang on skimmer. I like the top off sections you built in though. Were you planning on using a dosing pump to run the different sections?

 

[cali_reef]

From my memory, Tyree's tanks have about 1/4 of it sectioned off as this "cryptic zone". Come to think of it, I think I have an autographed copy of his sponge book, you can borrow it if you like:lol2:. I never read it. Most tanks' aquascape have this "cryptic zone", you unwilling create this when you built a wall of rocks without considering flow behind, below and in between the pile of rocks.

 

[kimoyo]

GreshamH - Thanks for the offer and I hope to see you at the NJ swap, but I'll probably have the tank done by then . But looking over with the info would be nice.

 

[kimoyo]

Paul, how will the water flow from the fuge to the display? 2G top off is kinda small for a 40g display?? Do you think you need that large of baffle area for a tank\sump this size?

Hey Pierce, I was getting about 1G a day evap from my 120. So I was hoping I would be getting 0.3G from this one. But I was thinking I could have another tank gravity feeding this area.

I'm redoing the design right now.

 

[cali_reef]

But I was thinking I could have another tank gravity feeding this area.

More gadgets to control flow = more potential for failure :lol2:. I like to have 4-5 days of top off capability so my care taker have one less thing to do when I am traveling.. thats is why my top off container is 35 gallons.

 

[kimoyo]

The whole basis for this design is the ratio of cryptic fuge:display area. By building a tiny fuge area it kind of defeats the whole purpose of even doing it this way (not that the design isn't impressive). I would have gone with a much larger fuge partitioned from the main tank and maybe an overflow behind that into a small sump area for chemical filtration and maybe a small hang on skimmer. I like the top off sections you built in though. Were you planning on using a dosing pump to run the different sections?

What's funny is I asked you 3 times over the past few weeks to tell me what the ratio was :lol2:. That's exactly what I asked you after you suggested the zonal approach to other people but you wouldn't reply. I kinda already expected the fuge/cryptic area would have to be larger but I decided to go down the skimmer route which is why I said a few times in this thread that I'm using the fuge area mainly for pods.

Yep a dosing pump will be used for all three sections.

Tyree's zonal approach (even if looked at only in theory) should work based on high school science principals. The nutrients should diffuse through the barrier between the zones into the cryptic zone housing the filter feeders and other organisms that feed on/process DOC, lowering the overall nutrients in the tank. Our tanks strive to acheive homeostasis. If we have high nutrients, bacteria and other organisms will flourish and populate to a point that the existing levels can support. As the nutrients are depleted by the growing population of organisms the organisms numbers will level off and finally balance out with what the nutrient source will support. Techniquely if the proper ratios can be acheived in a tank and kept in balance over time, a tank could require no skimming and minimal filtration beyond the natural processes it conducts on it's own. It would take awhile for a tank like that to mature but once it did it would remain stable mostly on it's own.

Have you run this system before and how long?

What organism eats without going to the bathroom?

the larger the tank the easier it is to come close to achieveing stasis. However, even in a small tank that has reached maturity, the death of an inhabitant shouldn't throw off the entire ecosystem so much that it can't metabolize the excess nutrients. Nature is always working to sustain balance and it is no different in our tanks. Unless you have a full grown angel in a 30g and it dies, a properly stocked tank shouldn't have any serious problems when an inhabitant dies (barring the release of toxins or pathogens). I'm also talking about the filtration portion of Tyree's zonal approach. I understand that chemically a tank is always in flux and natural processes are using and releasing trace elements. With respect to bioloads though, if the tank is properly setup and matured reaching a balance over time is a natural occurence.

Our tanks aren't like nature's ocean. The vastness of the ocean changes things are great deal. Nor do we have closed ecosystems in our tanks.

 

[kimoyo]

More gadgets to control flow = more potential for failure :lol2:. I like to have 4-5 days of top off capability so my care taker have one less thing to do when I am traveling.. thats is why my top off container is 35 gallons.

And how big is your system, lol? By my math, if I do only get 0.3G evap a day then a 2G top off will last me 6 days. If its actually 1G a day then that will suck.

 

[nyfireman3097]

I go through about 5g everyday on my 120g

 

[fishywoo]

Paul look at the video second from the top left called "sump concept".
http://www.reefvideos.com/

 

[kimoyo]

There were some measurement errors in the last design and I wanted to change things around a bit. I increased some areas while decreasing others. Please, if you have any comments please let me know asap because this will hopefully be made by tomorrow.


(click to enlarge)









I could have made the fuge a rectangle but I wanted to do that funky stuff to get a smooth flow going to the end of the return area. And I really want the return area and display to have a common wall. The fuge has a smaller area than the return section but is taller so its volume is almost the same.

I have a drop in chiller so the area before the first baffle is where the chiller coil and my heater will go. Probes will be place somewhere with suction cups. And as before the fuge teeth are 1/4" taller than the intake section teeth so the flow out of the fuge should be fine.

Please, feel free to comment! Thanks.

 

[kimoyo]

I go through about 5g everyday on my 120g

Thanks! I increased the topoff as much as I could because of what you and cali said. Hopefully I won't get that much evap, I kinda I have a feeling I won't especially with having everything in one tank.

Paul look at the video second from the top left called "sump concept".
http://www.reefvideos.com/

Thanks! I've seen that before. He's actually in the RC discussion Matt found earlier.

Cryptic Zone Filtration

Still haven't read thru that thread but he seems like he knows what he's doing on the video. I did see one frag tank by a reefer which had cheato and aptasia in it. The frags had nice colors and ridiculous polyp extension. Unfortunately, ridiculous polyp extension is a bad thing because its a sign the coral is breathing too hard. It could have just been lack of flow but I don't know. He didn't have many fish in there but he did feed the tank and had a little skimmer. The corals seemed OK but I didn't like the look of the tank and wouldn't be happy with it as my display. That's why I'm leaning away from the zonal approach (which maybe fine if your growing frags) and more to a skimmer based system (which I've always done) because the aesthetics of the display are important to me. The guy in the video has some good ideas using both systems but to implement some of them you really need a uv on the return. I actually like UV's but I would need another pump and one I have is way to big for this system. Right now the fuge would drain back into the display but I could do that with the UV. Thanks for the video link, very informative.

 

[kimoyo]

Some extra planning

The tank will be lit with one lumenarc se stealth pendant running a reeflux 12k bulb powered by the new icecap ballast. The dosing will be done with a reefdosing pump I have. Maybe start off using b-ionic for a while even though I have a bunch of stuff to make 2 part. For the topoff I'll use either 2 aqualifters or a two small pumps controlled by my topoff controller from autotopoff.com.

Two eheim 1250's, one for the skimmer and the other for the return, will take care of the sump flow. And two hydor koralia 3's for intank flow.

I would like to run 1 or 2 phosban reactors with phosban/rowa and carbon but I will have to see how much room I have when everything is done.

All this stuff will be in my tank thread but in case anyone is interested now or can see flaws in the design I'll put it out there. So if its off-topic.