Jaubert Plenum System

[Gouldian]

Judging from the way my rics and other LPS grow, I guess zeovit has no problems with softies and LPS.

So WL, do you think Zeovit will surpass the Natural Filtration Method or do you think each has its niche?

From what I see in Ultimate Reef and even RC, most are still sticking to the natural Filtration methods. What's your take on it?

TIA

[clarkiiclown04]

If anyone wants to buy the fine plastic mesh from me, let me know. I bought a packet the other day but decided not to go with plenum system.

[May&Bruce]

clarkiiclown....why did you decide not to proceed with the plenum?

[Reefbum]

Whether plenums or DSBs, most of us still use skimmers.To really try out, throw way your skimmer.Then you will definitely know.

[weileong]

So WL, do you think Zeovit will surpass the Natural Filtration Method or do you think each has its niche?

From what I see in Ultimate Reef and even RC, most are still sticking to the natural Filtration methods. What's your take on it?

TIA

I can only say for things that I've tried out as usual, be it whatever filtration methods, lightings etc.

IMO if you have good results with a particular method then there is no reasons to change it and most of the time that particular reefer would not want to do so. Stability is the main key in getting good results.

[weileong]

Whether plenums or DSBs, most of us still use skimmers.To really try out, throw way your skimmer.Then you will definitely know.

what happens to the PO4 then?

[madmac]

Do any reefers out there use a Jaubert plenum system in their tanks? I have set up one for my 5 foot reef tank and would like to share ideas benefits, etc., with pthers.

Hi, M&B what again are the benefits of a Jaubert plenum system? thx.

[madmac]

Goudian,

But I believe most that went BB are those that embraces Zeovit as well and they have the results to show.

many don't to... and they have good results to show to. To fully maximize its potential, Zeovit requires/recommends a BB setup. The administration of Zoevit supplements have to be followed religiously. Its not something to be done and forgotten with. The results are out-of-this-world coral colours, some find it very nice and others are irked by its brilliance. There are risk involved, huge ones and I have come across many that went the other way wrong.

What worries me are those that go BB without Zeovit. I dunno but I from my limited knowledge BB without Zeovit is just Berlin. And I can still remembers Berlin days whereby most of us struggles with NO3. Correct me if I am wrong, I am ignorant sometimes.

Don't worry my friend, be happy. Theres little you can do to help by worrying... you wont' make a iota of change. Ppl are very passionate in this hobby, sometimes is physiology, sometimes they must have something even tho they don't understand its workings, sometimes its a lack of patient, maybe it time, money, maybe its family, maybe its jus a bad day at work, who knows what the reasons are. here we are forgiving, we celebrate and share the passions of reefing here, ... about the only thing we won't do is $$$ supplement your hobby.

BB works very well without Zeovit, and its not entirely correct to attach the Berlin to it because in those days, they don't emphasize on flow and skimming like they do today... and thats a BIG difference

[madmac]

I dunno about other but i feel that if you have nutrient export using Macroalgae,, you can still keep NO3 under control... Provided you prune regularly...

Correct me if i am wrong...

Yah loh, thats why we have evolved into Plenum, DSB and Refugium after Berlin.

And that's why I dun understand the BB without Zeovit part.

[madmac]

Orh... You mean BB without Refuge and Zeovit huh... It is difficult to keep NO3 under control in that case... But i think most ppl going BB at least have a Refuge for nutrient export or uses Zeovit bah...

Not a fan of BB... lol... So dunno much about how it works..

cute.

[Gouldian]

Thanks Madmax!

Maybe we could meet up one of this days to further discuss!

Like you said, "Lets leave this for Plenium guys."

Thanks again.

[iantoh]

hi there everyone,

stoning at work now so thought id join in the discussion.

bro madmac, from what i understand, the plenum system seeks to create a water void beneath a medium or deep sand bed, insofar as to maximize the viable area for bacteria which thrive in anoxic regions. with a DSB, there will be areas at the lower inch or so that are totally anaerobic, and will accumulate hydrogen sulfide over time. a DSB has also been shown to cause ammonification, that is, the conversion of nitrites and nitrates back into ammonium, cycling itself between these stages to some degree.

Jaubert came up with the plenum to maximise the anoxic region whilst minimising the potential for totally anaerobic areas to form. with a water void at the bottom of the sandbed, there is also greater uniformity in oxygen levels throughout the area, as opposed to greatly varying levels of oxygen in most tank's DSBs that result in greater amounts of blackened sand in areas under live rocks. At least, thats the rationale. most public aquariums have been using Jaubert-like systems for a decade or so. including the Monteray Bay aquarium.

the undergravel system is kinda like the Jaubert plenum system, but the undergravel system's under sand bed water body is aerated and constantly in flux due to water either being pumped up or down through the sandbed.

both do work for denitrification to some degree, as many folks have had great success with both systems. the undergravel isnt so popular anymore, but if you read the labels on some slightly older seachem products, it even states that undergravel systems are recommended.

as for BB, its only workable if you are diligent and patient in cooking your rocks, ala Bomber or weileong. if one doesnt cook the rocks for a BB tank, NO3 and PO4 will be constant issues. I tried out BB for almost a month, only adding in my semi-cooked liverocks after three weeks of running the system to make sure all the plumbings doing fine, and it worked alright for a week or so, but nitrates inevitably rose, and as opposed to sandbed systems, it didnt decline with time. with BB its like youre bypassing the normal cycle, using the skimmer to skim organics out before it even enters the nitrogen cycle, so super flow and super skimmer is needed. i run a bullet beckett and my display's only 2.7ft x1x1, with over 8000L/Hr of flow in the display, but half ###### cooked rocks became my downfall i think.

i only gave up on the BB when one night, i observed my tank full of floating whitish stuff, only to use the torch and realise all my mysid shrimps had died- my beloved live mysids!! it was sand for me thereafter. plus scaping was so difficult. when i added sand, and only two extra pieces of new liverock, everything seemed to clear, and my few sps pieces are colouring back up, and ive copepods everywhere now. however, this is only my personal experience though, so its not meant as anything against BB. I wanted BB to work out as it supposedly means less algae issues over time, and weileongs tank is testament to that. i mean, his red mille's colour, and the yellow rosario with purple polyps, is enough to make one wish to convert to whatever hes doing, but then again, he cooked his rocks for months, and drove his sytem from algal based cycling to bacteria based cycling with zeovit for ages too.

ah well, maybe in the future, when i can afford a good denitrator can try BB again. gotta get back to work then.

cheers all.

ian

[Gouldian]

Good piece of info by Iantoh.

Thanks bro, for sharing you experience!

Its been a long time since we have some real informative discussion in SRC.

Thanks to all that contributed and thanks to M&G for starting this thread.

[May&Bruce]

Yes, thanks to iantoh for the technical description. I was inspired to use it on our 5 foot reef tank when I saw a fellow reefers tank - he had never done a water change in 4 years, and everything was happily growing - fish and corals!

My 5 foot plenum reef tank has only been in operation for 3 months, so I do not think that all the aerobic and anerobic areas are fully populated with the right bacteria. My nitrates are still between 5-10, which I guess is not too bad as the tank is heavily stocked with fish. In a year's time I hope to see undetectable NO3 levels

[angelfish]

angelfish...how long was it up and running and why do you think it is not working? NO3 too high?

yalo, as my past experient after running it for 1yr+ the NO3 still 50mg/L tested with salifert

[loster]

hmm... ian, that is interesting observation. didn't hear much detail on this when we met for drink ther other time

i am on my BB for almost a month now. semi-cooked my new LR. took out all my sand and put in 90% of semi-cooked new LR and 10% from my uncooked LR. no casualty on my sps. only my 2 of my humili sps brown out after the "moveover".

this is just a layman observation:

1st two weeks, i have diatom on the base of my tank and on the rocks. thought this is a good time to add in a lot of snails. the snails work very hard and clean up everything. they clean up every iches of my rock too. i even worry that they will run out of food when there is nothing much for them to clean out after a week of big cleaning, the diatom have stop i hope or may be my snails clean them up before i could see it. now with my CR running, coraline algae started to grow and cover every part of my new LR and even my old LR (looks so much clean now from my old rocks). they grow too far... hope that they won't grow on my base and wall of my tank.

i run my skimmer very wet. clean my collection cup almost everyday (hope that i will have a bigger cup) my p04 still stay at undetect (run FR with rowaphos) and my n03 still stay around .2ppm (salifert) since the "moverover". still trying to bring it down. so, the interesting thing here is that i didn't see any change of my n03. to maintain the BB, i just do weekly 5% water change and i take this chance to siphon out the detritus or anything i can find on the bottom. the colour of my sps is still there (another factor may be i dose ammoacide and CV) beside my humili. well, this is my 1st month on running it. will continue to observe.

before my conversion, i run normal DSB (5" from the back and 4" in the front of my tank) for almost a year. and my n03 always stayed around 20ppm. last 8 months, i decided to convert to BB. so i siphon my sand out every week whenever i do my water change. at the same time, i changed a better skimmer. with my SSB, my n03 was down from 20ppm - 0ppm (salifert). i guess it is my skimmer which played the part and not so much on the SSB.

[Tigger]

Sori, can someone explain to me what is meant by "cooking of liverock" pls. Thanks.

[May&Bruce]

I found this info on 'cooking' LR...happy reading

The purpose of "cooking" your rocks is to have the bacteria consume all (or as much) organic material and PO4 stored on, and in, the rock as possible.

The first step to this is commitment.

You have to be willing to remove your rock from the tank.

It doesn't have to be all at once, but I feel if you are going to do this do it all. In stages if that is easier but make sure that all of it gets done.

The new environment you are creating for your rock is to take it from an algal driven to a bacterial driven system.

In order to this, the rock needs to be in total darkness to retard and eventually kill the algae's on the rock and to give the bacteria time to do the job.

So basically you need tubs to hold the rock.

Equipment needed.

1. Dedication.

2. Tubs to cook rock in. And an equal amount of tubs to hold the rock during waterchanges.

3. A few powerheads.

4. Plenty of buckets.

5. A smug feeling of superiority that you are taking it to "the next level."

Here are the steps, if you have any questions I will try my best to answer them. What I don't know I am sure Bomber can/will instruct.

1. Get into your head and accept the fact you will be making lots of salt water if you aren't lucky enough to have access to filtered NSW.

2. Explain to significant other what is going on so they don't flip out. This process can take up to 2 months. Prepare them in advance so he/she can mark it on the calendar and that they won't nag about it until that date arrives.

3. Setup a tub(s) where the rock is to be cooked. Garages are great for this.

4. Make up enough water to fill tub(s) about halfway and around 5-7 buckets about 60% full.

5. Remove all the rock you want to cook at this stage. (The rock can be removed piece by piece until you are done.) I suggest shutting off the circulation beforehand to minimize dust storms.

6. Take the first piece of rock and dunk it, swish it, very, very well in the first bucket. Then do it again in the 2nd bucket, then the third.

7. Place rock in the tub.

8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 to every piece of rock you want to cook at this time. The reason I suggested 5-7 buckets of water will be evident quickly...as the water quickly turnsq brown.

9. Place powerhead(s) in the tub and plug in. Position at least one powerhead so that it agitates the surface of the water pretty well. This is to keep the water oxygenated. You can use an air pump for additional oxygenation if you wish.

9. Cover the tub. Remember, we want total darkness.

10. Empty out buckets, restart circulation on main tank.

11. Wait.

12. During the first couple of weeks it is recommended to do a swishing and dunking of the rocks twice a week.

What this entails is to make up enough water to fill up those buckets and the tub the rock is in.

First, lay out your empty tub(s) and fill buckets the same as before.

Then, uncover tub with the rock in it. Take a rock and swish it in the tub it's in to knock any easy to get off junk.

Then, swish it thru the 3 buckets again, and place in the empty tub..

Repeat for all your rocks.

Then empty the tub that all the rocks were cooking in, take it outside and rinse it out with a hose.

Place tub back where it was, fill with new saltwater, add rocks and powerheads, and cover.

Wait again unti the next water change.

You will be utterly amazed at how much sand, silt, detrius is at the bottom of the tub and every bucket. It is amazing.

[iantoh]

hey loster!

nice to hear your tanks doing well. Like i said, i think its definitely viable, BB systems, just that you gotta have great flow and skimming. i think my nitrate levels spiked largely due to a major die off of the mysid shrimps in my tank. i mean, i counted more than 200 from my holding tank in the transferance process, so thats quite alot of organic material. thing is, what i noticed with my BB was that once nitrate rose, it stayed high. and i didnt feed my tank for three weeks after this time. i mean, with sandbed systems, bad practices like overfeeding, etc, may cause nitrates to get out of hand, but should you curb the bad practices, the system is usually capable of processing the nitrates and bringing it down. with BB though, you have to skim out the potential nutrients in their dissolved organic form before they break down, because should they get a chance to break down, in their chemical state, they cant be skimmed out.

well, thats for my experience anyways. just looking at bro weileong or your tank, loster, is ample evidence of working BB systems. i think i just find the sandbed alot easier, both on the wallet, and also, for aquascaping and keeping sand dwelling dragonets, etc.

think i gotta get an FR now too. using media in filter bags just leaves a big mess with media dust that escapes and all.

[loster]

ian, i am going to decom my holding tank soon. so, i think i still have some mysid shrimps left. you can take anytime you want

[iantoh]

hahah. kickass man! cool. when you decomm that time sms me ya.

thanks.

[letdoit]

sand sand sand.

one of the shop told me don't to put sand. will have problem in future.

all hobbiest put sand and said no problem

how, what should i do, headache.. put or dont put???

half of the tank with sand , LOL

[aquabeAnz]

With 6 inches of sand - lower 3 inches is coarse sand 3-4 mm, upper layer is fine sand.

Hi bro May&bruce,

In the construction of your plenum system, did you incorporate a little bit of pressure? when i last used a plenum in my current tank, i created a plenum somewhat like those that you can purchase off the shelves in LFS. what i did was to use an acrylic tube which connects to the apparent vacuum of the plenum and conect this tube to the inlet of a small powerhead.

Correct me if i'm wrong but i remembered seeing of the Jaubert plenum links on the net when i started constructing mine, a part of the idea of a plenum is to create small pressure of currents towards the bottom part of the tank (plenum) such that this dynamism becomes some what like a turnover rate for the denitrifying bacteria?

but i have to say that im regretting the idea of removing the plenum because i used to achieve 0-10ppm with heavy feedings, and alas now, i have chosen the way of no return like many others... DSB

perhaps perhaps, im getting silly, more cautious like many other old folks, getting more and more equipment (im thinking of H&S sulphur denitrator, after tempting by Tigger), just to assure a sound piece of mind when i go travelling and do not have to worry about the tank at home...

[May&Bruce]

g'day aquabeAnz....well, I am only a newbie to plenums, but what I have read is that if you have a good current flow and turnover rate, it should be sufficient.

Time will tell with my setup, I guess (fingers crossed)

[iantoh]

hi bruce, i have about twenty small panels of the store bought type plenums unused at home. if youre interested in using them, youre welcome to have them ya.

cheers,

ian