Wet/dry Filtration

[Beth Smith]

Thinking about purchasing a 125 gal tank, stocking it with obs and peacocks. My understanding is wet dry filters only supports biological media. Would you have to purchase a different filter for mechanical and chemical filtration. Presently I'm looking at proclear premium 300 wet dry. Can you recommend another sump that supports all three. Thanking you in advance

 

[NavyChief20]

Thinking about purchasing a 125 gal tank, stocking it with obs and peacocks. My understanding is wet dry filters only supports biological media. Would you have to purchase a different filter for mechanical and chemical filtration. Presently I'm looking at proclear premium 300 wet dry. Can you recommend another sump that supports all three. Thanking you in advance

The proclear premium 300 has mechanical and biological filtration as do any wet dry sump. What kind of chemical filtration are you looking for and why?

 

[Beth Smith]

Ok that's great. From the picture I only saw the blue bioballs along with the blue pad. Where would I put chemI pure Elite and polishing pads

 

[NavyChief20]

Ok that's great. From the picture I only saw the blue bioballs along with the blue pad. Where would I put chemI pure Elite and polishing pads

So the blue pad is a mechanical filter as are the sponges inserted in the bubble trap. You can use some polyfil batting as a n additional water polisher in the first stage. As far as using chemI pure elite you could put that in your pump/heater bay if you are actually gonna spend that money.

 

[Beth Smith]

Thanks for all your help. Very must appreciated.

 

[NavyChief20]

Thanks for all your help. Very must appreciated.

Not a problem Beth. If I may ask, why are you buying a sump rather than making one? That sump you are looking at is almost $400. You can build one with the same capability or more for $100 or less.

 

[Beth Smith]

Good question. I thinking about doing that. With the same design but with more compartments or baffles.

Would you use a fish tank or make one out of acrylic

 

[NavyChief20]

Would you use a fish tank or make one out of acrylic

So my sumps are all either tanks I have collected over the years or sterilite storage containers. The sumps made from tanks have baffles the container style don't have baffles. They have trickle towers and a large refugium and equipment space.

 

[Beth Smith]

Wow!! Are they equal in filtration. The container style would you have a picture. How much would it cost for a 125 gal with over filtration.

 

[NavyChief20]

Wow!! Are they equal in filtration. The container style would you have a picture. How much would it cost for a 125 gal with over filtration.

Oh yes they work well. I'm at work so can't send pics. A 50 gallon clear tub will run you $40, plus a couple of 3 drawer towers $12, bag of lava rock 10 lbs $10, polyfill batting $10, potscrubbies 20 for like $5.

So less than $100.

I know for a fact that will work on a 350 gallon cichlid tank. My 550 has two of those. My 125s and 75s I run 40 gallon sumps. My kids 55 and 65 gallon tanks are running off 10 gallon tanks converted to sumps.

 

[Beth Smith]

Ok thanks I'll wait for the pic. Saving money is a very good thing. Beth

 

[NavyChief20]

Ok thanks I'll wait for the pic. Saving money is a very good thing. Beth

Here is one from my 75 gallon tanks.

 

[Beth Smith]

Here is one from my 75 gallon tanks.

The pvc pipe in top of the wet/dry is the dirty water going in for filtration with holes for the water to trickle down. The other pvc pipe to your right is going into the tank with clean water. Your bins has yr biological chemical and mechanical. The tote has your pump,heater and what everelse you would want. This is unbelievable. Questions: The pvc pipe that goes to yr tank has another pvc pipe attached. Where is that coming from ?

 

[NavyChief20]

The PVC pipe upper left is the "from tank" line. It comes into the tower and hits the polyfil (water polisher/prefilter) that drawer has holes in it made by an old soldering iron. Next drawer is pot scrubbies (mechanical filtration). Holes in that drawer too. Next two are filled with lava rock (biological filtration and BB power houses) Then dumps to the sump through holes. Sump is filled with makeup water and contains the heaters and the return pump. The PVC to the right is the return line that goes back to the spray bar I made. Some of my tanks the return line is plastic tubing rather than PVC because I was experimenting with velocity and flowrate. The "from tank" line and return line have isolation ball valves in them. The "from tank" goes up to a durso style overflow pipe I made and into the tank into a weir.

 

[Beth Smith]

WOW that's unbelievable.

 

[bigdreams]

Here is one from my 75 gallon tanks.

Looks good. How noisy is it with the water trickling down? I have a sump now, it's silent with Herbie drain I have set up. The trickle tower is probably even cheaper to build than my sump, was curious if it was noisy. One thing I sometimes worry about is getting enough oxygen to the BB (using a mattenfilter in my sump). Hasn't been an issue but I am not majorly overstocking either.

 

[NavyChief20]

Its actually very quiet. If the holes in the trickle plate are bigger you get more noise. I played around with sizes and eventually went with 3/32" and just did more holes. You get incredible oxygenation this way and you're right it is super cheap to build.