Gyre Nano

[kwirky]

I did it! I built my gyre nano tonight! I'm waiting for the silicone to dry. I won't have time to video tape it tomorrow, but in a few days I'll post a video of how crazy this design can ramp up water flow. Yesterday I was playing with the dividers without siliconing them, just holding them, and it was indescribable how well the water looped around, building up momentum. I'm just itching to put water in it tomorrow and play

It's going to be an SPS tank. Don't know whether to use 2' T5, or a single 250W MH. I already have T5's on my 120g, so I'm thinking of trying MH out on this. The platform gives a display area of 24x12x12". The 12" depth makes it perfect for a strictly SPS tank

Can anyone think of anything that's neutrally bouyant to put in the water to show the movement? I'm thinking crushed egg shells would work probably.

[andresont]

Can anyone think of anything that's neutrally bouyant to put in the water to show the movement? I'm thinking crushed egg shells would work probably.[/quote]

Sigarette ash could be easyer to clean up compare to egg shells imo.

[kwirky]

here's a low quality video of it in action. I just filled it up and left the various krud in there to use as material showing the flow. It was done with my w810i phone, so it's not the greatest quality. I'm going to book a video camera from the college tonight if I can remember, and then put a good video on youtube.

It's so cool, how WIDE the water flow is. It's like a top to bottom water column with just a little bit more flow at the top. I'm going to put two more maxijets in, on the other side, and they'll alternate, two at a time, the water flow every 15 minutes, hopefully aleviating dead spots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOCOnxOnwsI

[BCOrchidGuy]

Very cool, very very cool. I was thinking Rio17HF (lol) I had one in my 155 gallon and it blew the sand off the bottom of the other end (5ft away).

I really like it, I think it's a cool idea, well done.

Doug

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by BCOrchidGuy

Very cool, very very cool. I was thinking Rio17HF (lol) I had one in my 155 gallon and it blew the sand off the bottom of the other end (5ft away).

I really like it, I think it's a cool idea, well done.

Doug

yeah, I almost crapped my pants when it worked like I thought it would . The video's not that great, and doesn't really show that the entire water column above the plate is moving as one giant mass. I'm booking a video camera after class tomorrow to get a good recording of it.

About 20 minutes ago, I put some base rock I put in the tank on top of the platform and the water just continued flowing; the rocks didn't really break up the momentum. Was neat, because the article explained that your rock would create the turbulence the corals need, which is exactly what I saw

I'm also thinking the potential of a tank designed like this might allow one to use thinner glass for the side panels. Anyone think it's a stretch to build a tank like this that's 48" long, 2' tall and 18" wide using 1/4" glass? The center plate would give about 18" of height and 3' of width to the display area. I think it would still be quite strong, and only require stronger floor pane of the tank. It would be technically a 90g tank, but built with 1/4" glass, and maybe a thicker glass for the bottom. It would give 50g of display space, and could be integrated into the stand somehow.

I remember seeing the guys on mythbuster creating a water gyre tank to simulate the aerodynamics of a pickup truck.

[kwirky]

ok here's a better video. not mac compatible

www.kwirky88.com/video/gyretank.wmv

[Delphinus]

That is cool. I've always wondered about doing something like that except I was thinking of having it horizontal instead of vertical. (Seen some displays at public aquariums like that.)

If you could find an appropriate timer control, wouldn't it be awesome to have 2 pairs of powerheads, a pair on each side, and have them alternate every 20-30 seconds? A wavemaker might work as long as you could try various settings to find the optimal setting because I assume it takes a few seconds for the water speed to ramp up, and it would be worse if it had to change directions on top of that. But imagine how amazing that would be ...

[kwirky]

I plan on doing exactly that once the rock is cycled. I'm going to run two more on the other side, and initially switch them every 15 minutes using a coralife light timer I already have.

I've been trying to figure out exactly how some of the wavemakers work. I need one that I can set the interval the pumps are run. Most pulsate and stuff, while I just need to switch back and forth.

by the way, it takes about 15 seconds for it to get to full speed from a stopped state. Don't know how long if it was running the opposite direction, though. I've considered I can get exact control of the water flow just by lowering the timer. The shorter the timer, the less flow the tank gets.

I'm using the rocks' cycling time as a delay for buying the other two pumps and deciding on my lighting

I've got a 150W MH ballast/bulb that needs a pendant/fixture, but it's not enough for sps, probably. The water's only 12" deep, but I still think it might not be enough. I could go T5's, but then they'd only be useful again for another 1'x2' tank. I considered T5 retrofit with an icecap 660. The endcaps and ballast could be reused. Or a 250W MH. it could be reused on another tank down the road too.

I don't forsee this tank running for longer than a year probably, as I'll likely upgrade it to a larger size if I run into disposable money or something heh.

[andresont]

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/1/aafeature
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007...um/figure2.jpg


Figure 2 is an example of a horizontal gyre tank which I built for stony coral culture. The aquarium is 33 gallons, 4 feet long, 14 inches wide and 12 inches tall. The divider was made out of two pieces of dark plexiglass which were overlapped in the center. Both pieces of the divider were unattached and I found that I could vary the speed of the water flow by adjusting the distance of the gap between the divider and end faces of the aquarium glass. The water movement was provided by one Seio 820 pump on one side and two Maxi-jet 1200’s on the other side. A Chauvet light timer was used to alternate power between the pumps for 5 to 15 minutes to each side. Since the water flow was so unidirectional in this long aquarium, it was very simple to measure flow speed. Water velocity was calculated by adding neutrally buoyant particles to the water and timing how long it took for them to travel across a distance of the aquarium. Using this technique I was able to measure water flow speeds between 15-22cm/s throughout the entire aquarium. These velocities are within the range of ideal flow speeds for optimum particle capture, respiration and photosynthesis of many corals. Figure 3 is an image of a vertical gyre tank built and designed my Michael Janes of Aquatouch. Mr Janes is an octocoral specialist and he refers to his design as a laminar flow tank. He designed the aquarium to produce ideal flow conditions while still maintaining enough vertical space to accommodate tall soft coral species such as gorgonians. Although this aquarium was designed primarily as a proof of concept, Mr. Janes continues to work with this type of gyre tank for studying octocoral species.

[kwirky]

so you're jake adams? cool I was trying to figure out how to get ahold of you through e-mail or something. Was sifting through the advancedaquarist website looking for contact information. That article is exactly the one that made me want to build a gyre tank

Yeah, after building it, it's totaly a beneficial design of an aquarium for waterflow. I liked the idea of the horizontal plate rather than the verticle plate because it would require less floor space. I'm quite curious about what you used as a neutrally bouyant material?

And have you ever had problems with the seio on the 5 minute timer? Was trying to find info on what happens to them when they're on wavemakers. Most people say they end up dieing in about a year, or only start up some of the cycles after about 2 months.

I really like the term "cm/second" rather than "gallons/hour", because that's a much more practical way to provide a quantitative requirement for flow, considering so many people's flow patterns are different in their own tanks. I think it would be a good way to describe desired water flow to somone new to the hobby, and doesn't know how to point their powerheads and such.