10000L Coral reef at The Maritime Museum & Aquarium Sweden

[najer]

Nice.

 

[Sallstrom]

FTS of this week

I noticed yesterday that the big green Acropora staghorn colony up to the left near the surface in this picture has moved a couple of centimetres. The tops used to be all the way to the surface
Hopefully it will stay where it is!

Have a great weekend!

/ David

 

[najer]

Looks rubbish, ... more clown / nem pics!

 

[Sallstrom]

Looks rubbish, ... more clown / nem pics!

Here you go

They prefer the Sacrophyton in this tank. No nem pics, hate those bubbletips, spreading worse than Aiptasia..

And some seahorseses as a bonus! (They have their own tank, but our seahorse fry grow up in the 10000L system)

 

[Sallstrom]

Reflections are nice

 

[najer]

Very nice pic.

 

[Sallstrom]

Very nice pic.

Thanks!

Here's another one. Not the best fish picture, but first time I got the pair of Genicanthus melanospilos in the same picture. Some day I will learn how to take proper pictures of fish..

 

[najer]

That is why I take pics of fish that like perch, rubbish here at moving fish pics!

 

[Sallstrom]

Boring maintenance work, cleaning a Tunze Masterstream ;Bored Has to be done sometimes, specially when bubble algae/Valonia loves to grow on our pumps in this tank. These algae are only on the pumps and in the overflow, all other places are taken care of by Mithrax crabs or rabbitfishes.

One pump, 45 minutes.. ;Dead
We have two of these, one on each side. Working great, gives a big flow.

/ David

 

[Sallstrom]

Not much news about this tank now. We are in the phase where the tank is pretty fully grown, and we will close the Aquarium for the rebuild in less then five month. If we were open for another year I would have wanted to change some parts and get more light down to the deeper parts, but if I do that now the corals won't grown back until we have closed. So I will leave it and just do the regular maintenance.

And a lot of our time goes to planning for the new Aquarium right now. Lots of tanks, pipes and pumps that needs to be decided where to go Even if we still will be a pretty small public aquarium there is a lot to think of. The big tanks will be around 400000L, 70000L and 25000L. Each big tank will have a sump, with extra volume to take care of the surface water at a power failure. All life support equipment will be connected to the sumps independently(not in line), so we can change for example a skimmer without affecting anything else.
From the big sumps water will be pumped out to "balance tanks/sumps" with overflow back to the big sumps. From these tanks we will connect smaller tanks around the exhibition. This is to avoid too many different systems. Our idea is to keep less number of water systems, and to try to maintain the water quality well in these systems. Even in our cold water tank we hope to maintain NSW levels. Since we have been working together around 10 years here, we know how often we change the filtration and we will try to build the new Aquarium with that in mind. We won't decided to go with this or that "method" only. We have a plan A, but also a plan B and C. If it doesn't work out with the three large water systems, we will be able to disconnect them into smaller systems.
The basic idea is to run these large tanks pretty much as a regular reef tank. Sump, returnpumps, LR, streampumps, skimmers, good lights, algae refugiums, calciumreactors/dosing pumps, RO etc. All numbers from a regular reef tank won't be possible to achieve, like turnover rate sump -> aquarium. It will be more like 100%/hour through the sump at max flow.
We will have sand pressure filters installed. Not sure if we will need them all the time. But it has worked well for us before when we have used LaCl to get the phosphate down(after adding new rocks etc).

Some info of our work right now. Please feel free to ask anything or tell us if you think we're doing something really stupid
I will try to post some pictures of our drawings later.

Here's an old one from sketch up, we have done some smaller changes after this.


Back to work here. Have a great Sunday.

/ David

 

[Sallstrom]

Not sure if the picture was possible to edit into the last post, so here it is again.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

And a lot of our time goes to planning for the new Aquarium right now. Lots of tanks, pipes and pumps that needs to be decided where to go Even if we still will be a pretty small public aquarium there is a lot to think of. The big tanks will be around 400000L, 70000L and 25000L. Each big tank will have a sump, with extra volume to take care of the surface water at a power failure. All life support equipment will be connected to the sumps independently(not in line), so we can change for example a skimmer without affecting anything else.
From the big sumps water will be pumped out to "balance tanks/sumps" with overflow back to the big sumps. From these tanks we will connect smaller tanks around the exhibition. This is to avoid too many different systems. Our idea is to keep less number of water systems, and to try to maintain the water quality well in these systems. Even in our cold water tank we hope to maintain NSW levels. Since we have been working together around 10 years here, we know how often we change the filtration and we will try to build the new Aquarium with that in mind. We won't decided to go with this or that "method" only. We have a plan A, but also a plan B and C. If it doesn't work out with the three large water systems, we will be able to disconnect them into smaller systems.
The basic idea is to run these large tanks pretty much as a regular reef tank. Sump, returnpumps, LR, streampumps, skimmers, good lights, algae refugiums, calciumreactors/dosing pumps, RO etc. All numbers from a regular reef tank won't be possible to achieve, like turnover rate sump -> aquarium. It will be more like 100%/hour through the sump at max flow.
We will have sand pressure filters installed. Not sure if we will need them all the time. But it has worked well for us before when we have used LaCl to get the phosphate down(after adding new rocks etc).

/ David

To maintain the water quality I see a sand pressure filter ( silica free?) as mechanical filter , skimmer to remove some organics ( +-35%) and nutrients? ( no GAC?), RO ( to make this amount of RO water probably a high pressure system is used which is more effective ( leaving only <5%) but a huge amount of +- 750000l water will be wasted ), calciumreactor, dosing pumps ( what will be dosed?) and algae refugia to remove nutrients ( and minerals). For big aquaria of this size these algae refugia may take a lot of space and need a lot of energy. To remove 1ppm nitrate out of 500000l +- 125 kg algae ( 250 gr x 500) must be harvested, a huge work. If 10 ppm nitrate must be removed weekly this is 1250kg/week as I see no other bio-filters in the setup.
LaCL? Do you mean Lanthanum Cloride? I know Lanthanum Carbonate is used to bind phosphate in the bloodstream of humans but I had no idea it is used for phosphate removal in aquarium systems. How it is dosed? Isn't it expensive?
What is planned for water changes? ( 10% = +- 40000l)

 

[Sallstrom]

To maintain the water quality I see a sand pressure filter ( silica free?) as mechanical filter , skimmer to remove some organics ( +-35%) and nutrients? ( no GAC?), RO ( to make this amount of RO water probably a high pressure system is used which is more effective ( leaving only <5%) but a huge amount of +- 750000l water will be wasted ), calciumreactor, dosing pumps ( what will be dosed?) and algae refugia to remove nutrients ( and minerals). For big aquaria of this size these algae refugia may take a lot of space and need a lot of energy. To remove 1ppm nitrate out of 500000l +- 125 kg algae ( 250 gr x 500) must be harvested, a huge work. If 10 ppm nitrate must be removed weekly this is 1250kg/week as I see no other bio-filters in the setup.
LaCL? Do you mean Lanthanum Cloride? I know Lanthanum Carbonate is used to bind phosphate in the bloodstream of humans but I had no idea it is used for phosphate removal in aquarium systems. How it is dosed? Isn't it expensive?
What is planned for water changes? ( 10% = +- 40000l)

The three water systems will have different types of filtration or ways to handle nutrients. I don't say it will work right a way, but we have tried all of them in smaller scale so it not just guesses
We are running two sand pressure filters now, they have been running 3-4 years in corals systems. It silica sand in these two filters, but we havn't seen that Si has increased. Only when one of the filters were turned off (by accident) every night(used a power outlet for lights.. ) we saw that Si increased. Maybe new silica sand will release some Si. We will have to see what happens. Si seems to be consumed quite fast if you don't add any more. But there are other options, like glass media. It's possible that works better for our purpose, we'll see.
Yes, I meant lanthanum chloride. We buy it as powder from a chem company. We mix it with RO water, about 3-5g to 5-10 litres. Then we add it slowly with dosing pumps to the inlet to the sand pressure filters. But only if PO4 is above 0,15. Free La might be harmfull to fish, so we use it with care. It's not that expensive.

For water changes we don't change more then we need. We are looking into the possibility to use the waste water from the RO units to backwash the sand filters. We will continue the method we run now, send in ICP tests to Triton Lab and adjust the parameters we can adjust.
Of coarse we will change water if we need to. There will be large tanks under the floor. A couple of 20m3 tanks to store RO water and to mix new saltwater in.

The nutrients will probably be handled in different ways in the three systems.

In the cold water system (10 degrees) we will use skimmers, sulphur reactors, GFO and algae filters to begin with. We have a setup now with a small amount of water that goes to a tank with heaters, getting the water to over 20 degrees to speed up bacteria activity in the sulphur filter. That has worked very well in our cold water system. So that we will scale up to the 70000L system.

The 25000L system will be a kelp system with temperature that will go up to 18-20 degrees in the summer and down to 10 in the winter. This is probably the biggest chance we take, but we have tried it before and we hope our plan works out. If we get the kelp to grow we won't need to worry about nutrients, other than to add nutrients But we will have the same filter setup as the coldwater system, just in case. We also have a dream scenario where we can connect this tank to the 70000L cold water system, and use the kelp tank as a algae filter. But thats just if everything works out really good

The 400000L tank will be a tropical coral reef. Here we have planned a classic coral tank setup with live rock, skimmer and algae filters. I don't know yet how much live rock(most of it dry rock I think) we'll need. The same with the algae filters, I don't know yet how much space we have(good point about the weight we need to harvest/mg nitrate). But together with carbon source and/or sulphur filters I think we can handle the nitrate. We will install a lot of filters (like GFO-filters and sulphur filters) even if we probably won't need them the first years.
We will start this tank much the same as we did with this 10000L(see the first pages of this thread). Start with only herbivores and not much feeding. Then add fish in steps. Not start with a "fish soup" If you look up Burger Zoo and how they started their large coral tank, that is a good plan IMO. And also, you don't get the same density of fish in a large tank as in a say 1000 litre tank. So my guess is that we will need to add at least nitrate the first month in this tank.

The dosingpumps will be for everythink we want to add. Today we add ethanol, Fe, I, Mn, B, Core7, Zn, KNO3, KH2PO4, K, Sr and phytoplankton and probably some stuff I don't remember. Not at the same time in the same tank. But I like to have dosingpumps to add everything over time. Maybe the calciumreactors isn't enough, then we can add Core7/balling to top up.

I will take a break here, otherwise this post will be so long that no one will cope to read it all

/ David

 

[Belgian Anthias]

What type off sulphur reactors are planned? When BADES columns ( SPC) are used no reactors are needed. Can be used in the sump or better in a refugium to have better control over the nitrate level. When used in a continues flow MB reactor the nitrogen cycle can be closed and the nitrate level controlled on a level as desired if the rector is big enough. The removal of nitrogen by using BADES ( biological anaerobic denitrification on elemental Sulphur) is the method I prefer and on which I did a lot of research.

 

[Sallstrom]

What type off sulphur reactors are planned? When BADES columns ( SPC) are used no reactors are needed. Can be used in the sump or better in a refugium to have better control over the nitrate level. When used in a continues flow MB reactor the nitrogen cycle can be closed and the nitrate level controlled on a level as desired if the rector is big enough. The removal of nitrogen by using BADES ( biological anaerobic denitrification on elemental Sulphur) is the method I prefer and on which I did a lot of research.

We have built our own sulphur filters. All of them with a bit different design We have had good results with both a tall tube with flow from the bottom up with no internal circulation and a rebuilt phosphate filter, with internal circulation. So maybe we buy filter canisters/tubes and build the rest ourselves. Another option is to use a small sand pressure filter.
But so far we haven't decided the details for those kind of filters. The coming year we will decide pipes for overflow, returpumps, windows, walls, drains, heat exchangers etc. The life support systems will be the next step.
We are a museum under the city of Gothenburg, so we can't say that we want this or that brand(like a private company can do). We have to do a public tendering(not sure if that's the correct word in English, please let me know if there is a better word). So our job is the write all the documents as well as possible and don't forget anything.

Here's a rebuilt phosphate filter, now it serves as a sulphur filter in a coldwater system. The pumps is for internal circulation.

Sorry about the red light in the background, we're growing phytoplankton

/ David

 

[Belgian Anthias]

We have built our own sulphur filters. All of them with a bit different design We have had good results with both a tall tube with flow from the bottom up with no internal circulation and a rebuilt phosphate filter, with internal circulation. So maybe we buy filter canisters/tubes and build the rest ourselves. Another option is to use a small sand pressure filter.
But so far we haven't decided the details for those kind of filters. The coming year we will decide pipes for overflow, returpumps, windows, walls, drains, heat exchangers etc. The life support systems will be the next step.
We are a museum under the city of Gothenburg, so we can't say that we want this or that brand(like a private company can do). We have to do a public tendering(not sure if that's the correct word in English, please let me know if there is a better word). So our job is the write all the documents as well as possible and don't forget anything.

Here's a rebuilt phosphate filter, now it serves as a sulphur filter in a coldwater system. The pumps is for internal circulation.

Sorry about the red light in the background, we're growing phytoplankton

/ David

I think a public tender seems to be correct; I am Dutch speaking ( Flemish) , my knowledge of English is limited.

I do not see a calciumcarbonate reactor in series with the sulphur reactor. How the influence on alkalinity, pH and sulphate of the BADES proces is corrected?
It is very important that the BADES reactor used will be big enough, otherwise it only can remove some nitrogen and will not be able to close the nitrogen cycle.
When SPC are used no public tender will be necessary as only regular consumables ( Sulphur , a CaCO3 source and filter mesh) are needed, which may be part of the yearly budget. Using SPC, nitrate from ammonium reduction ( nitrification) is reduced and removed the moment it is produced. The total effect on both, pH and alkalinty is minimal, calcium is produced.
As sulphur denitrators are in use, SPC is simply tested by putting self made BADES columns (1/1 mix of sulphur and calcium carbonate) containing some used sulphur in old water from a water change. Water must circulate, for this an airstone can be used. An ammonia nitrogen source is needed, a basic 5% solution of NH4Cl may be used for regular addition. All nitrogen added will be removed without effecting alkalinity or pH. If you are interested I may translate the article:

 

[Belgian Anthias]

In the cold water system (10 degrees) we will use skimmers, sulphur reactors, GFO and algae filters to begin with. We have a setup now with a small amount of water that goes to a tank with heaters, getting the water to over 20 degrees to speed up bacteria activity in the sulphur filter. That has worked very well in our cold water system.
/ David

As a normal BADES reactor( 1% reactor) has a daily flow rate of +- once or twice the total system volume it may need a lot of energy to heat up all the water and cool it down again. I understand that doubling the BADES reactor capacity suitable for treating 70000l cold water daily is also a big investment . If it is the intention to keep the nitrate level very low the flow rate true the reactors must be high enough to be able to remove the daily nitrate production daily. A BADES reactor can't be to big , one may always adjust the quantity of media to the needs.
It certainly would change a lot if the kelp tank can be used as an absorber of nutrients. You may have a vacancy for a kelp farmer!?;Happy

 

[Sallstrom]

As a normal BADES reactor( 1% reactor) has a daily flow rate of +- once or twice the total system volume it may need a lot of energy to heat up all the water and cool it down again. I understand that doubling the BADES reactor capacity suitable for treating 70000l cold water daily is also a big investment . If it is the intention to keep the nitrate level very low the flow rate true the reactors must be high enough to be able to remove the daily nitrate production daily. A BADES reactor can't be to big , one may always adjust the quantity of media to the needs.
It certainly would change a lot if the kelp tank can be used as an absorber of nutrients. You may have a vacancy for a kelp farmer!?;Happy

About the filtration in the cold aquariums.
The way we do it now it a very slow flow to the "refugium", but I don't have the exact numbers. Maybe around 50L/h or lower through the sulphur filter, and the system is about 4500litres. Since we heat up the water to 21 degrees we don't want a high turnover rate.
It's my colleague who is "the boss" over the cold water systems, so he's doing most of the adjustments and measures. But we're working together trying to find the best way for us to get the same water quality in the cold water aquariums as in the tropical ones. Today we celebrated when the ICP tests results came, best results ever for the cold water system! Now the PO4 is around 0,10ppm So we know it's harder to maintain low nutrients in a system as cold as 10 degrees.
As for calcium carbonate, we use coral gravel now. The water goes from the sulphur filter, through a canister with redox and pH probes, then into a tube with coral gravel. Our problem now is that the tank doesn't consume that much calcium. And we still need to add buffer the keep up the KH. So maybe we'll change that in the future. Or get more cold water stony corals like Lophelia pertusa!

I really hope the kelp grows that much that we will need to hire a kelp farmer!

 

[Sallstrom]

There are a couple of threads discussing aquascaping, but most is about placing rock and corals. One thing I really don't like to see in a nice aquarium is pumps or pipes. It's hard to hide them all i know, but many times it feels like people don't even try.
Maybe I've written about this before, sorry if I repeat myself, but this is something I think of often
We have some "in wall" aquariums. In those it's good to leave some of the front window behind the wall. Making it possible to hide pumps on the side wall, close to the front window.
In the tank on the picture below, the end side windows are fully visible from the front window. For a long time we had Vortech pumps on those sides, and the pumps was visible (and bothered me every day ). So we took them away and put two Jebao RW20 behind the rocks, facing upwards. So now it's a wave coming up from behind the rocks(and you don't see any pumps!). It's not super high flow in all areas in the tank, but there is movement and a wave effect in all the areas you can see.
I know there are still are a cord and a little bit of a pips visible, I'm working on it..

 

[Belgian Anthias]

About the filtration in the cold aquariums.
The way we do it now it a very slow flow to the "refugium", but I don't have the exact numbers. Maybe around 50L/h or lower through the sulphur filter, and the system is about 4500litres. Since we heat up the water to 21 degrees we don't want a high turnover rate.

As for calcium carbonate, we use coral gravel now. The water goes from the sulphur filter, through a canister with redox and pH probes, then into a tube with coral gravel. Our problem now is that the tank doesn't consume that much calcium. And we still need to add buffer the keep up the KH. So maybe we'll change that in the future. Or get more cold water stony corals like Lophelia pertusa!

!

A reactor only removes as much as is seeded to the reactor . Slow flow means less effective. Warming up the water thus increase the bacterial grow rate but they can not remove what is not supplied;

When the daily nitrate production is for example 2ppm , daily 9 grams ( 4500l) of nitrate is produced. When the level is kept at 2ppm the 0 nitrate effluent flow rate must be at least the total volume of the system on a daily base. To lower the nitrate level to 1 ppm the flow rate must be doubled to be able to remove the same daily production. To do this with a BADES reactor we need a 2% reactor;.
To reduce a high nitrate level only a bit more as the daily nitrate overproduction must be removed. When the water contains 100ppm nitrate this is an easy task and a low flow rate is sufficient. At a level of 10 ppm the flow must be x 10, at a level of 1ppm x 100 to have the same efficiency rate.

Warming up the water will not change much I think as the maximum capacity of the reactor can not be used at low nitrate levels due to the limited flow in an anoxic kept reactor. Cold water contains more oxygen. Using a nitrifying biofilter in line with a BADES reactor may be more effective to lower the oxygen level before it enters the BADES reactor. And it increases the maximum carrying capacity of the system
.
The calcium production is in relation to the autothropic nitrate reduction and nitrification on calcium carbonate substrate. Nitrification on calcium carbonate is +- alkalinity neutral and produces calcium. We use oyster grid instead of sand in nitrifying biofilters.

Controlling a low nitrate level at a high daily nitrate production is not possible using an annoxic kept sulphur denitrator managed using redox as the flow is limited to keep the reactor anoxic. The systems used in MAAO are not kept anoxic !

A BADES reactor can not be managed using redox controlled flow control valves or dosers,
In BADES biofilm reactors ( simultanious nitrification and mixothropic denitrificaton) a 0 nitrate effluent is not maintained. This way a very high flow is possible and annoxic conditions in the reactor water column are avoided.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience.