Aquaeultural Engineering 2 (1983) 301-307

Effective Flow-through Vacuum Degasser for Fish Hatcheries

J o s e p h T. Fuss us Fish and Wildlife Service,National Fishery Research and Development Laboratory, RD Number 4, Box 63, Wellsboro, Pennsylvania 16901, USA

ABSTRA CT
Since the fry o f certain species offish cannot tolerate even slight amounts o f supersaturation, their water supplies must be degassed. Gas content can be reduced to subsatumted, sublethal levels by passing it through the vacuum degasser described here. The system includes a low-cost, flowthrough unit easily capable o f degassing (to less than saturated conditions) water flowing at 190 liters rain -x. In tests completed to date, dissolved oxygen content was never reduced below 7 ppm.

INTRODUCTION Water supplies in fish culture facilities are often highly supersaturated and therefore must be degassed. A common solution to the problem is to pass the water through a column degasser, which efficiently strips excess gases and, when necessary, replaces a certain amount of depleted dissolved oxygen (DO). Energy consumption is low, amounting to only the head loss of the falling water. Unfortunately, column degassing can reduce supersaturation levels o'nly to about 102% total gas pressure (TGP). This level is safe for most species, but can be toxic for larval fishes such as the fry of Atlantic salmon Salmo salar (Dennison and Marchyshyn, 1973; Krise, 1983; Meade, 1983). Lower levels of saturation can be reliably attained only by using vacuum degassers. However, the 'reliability' of vacuum degassers has been a much debated point. The units have gained a poor reputation because of problems associated
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with large-volume, highly complicated, mechanical systems that were designed to serve an entire hatchery for a full growing season. In reality, the only time vacuum degassing is absolutely necessary is during the early life stages o f the more delicate species. Generally, this period is short and the required flow rates are small. The vacuum system described here is low-volume (190 liters min -1), inexpensive, and uncomplicated.

M A T E R I A L S AND METHODS The main vessel is fabricated from steel well casing 35 cm in diameter and a b o u t 3 m long (Fig. 1). Since only slight vacuums are required, the vessel could be constructed o f a less expensive material such as plastic. A large surface area for exposure o f the water to the vacuum is provided by nearly filling the vessel with plastic media, such as Pall , Koch or Norton rings. The rings are 3.8 cm in diameter with 91% free space, a surface area o f 140 m 2 m -3, and a packing density o f 13 772 pieces per m 3. A h o m e m a d e 'diffuser', consisting o f a capped piece o f pipe into which a number o f holes (3 mm in diameter) have been drilled, is connected to the inlet. The vacuum is provided by a small 1/6 horse p o w e r rotating vane pump having a free air capacity o f 37 liters min -~ and a minimum continuous operating pressure of 33 kPa absolute (with respect to a standard atmosphere of 101 kPa absolute). Our pump was produced by Gast Mfg. Corp., Benton Harbor, Michigan, USA (model 0211-P45). The various vacuum levels are maintained by manually positioning a bleeder valve open to the atmosphere. Since the vessel is operated at vacuum, the water must be physically p u m p e d out o f the degasser. If flow conditions are constant (which is rare) the unit could be elevated to allow gravity to counteract the vacuum, and the discharge pump could be eliminated. With changing conditions such as flow, saturation and vacuum, however, the installation o f a water pump is desirable. Our system uses a 1 horse power pump capable of providing 330 liters min -1 at a head o f 12-8 m. The water level in the vessel is maintained manually with the aid of a sight glass. An additional device was constructed to test the vacuum degasser. This device, a 'saturator' (Fig. 2), maintains a constant supply of water at various flow rates and at predetermined supersaturation levels (Bouck and King, 1983). The elevated gas levels are produced b y meter-

Effective flow-through vacuum degasser for fish hatcheries

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Flow through vacuum degasser.

ing small amounts o f compressed air into the lead end o f a plastic water line, 5.1 cm in diameter. The air, the pressure (276 kPa absolute), and the line length (30 m) combine to produce highly supersaturated water. The end of the water line is connected to a plastic cylinder, 20-3 cm in diameter, that serves to separate any residual free air. Different levels of

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( ~ ~ ;SAMPLE LINE PRESSURE GAUGE ( ~ AIR FLOW METER (DWYER, MODEL RMB-~I- SSV) CHECK VALVE (~) PUMP (3 H.P~ 300 L M - I A T 15 M) (~ GATE VALVE(S) (~) GASOMETER (BDUCK'~ (~) AIR BLEEDER VALVE

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Fig. 2.

Saturator used to produce constant levels of supersaturated water to test vacuum degasser. Original designed by G. R. Bouck.

supersaturation can be produced by varying the amount o f compressed air metered into the system.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The two major concerns in testing the degasser were (a) h o w well it would perform at different water temperature extremes, and (b) whether DO would be removed to deficient levels. The conditions tested were (1) cold water-low inlet saturation; (2) cold water-high inlet saturation; (3) warm water-low inlet saturation; and (4) warm water-high inlet saturation. With the test conditions set, the vacuum within the degasser was adjusted to produce discharge water that was 96-98% (TPG) saturated. Saturation levels were measured using gasometers (Bouck, 1982) m o u n t e d on both the inlet and outlet o f the degasser, and also b y taking samples and using a Weiss saturometer. DO levels were measured using a newly calibrated YSI meter. The YSI readings periodically were compared to the results obtained by the Winkler titration method.

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J. T. Fuss

The trials were performed in triplicate on different days. The flow (190 liters rain -1) to the unit was limited b y the diameter o f the supply line (5.1 cm) and the capacity o f the supply pump - not by the degasser itself. All the trials in Table 1 were c o n d u c t e d at flows o f 190 liters min -1. The degasser easily produced less-than-saturated water in all tests. It was no surprise that the 'worst case' was the warm water-high saturation trial where the inlet DO was only 9.6 ppm. T h e degasser still produced less than saturated water with a DO of 7.0 ppm. Even though the entering supersaturation level for this test was higher than the cold water-high saturation trial (157% TGP as compared with 151%), the inlet DO level was much lower (9.6 p p m compared with 14.1 ppm). Additionally, it was noted that only about a tenth as much compressed air was required to supersaturate the warm water as to supersaturate the cold water. This is a somewhat crude illustration o f the physics of dissolved gases, and in particular Charles' law. Charles related the volume o f a gas to temperature at constant pressure. In our tests the desire was to keep the pressure constant and increase the temperature, requiring the volume o f injected air to be reduced. Hatchery managers dealing with warm water species should be especially aware o f the physics o f supersaturation, at least to the extent that it takes very little gas to supersaturate warm water. In a preliminary degasser trial in which atmospheric pressure (no vacuum) and highly supersaturated water were used, the discharge water produced was about 102% (TGP) saturated. As expected, the unit performed like a column degasser. The vacuum apparently serves only to reduce the saturation level the last few extra desired percentage points. An additional test (not shown in Table 1) was run at 190 liters rain -1 to determine the lowest level of saturation the system could produce. With an inlet saturation of 131% and a pressure of 56 kPa absolute (limited by the small laboratory vacuum pump) the discharge water was 66% saturated. It is apparent that the system is capable of accommodating appreciably higher volumes of flow, especially if a larger vacuum p u m p is used. No automatic controls were incorporated into this system, b u t for permanent operations the installation o f automatic vacuum level and water level switches are recommended. If the vacuum is not controlled, saturation levels may become lethally high or low, depending on the inlet supersaturation level (often an uncontrollable factor) and/or the water level within the degasser. If the demand for water is reduced, for

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example, the water level in the degasser rises, resulting in decreased vacuum and less surface area interface between the water and the vacuum. In turn, the saturation level o f the discharge water rises. With the tremendous a m o u n t o f hardware available today, it is easy to over complicate a system by adding too m a n y controls. Unfortunately, the more controls that are added, the higher the ~ risk of mechanical failure. This system will remain reliable if care is taken to keep automatic controls as simple as possible and to a minimum.

REFERENCES Bouck, G. R. (1982). Gasometer: an inexpensive device for continuous monitoring of dissolved gases and supersaturation. Transactions o f the American Fisheries Society, 111,505-16. Bouck, G. R. & King, R. E. (1983). Tolerance to gas supersaturation in fresh water and sea water by steelhead trout Salmo gairdneri (Richardson). J. Fish Biology, 23, in press. Dennison, B. & Marchyshyn, M. (1973). A device for alleviating supersaturation of gases in hatchery water supplies. The Progressive Fish-Chlturist, 35 (1), 55-60. Krise, W. (1983). Personal communication. US Fish and Wildlife Service, Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. Meade, J. (1983). Personal communication. US Fish and Wildlife Service, WeUsboro, Pennsylvania.