Tropical Fish Forums

[Fern]

If you want to better understand the science of your tank look at how your sewage is treated. Keeping a clean healthy tank is quite similar to running a sewage plant. The only difference is scale and inhabitants. Most of the newer fish tank technology has been adopted from the waste water industry and just scaled down. Bio wheels and bio balls for example have been used in the waste water industry for a very long time(30+ years). I have worked for an aerobic treatment unit (ATU) company for some time and it just dawned on me that the concepts are the same. The end result being reusable water. This is the system my father created; http://www.best1systems.com/residential.htmll UV filters are also used in waste water systems as a final polisher before the water is run out through emitter lines buried in your lawn.
I just thought that I should share this information with you. I know that understanding waste water treatment has helped me understand tank maintenance that much better. Here are a few informative links. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wastewater_treatment#Biological_aerated_filters http://oldcastleprecastonsite.com/algae-wheel-2.htm http://bioprocessh2o.com/site/ourtechnology/solutions/?gclid=CNn3nOSZ3ZsCFQXGsgod7mED_Q http://www.cee-environmental.com/en/index/index/id/71/secb/1 [/url]

[Ciklido]

don't mean to burst your bubble (haha), afterall we are aquarists, but the best1 systems link does not work. And just by glancing over the other links it seems it is much complicated than say the articles section of AOA. I suppose because for sweage water the waste is much more dense and concentrated than a small amount of fish waste that is not as bad as city sweage waste.
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Get attached, love everything now, then, suffer when it comes to an end, for it will bring great meaning to one's existence. JR

[unissuh]

They are quite similar, and sewage treatment plants are much more well studied than aquarium filtration systems. Just be careful on some of the nitty gritty details, because sewage plants are designed to process high concentrations of nitrogenous waste (>20ppm), while aquarium systems are designed to process low concentrations of (nitrogenous) waste (<1ppm).

The first link works, just delete the extra l off the end: http://www.best1systems.com/residential.html
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light

[Fern]

Very true unissuh. I just wanted to share the similarity's with whomever wanted to read it. Yes it is in depth but so is the maintaining of aquariums. I just love cool knowledge like this so I figured someone else might like to know as well.

[Ciklido]

Yes it is interesting, I always wondered too what type of filtration systems they would use for aquariums say in Marineland or Seaworld because of course they hold like 2 million gallons and I wondered what type of systems and how efficient as well as the process of making it suitable for marine life.
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Get attached, love everything now, then, suffer when it comes to an end, for it will bring great meaning to one's existence. JR

[Fern]

I would love to go behind the scenes at seaworld!
I'm glad I'm not the only odd one who is intrigued by stuff like this

[unissuh]

Local aquarium societies might occasionally organize a visit to the zoo/aquarium to see some of the stuff behind the scenes...

Most of the stuff seems to just be crazy big versions of the stuff your marine aquarist would have at home, heres a thread with some behind the scenes pictures of the filtration at Melbourne Zoo: http://www.masa.asn.au/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=202063
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Fishing in the Rivers of Light