More Air into canister filter?

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Bob cratchet

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 22, 2018
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Always looking for more bang per buck ways of doing things. So had a Sunday morning what if moment and I was thinking about getting more oxygen into my canister filters to feed the BB increasing there efficiency.
Has anyone put a dusro type pipe on a canister filter to act as a Venturi? if so what were the results / experiences?
 
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Do you mean on the intake or return side? Durso was created to quiet reef sump plumbing, not for oxygen, and from what I've seen some people have to do a lot of tinkering to get durso plumbing quiet and working properly, especially when they DIY the durso. So, either way, I don't know what it would accomplish, except to complicate your plumbing and either add noise or reduce flow efficiency of your canister, at least as I understand durso.

On the return side, there's a difference between flow and turbulence. You can improve oxygen efficiency of outflow simply by angling spray bars to create turbulence instead of smooth flow at the surface. I do this by lowering my spray bars and pointing them slightly upward, not by elevating them above the water line and pointing them downward-- quieter that way. It's not so much flow rate as turbulence that lets filter outflow oxygenate a tank-- a point missed by some who think filter current doesn't work well to oxygenate a tank. Everyone has their pet theories or understanding of oxygenating tanks, bubbles vs. filter flow, etc-- but, in fact, to make filter flow efficient you want the effect of riffles over rocks in a mountain stream from your spray bars, not a smooth flowing river. Or you can add bubblers. :)

..but for years most of my tanks do just fine with filter turbulence alone, you just have to get the outflow right.

In any case, it's your whole system you want well oxygenated, then you want efficient flow dynamics in your canister (not letting a filter get overly dirty) and correct order of mechanical vs bio media (primarily mechanical first) so your bio media gets clean instead of dirty water. Beyond that it's not a question of trying to achieve special oxygen conditions inside your canister vs the rest of the tank-- at least this is true in aquariums, the theory or approach might be different for a pond or water treatment plant where the scales and economics are different.
 
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Agree with neutrino, and would add (if you try to add bubbles inside the canister, if that is your intent) bubbles inside the can would create condition for the pump to cavitate, detrimental on many fronts.
I have found venturi's valuable on the outflow of returns, especially when keeping rheophilic species.
Although I don't find most canisters have pumps strong enough to do this.
Below the kind of turbulence from a venturi on an outflow.

 
Do you mean on the intake or return side? Durso was created to quiet reef sump plumbing, not for oxygen, and from what I've seen some people have to do a lot of tinkering to get durso plumbing quiet and working properly, especially when they DIY the durso. So, either way, I don't know what it would accomplish, except to complicate your plumbing and either add noise or reduce flow efficiency of your canister, at least as I understand durso.

On the return side, there's a difference between flow and turbulence. You can improve oxygen efficiency of outflow simply by angling spray bars to create turbulence instead of smooth flow at the surface. I do this by lowering my spray bars and pointing them slightly upward, not by elevating them above the water line and pointing them downward-- quieter that way. It's not so much flow rate as turbulence that lets filter outflow oxygenate a tank-- a point missed by some who think filter current doesn't work well to oxygenate a tank. Everyone has their pet theories or understanding of oxygenating tanks, bubbles vs. filter flow, etc-- but, in fact, to make filter flow efficient you want the effect of riffles over rocks in a mountain stream from your spray bars, not a smooth flowing river. Or you can add bubblers. :)

..but for years most of my tanks do just fine with filter turbulence alone, you just have to get the outflow right.

In any case, it's your whole system you want well oxygenated, then you want efficient flow dynamics in your canister (not letting a filter get overly dirty) and correct order of mechanical vs bio media (primarily mechanical first) so your bio media gets clean instead of dirty water. Beyond that it's not a question of trying to achieve special oxygen conditions inside your canister vs the rest of the tank-- at least this is true in aquariums, the theory or approach might be different for a pond or water treatment plant where the scales and economics are different.
Thank you for taking the time to reply . My idea is that by putting a pipe on the intake line of a canister I could rough up (thereby increase gasious exchanges) the water going into my filters, allowing for more bacteria . I was reading about what breaks down ammonia/ nitrites into something safe bacteria!
Yes nothing new here
It also went on about aerobic bacteria needing food and oxygen to thrive the more you have the larger colony's you can have.
Still nothing new.
I was looking at building a sump so researched it and discarded it as too costly for the small increase in filter capacity it would give over running 3 fx6s.
Durso
The durso has a hole in the top to break the shipon in the event of failure.
It's recommend 6" below the water line to stop noise. No rocket science here.
Normally gate valves are used to match the input output flow rates.Flow rate in my idea is not a problem as it's dictated by the pump pulling water in(although pressure to pull the water to the canister may be an issue?).

so... If we have a hole in the intake pipe above water level ( to avoid flooding) surely it can be used to super oxygenate the water going to the filter and thereby give a better filter?

Btw my tank has plenty of filtration on it, my idea is not for it. I'm more interested it making a super duper to the max filter with bells on!

does this idea sound sane? Has someone done it before ? If so what are /could be the problems with this?
 
Agree with neutrino, and would add (if you try to add bubbles inside the canister, if that is your intent) bubbles inside the can would create condition for the pump to cavitate, detrimental on many fronts.
I have found venturi's valuable on the outflow of returns, especially when keeping rheophilic species.
Although I don't find most canisters have pumps strong enough to do this.
Below the kind of turbulence from a venturi on an outflow.

Yes that air flow is what I'm thinking in the filter. If it's doing that going down to the pipe and being drawn through will it create air pockets?????
 
Sounds like your plan will end up with air bubbles getting into the filter. At best it will make your filter noisy when it sucks up a bubble, chops it into little pieces and spits it out.

At worst, it will build up enough air to build up an air pocket, the pump will be unable to pump any water, the bacteria in the filter will die shortly after followed by all your fish due to ammonia build up and lack of airation.

Fortunately, most likely is just somewhere between the two.
 
My idea is that by putting a pipe on the intake line of a canister I could rough up (thereby increase gasious exchanges) the water going into my filters, allowing for more bacteria .
Don't know if it's what you're intending, but this sounds almost like a quasi-moving bed concept. I've done moving bed filters before and like them, but they require different media and flow rates than a canister. More advanced media experts (not your typical hobbyists) will tell you that you don't want to clean or rinse conventional bio media too vigorously, it's actually not a rare mistake. It disturbs or removes beneficial bacteria and can cause a 'mini' cycle. This seems to argue against too much turbulence within a canister. Canister and moving beds involve different media, flow rates, and principles, I don't know that you'd want to try and hybridize them. Not to say it's your intention, but what you're describing sounds like it approaches it.

Canisters are engineered to be pressurized, it's part of how they operate, part of the original engineering concept by Gunther Eheim who invented them. One of the advantages of pressurization is supposed to be that oxygen within the water is highly available to the bacteria, even when the filter is shut off for a time, and that it forces good contact with all the media in a properly engineered and maintained filter. Turbulence or, more so, air bubbles, would seem to disrupt this. Gas exchange (water with atmosphere) and oxygen utilization by bacteria are different processes.

You can get into a lot of theory when it comes to filtration. Study of the bacteria themselves is ongoing. But some things are well established in the science I've read. There's a formula between oxygen use of the (aerobic) bacteria in your filter and how much ammonia or nitrite is being converted; there's also an upper limit to the bacteria's oxygen usage, something like saying a runner can only breathe so fast. Also, one of the limiting factors to beneficial bacteria is the amount of nutrients available to them. In other words, a 100 gal tank with one medium sized fish only provides so much 'food' for bacteria. It's a limiting factor, no matter how much filtration or oxygen you throw at it. Because this is true I've been able to way under-filter some lightly stocked tanks, at least by most people's standards, and still have zero ammonia and nitrites and low nitrates. But that's not my typical tank. Depending on the filter, a nice sweet spot for low maintenance, low nitrates, very clear water, often seems in the vicinity of halving the "up to" tank sizes for a filter (some tanks/fish types/fish loads can need even more). Can't say I always do that, but it does work nice, but not because I've doubled the bacteria colony, which will only grow to the size supported by the available nutrients.

All that said, not trying to tell you what to do or not do, just my understanding and logic on it. In the end, if you have your own theory, sometimes you need to try it out and see for yourself.
 
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Take a dissolved oxygen reading from the output water of your canister. That's going to tell you if more oxygen is worth the effort.
 
Aerobic = oxygen consuming. In a properly maintained filter, lower oxygen in filter output tells you the aerobic bacteria inside have been busy, not whether your tank needs more oxygen.

You can get as technical or simple as you want. You can watch your fish respiration and do water quality tests and know whether you have sufficient oxygen or you can test and try and interpret the results. You can use air stones, power heads, filters themselves, something sophisticated and exotic with lots of plumbing and equipment or something as low tech as plant to fish and volume to surface area ratios to get sufficient oxygen. Whatever the case, water normally holds only so much oxygen, depending on temperature and pressure-- water can hold more oxygen at lower temperatures and higher pressure, which relates to my point above about canisters being under pressure.

BUT-- attempting to supersaturate your tank with oxygen or trying to force-feed a filter with oxygen aren't necessarily good ideas:

Gas bubble disease
In aquaria and hatcheries, GBD may be caused by leaks in pump manifolds or valve systems, air being “sucked in” and forced into solution – the so-called Venturi principle.
Which gets back to simple observation and conventional testing should tell you what you need to know. Low tech, high tech, old school, your own invention, or whatever, you're not going to do better than healthy fish with normally steady, relaxed breathing (except when there's a lot of chasing or fighting), no ammonia and nitrite and low nitrates. However you get there is up to you.
 
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