Building a bucket trickle filter, looking for insight

Leni · June 20th, 2009

I don't have a lot of money right now, so I'm trying to save as much as possible on the 55g I just got. I want to do a canister-type filter, and I like this plan: http://www.sydneycichlid.com/bucket-trickle-filter.htm The only difference is I'm using a spraybar instead of a spinner. I'm even going to build the stand with compartments for all my plumbing, as my plan is to have the bucket filter on a shelf and trickle into a 10/14g sump that will contain my heater and a 500-600 GPH pump to return the water. I'm intending to have a skimmer going to the overflow, as well as a skimmerless siphon as well to get junk off the bottom of the tank. Here's where I need help...

1: Do I need to use carbon for this setup?
2: I understand bioballs are expensive. Is it worth investing in them for the bucket, or should I just use aquarium gravel or some sort of rocks as a biofiltration media?
3: How should I go about building my overflow since I'd like to have a skimmer and a skimmerless intake?

Thanks in advance everyone!

EDIT: Construction has begun on the entire filtration system. More details further down.

hop2jr · June 21st, 2009

I made a sump filter out of an old 29gal tank saw the price for bioballs and went to the dallor store and bought the scrub pads for doing dishes. Not SOS pads lol. these are all plastic ccome in a six pack cost $1.20/pack they are even tied with plastic string not stapled they work great at one 10th the cost here is a pic of my sump. Good Luck!

navyscuba · June 21st, 2009

Cool Ideas. Awesome job in both.

va1 · June 22nd, 2009

For this kind of filter carbon is not a necessity since the main purpose is to be a biological filter, not a chemical. However, you could use some carbon. I would even suggest doing so if you do not have any other filter that contains carbon. Just buy some from you LFS and put it in a sock or something that could hold it yet still be removed. I agree totally on the bioballs, a waste of money, sponges are the way to go. As far the skimmer goes Ive never dealt with them but I watched a really good demo on youtube.com about how to install one in a similar setup that would be helpful. Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

Leni · July 2nd, 2009

Sorry for the late response, I was at camp with my youth group for a week then got sick right after I got home.

Thanks for the insight guys. It'll be a while before I start to assemble all of this (not only am I short on money for the stand materials, tank for sump, skimmer supplies, etc; but I need my dad's help to make the stand as I'm bad at woodwork, and I also need to clear out the spot where the tank is being placed, but as soon as it's all together I'll make sure to post pictures of the final product.

Can anyone recommend a quality pump (or at least a brand) to put in the sump?

EDIT: I drew up a plan for my potential sump, which is where the carbon will go, in theory. If build this way, I will put the carbon inside of a stocking for easy removal. Will this work? If not, I'm going to scrap the bucket filter and go with a 20g sump with everything in it. I keep all of my aquarium stuff in the stand for the 29g I have now, so I don't see why I'd change that habit for the 55g stand, so I need room for both the filters and my supplies. I also drew up a basic design of how I'd like to have the system set up.

Also, here are two sites I'm referencing for my overflow design. I'm not entirely sure how much GPH my overflows will pull at full capacity, but I'm guessing that since the one site recommended more than one pipe for over 300 gph, I'll be fine with two, but I'm not sure. Should I go with a bigger design or will this support 600 gph? I'm going to combine the designs to get exactly what I want.
http://www.aquariumlife.net/projects...verflow/70.asp
http://bellsouthpwp.net/b/u/bullman7/overflow.htm

hop2jr · July 2nd, 2009

Will if you live close to Youngsown Ohio I have and old 29gal you can have and a pain of glass you can cut for the sump just pick t up.As far as a pump get 2 one is for a back-up that is if this will be your main filter. As far as brands Rio and Quiet One Pumps I have use with the Rio being the one with less noise. As far as gal/hr I have a 300gal/hr on my 75gal and works well. Check out the DIY on this sight they have an overflow built out of PVC pipe you can build cheap. Ohh the second pic on the left what is the long tube? if that is the overflow just remember " power goes out back siphin" even on the return don't put them passed the waterline. Good luck.

Leni · July 3rd, 2009

I appriciate the offer hop2jr but I'm nowhere near Ohio - I live in SC, near Hilton Head actually so I used to see a lot of Ohio plates...

I was looking at a Mag Drive 700 gph pump for $75 on the Drs. site but that's probably overkill.

The long pipe on the left in the picture is intended to be a skimmerless overflow, which I read about here: http://www.aquariumlife.net/projects...verflow/33.asp I think I'm going to scrap that idea - by my logic, if the power went out, it would drain the tank all over the floor. We have carpetting where the tank is going, and the power goes out quite a bit here (pine trees). I'll probably just use a standpipe for the overflow. I'm thinking about cutting a 3" diameter piece of PVC in half, smoothing the edge, and siliconing them near one of the back corners of the tank and running those out to an overflow box - the idea behind this being that I can decorate the standpipes with rocks or something and kill two birds with one stone.

hop2jr · July 3rd, 2009

sounds like a plan. As far as overkill on the pump I say more is better when it come to filters post some pics when you build it. Also u can use a plastic bin with a lid if you don't have a tank to build the sump. Its a cheap way to make one but harder to see when you clean it.

rileyrk190 · July 3rd, 2009

my LFS has one for their pond and it just has plain old gravel in it, and the water seems to be very clear.

Leni · July 4th, 2009

Hop, I was actually going to run to a local store and pick up probably a 20g aquarium to modify into a sump. I need a compartment for my carbon as well as a refugium for my pH buffer (it's for an african cichlid tank, after all), so that's the easiest thing for me to do. Either that or put the carbon inside the bucket filter, but building a sump seems more fun

Angela_96 · July 4th, 2009

I would consider not using carbon, it seems to be more of a problem than anything. I would use filter floss (cheap stuff that looks like the stuffing for a pillow), ceramic balls or just the bioballs.

Leni · July 5th, 2009

I started work on the stand today with some help from my dad. We have the big rectangles for the frame done. Once the glue has set up on them we're going to put studs and braces in - once we do that (where it's resembling a stand :P) I'll post pictures of it - right now it's a relatively unexciting (to the uninformed eye) pile of cut 2x4s

. The stand is going to be about 3 feet high which should give me plenty of room for my bucket trickle filter. Everything filterwise will be in the bucket, as it stands now - I'm going to have a very basic 10/14 gallon sump housing my heater, PH buffer (I'm probably going to spring for aragonite, since I don't need a lot of it), and the pump - there will be a baffle between the refugium and the pump chamber but that's about it. I'm hoping that Dad and I can get the framework of the stand done over the weekend, and once the stand is done I'm going to start ordering the parts for the filter. I'm very excited.

hop2jr · July 5th, 2009

Leni sounds good. You might want to check into Eco complete they have it for cichlids and will boost plant growth the gravel/cruch coral comes packed in water you don't rise it just add bag and all the water in the bag has good bact. for the tank and will help it /the sump cycle faster I wish I would have try it at the start check it out at DOC Fosters and Smith only comes in a 20bl. bag though. Agragonite will work too.

Leni · July 5th, 2009

My LFS carries it for $25 a bag, comes out to about the same price after shipping (including gas to drive down there, I use "local" in the loosest sense of the word, it's nearly a 100 mile round trip...). Either way, it's going into the refugium - the tank itself will be eggcrate-covered sand.

Leni · July 12th, 2009

So my dad and I did a bit of work on the stand today. We ran out of wood glue (we were using an old bottle) and also have nearly used an entire box of deck screws (it's not a big box, must only be 50 in there). I copied the design more or less from this link and will post a slightly more detailed how-to if the same plan, as I found the instructions on the page to be lacking, especially in terms of lacking a list of how many wood cuts were needed: http://www.aquariumlife.net/projects...m-stand/56.asp

I haven't got a digital camera so I was taking pictures with my phone and uploading them to Verizon's site, but only one is showing up so here it is. It's the basic framework - the pieces holding the frames up are to attach the studs to (that's my dad in the background with the drill). Right now only 5 of the studs are in, since as I explained earlier we ran out of wood glue. I actually made a mistake when drawing up my plans - the stand sits 36" high, and I calculated the studs to be 33" based on 2x4s being 1.5" wide. However, I should have been measuring the height of the 2x4, which is 3.5". The studs should have been 7" shorter than the total height, not 3", so they had to be shortened to 29". What a waste of wood.

At least I can use the scraps for the shelving, so it's not a complete waste, not to mention I learned something from my mistake. When I go to get more wood glue, I'll also get the materials for my bucket trickle filter so I can go ahead and build the shelf it will sit on. I will also take more pictures as we go along and post them, especially of the filter system, since they're the point of the thread.

It will be at least a week before I can do that however, as I've run out of money for the aquarium project and will also be out of town for a week. I'll be lurking the forums tho.

hop2jr · July 12th, 2009

Just make sure you leave enuff room above the filter to be able to clean it with gravel vac. Nice job on the stand!

summersquash · July 16th, 2009

I made a filter for my pond several years back before I knew anything about biologiacal filters, and it worked great on my 8'X12'X2' deep pond. I ussed a 5 gal bucket and filled it with polly fill from Walmart and put washed charcoal and gravel in it. hooked a hose and pump to it and put it behind my wather fall rocks. I used a little wire basket and to put my submersable pump in and wraped foam filter material around it. My pond stayed clear and my fish did great. A liitle imagination goes a long way.

Leni · July 17th, 2009

Today I was bored and to waylay it, I went to Home Depot with my grandmother and she bought me all the supplies I needed to make my bucket filter. PetsMart was next door, I got aquarium silicone and a 10g tank on sale for the sump, and got some crushed coral at Petco for a good price (I paid for this myself, I'm no moocher. I didn't expect her to pay for the stuff at Home Depot, but I wasn't about to argue with her. :P) Anyways, this is what I came up with so far.

The first picture is my failed spraybar. I wasn't marking where my connectors needed to line up and the PVC cement I got set REALLY fast, so as a result, it ended up twisted in the end. I'm going to make another spraybar when I get home - this piece is going to be hooked to the output of my bucket and be buried in my crushed coral for additional biological filtration as well has having a constant flow through the buffer. I'm not sure if it will need a powerhead to help push it through the coral, since it will be mostly relying on gravity and the weight of the water above it to push it through the coral, I don't think it will be an issue at this point seeing as how you can move water through gravel with nothing more than an airstone, that's how undergravel filtration works after all.

The third picture is my bucket with two (you might not be able to tell) eggcrate shelves. They're just tension-fit in, there won't be enough weight on them to require standoffs. I will be putting the prefilter wool on the top shelf and in between the two shelves will be my biomedia - plastic mesh sponges as recommended!

I haven't drilled through the lid yet, as my grandparents, nor their neighbors, have the right size holesaw. I'm not sure if I have one at home, but I know I have a Dremel set at least.

The second and fourth pictures are for the outer box of my overflow. I was originally going to build my standpipe into part of a 4" piece of PVC, but after seeing how much a 2 foot section cost at Home Depot (over $5) and how much the endcaps for them were (around $7), I balked and started looking for a box-type thing. I found this Sterilyte container for $4 with the lid. It's going to sit on a plywood shelf that will extend out from the top of the stand (the stand isn't perfectly flat on top so I was going to put a plywood top on it anyway, just make it a foot longer now) and will have a hole drilled through the bottom for plumbing down to the bucket. Taking the water down will be a Durso-style standpipe (yes, I know how big it is, that's 1.5" PVC lol, better safe than sorry) running into vinyl tubing and from there into the bucket where the spraybar made of 1" parts will be located.

All this took about 3 hours of work on and off. Other than completely messing up the spraybar, I'm very happy with my work.

Not pictured is my 4" PVC that will serve as my overflow. It will be siliconed into the tank and I intend to hide it by building a wall of some sort of aquarium safe rock I can buy in bulk cheaply at Home Depot or Lowes. The same rock will be used to build caves and arches in the aquarium. I read somewhere that lava rock is excellent for this purpose.

Leni · July 25th, 2009

Wow, I missed the site during whatever just happened. Glad it's back up.

Anyways, all of the permanent studs are in the stand now. It's ALMOST ready for paneling and staining. However, due to space concerns on the bucket filter, as well as wanting the tank at a higher eye level, we're putting another set of 2x4s on top of the existing frame, bringing the total height to just under 40" and the total length of the stand to 65" - the extra length is for the overflow prefilter box and to have a separate compartment for the bucket so it can be slid in and out easily for cleaning. The original compartment would have it sitting above the sump, but the stand isn't high enough to easily accomodate this setup - instead, this compartment will contain only the sump and possibly an automatic water topoff later down the road.

aquarist48 · July 25th, 2009

Hello Leni. Everything is sounding good. You truly have been busy. Will be looking forward to pictures once you're up and running. Have fun!

Leni · August 10th, 2009

I haven't had much time to work on the stand or filter, but now that school is almost back upon me, I'm going to try to get it finished up so I can start cycling it when school starts. I had a thought though. My DIY overflow should be able to handle over 600 GPH, but my return pump (assuming it's a Quiet One 3000) is only going to return about 435 gph. Is it going to be a problem that my overflow can handle more flow than my pump will be returning?

aquarist48 · August 10th, 2009

Hello Leni. You should not have a problem with the over flow box being able to handle more gph than your pump provides. You "would" have a problem if the pump had a higher gph than the over flow box would allow. So you are fine.

I just had to figure all of this out for myself recently.
I'm sure you will get some more responses as well. Best of luck with your set up.
Ken

hop2jr · August 10th, 2009

Leni some times that is a problem. What happens is the overflow tube that does the syphin will build up an air bubble because the water isn't traveling fast enuff if the bubble gets to big it will brake the syphin an then sumpwater on foor. You can fix this if you run into it by getting a smaller diameter U tube for the syphin.

Leni · August 11th, 2009

I didn't think it would. My thought was that worst case the water level would ebb into the standpipe as it got high enough to break surface tension, would rush in until it was too low to overcome surface tension, go through the filter, come back through, and repeat the process, leaving the same level of water in the filter the whole time, but coming in bursts instead of a constant stream.

Leni · August 11th, 2009

Gah, can't work on it for a few days. Left it outside earlier after I worked on it to let the glue dry and to come back and work on it later. Clear blue skies. In typical lowcountry fashion, it got rained on while I was in town.

FearTheFishies · September 17th, 2009

Thats a pretty cool set up can u give me specs?

Leni · September 29th, 2009

I actually didn't end up building it. I decided that since I'm enlisting, I should leave my parents and sister with a system that isn't as complicated to take care of while I'm off at BCT. They stay pretty busy so daily topoffs and other routine maitnence is out of the question. I ended up just getting a Penguin 350 HOB filter. My next aquarium though will undoubtedly be a monster with predrilled overflows, and THAT will have a tickle into a sump.

The stand, however, is done. It's pretty industrial. I ended up doing a lot of the woodwork myself as dad got busy with work, and I made a ton of mistakes from inexperience, but live and learn. It's just a skeletal 2x4 frame, basically, but it gets the job done. I'm eventually going to panel it or put a curtain around the bottom to keep the cats out.

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