I'm redoing my 75. I'm not sure the best way to go about it. It has ~50 lbs of live rock in it and I'll be using a TF1000 needle wheel skimmer.

I know the live rock and skimmer won't be enough to handle a 1+ lb bimac, so my decision is bioballs vs canister.

I must say I'm leaning toward bioballs because of cost. I have the tank for the sump and everything in hand, so the balls are mighty attractive(cheap on ebay following the live rock revolution!).

I see most people here use canister filters, so I'm a bit uncertain. I would naturally assume the bioballs have a greater nitrifying capacity.

I've seen people say divide your tank volume by 10 or 20 to determine how much bioballs you need: 5 gallons would put me right in the middle.

So I drew up these diagrams of two bioball options. A standard 5 gallon bucket is used for the chamber. Note I've drawn an external horizontal overflow, that's not set in stone but it would make escape-proofing easier.

Let me know what everyone thinks. Should I go with one of these or bite the bullet with a canister?

Dan

http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/5993/75gallon2he.gif

While more bulky and unattractive, your second design is going to give you a lot more filtering capacity, as well as easier maintenance.
That being said, I have never cared for BB's at all, and much prefer a canister filter.:yinyang:

greg

Are you keen to run a dsb in your sump?

Nice diagrams btw - very professional :grin:

Just a note on the bioballs - nylon pot scrubbers have more surface area and have good flow.
http://www.wernersponds.com/scrubbies.jpg
I'm gonna use these in my cannister - oh and about the cf - have a look for the Jebao 918 ~80usd - cheap cheap cheap, and pretty good from what I can tell, although I havent had mine for long.

It seems the strong concensus is canister filter. It would let me run the 'fuge, too. I know that Colin uses bioballs, but he's not here to defend himself :) I can't remember it being stated explicitely, but don't Nancy and Carol use canisters, too? Another reason I had been looking at the bioballs is the DIY aspect is more fun than the BIY (buy it yourself).

I was looking at canisters on eBay and saw some reasonable prices. Now I need to jump head first into researching the brands and seeing what's good and what's not. Brands aside, what size of a filter is reasonable for a bimac tank? There seems to be a price jump above ~350 gph.

Just when I think I've got it all paid for they pull me back in.

Dan :smile:

I am a huge magnet drive fan...but others hate them. Have been using the Rainbow Lifeguard systems, and Magnum 330's for decades, and they still work like new.
Eheim seems to be the industry standard, but the scuttlebutt on the west coast is ranking "cascade" filters pretty high.
I would avoid Fluvals, never did care for the siphon starting !


greg

Feelers-- I personally believe the concept of a dsb is robust, however I don't think it would be useful here. I believe this refugium would be too small to be worth it, especially given the nitrogen load of the system. Also, I will be moving in two years, and I don't want to have to worry about the sand bed.

Greg--I'm surprised at your endorsement of Magnums. I wasn't giving them serious consideration due to Marineland's reputation for cheap equipment. They're certainly inexpensive. I'm also eyeing up a used Cascade 1500 that I'm pretty exciting about. Do you know anything about Jebo filters? They're pretty cheap, look rather generic, but I can't seem to find much info on them at RC.

Dan

Nancy uses wet/dry with bioballs, but has a Fluval on her 19 gallon invertebrate tank! I believe that Carol uses a canister.

About the DSB - bear in mind that your octopus may dig in it, may even create large holes in it right down to the glass.

About those nylon pot scrubbers - haven't been able to find them anywhere for years (and I'm looking for them as pot scrubbers! :smile: )
Where do you get them?

Nancy

Thanks for that info, Nancy!

I could go either way at this point--it will probably depend on how cheap I can find a good, used canister. If bio-balls can support a monster like Ollie it makes me feel a lot better if I end up going that route!

Dan

I had some problem at her peak, before she laid eggs, but I had no idea when I got her that my tank wouldn't be big enough (I believe its a 47 gallong and she needed a 75 or 100 gallon tank.) So I had to do a lot of water changes at one point, but when she did lay eggs, she continued eating, but less.... so it evened out. We haven't had such big - or long lived- octos since then.

I was talking with someone at the NRCC who told me that, when they keep bimacs over time, some become dominant bimacs and they grow much larger than the others. I think Ollie was a dominant bimac, although we knew of a couple of other large ones that year, too. Maybe the breeding stock that Octopets uses just tends to smaller bimacs.

Nancy

Nancy uses wet/dry with bioballs, but has a Fluval on her 19 gallon invertebrate tank! I believe that Carol uses a canister.

About the DSB - bear in mind that your octopus may dig in it, may even create large holes in it right down to the glass.

About those nylon pot scrubbers - haven't been able to find them anywhere for years (and I'm looking for them as pot scrubbers! :smile: )
Where do you get them?

Nancy

I think in NZ you can get them in the supermarket!!

J

hehe, i don't need to defend myself or bioballs... each to their own

BUT if you want a large filter suitable for nitrification purposes then go with a trickle tower :) Their surface area far outweighs what a canister can offer. I think canisters have their place but only in a chemical or mechanical environment, best leave biological filtration and nitrification to bioballs and live rock.

Why not all the methods if you can? Belt and braces so to speak?

I don't quite follow the pipe leading from the skimmer and the tower and canister? Looks like the pipe follows into the venturi?

I would try and get all water from the overflow into the skimmer first, that is the most efficient way of skimming

never use those coloured scourers in marine tanks as their dye leaches out of them pretty quickly... been there and seen in happen in a wholesalers. Mysterious mass deaths got blamed on the scourers.

so, to summarize...

use a canister to catch suckers and physical waste
use a canister for adding carbon or rowaphos etc
use a trickle tower for excellent surface area and efficient nitrifying capabilities
use a good prefilter for a trickle tower
put overflow water into a skimmer before all else if possible
a skimmer after the trickle tower also isn't a bad idea to re-oxygenate the water
A refugium isn't really too necessary in an octopus tank as after it gets a certain size there is nothing in the main tank to eat amphipods etc.

hope this helps a bit

cheers
Colin

About those nylon pot scrubbers - haven't been able to find them anywhere for years (and I'm looking for them as pot scrubbers! :smile: ) Where do you get them?

Here in Canada, you can usually get 6 for a buck at a dollar store. Thats how I got mine for my pond filters. Remember to cut the one end and unwinde them when you use them.

Cheers!

Choice e) all of the above :smile:

The Turboflotor's input hole is only about 1.5 cm across. Since the skimmer is designed to be gravity fed from the overflow, it can only handle about 100-150 gph of the total (300-400 gph) through the sump, so I can't do it in series which I know is ideal. My plan then was to have two pipes coming out of the overflow, the first (the bulk of the flow) into the tower and the remainder into the skimmer.

Colin, what do you think of my tower size? Do you think 5 US gallons of bioballs is about right for a 75g with a bimac?

Dan

Hey Dan on the cf thing, can you get Jebao(not Jebo-different brand) filters in the US? The one I have is 1200lph, ummm 317Gph, brand new was about $80 us. Even with shipping it would still be cheapish - and this has one of those pumps too so no siphoning is needed. Its great!



Colin thats interesting on the nylon scrubbers - I have read that they are totally inert, perhaps there are some without the dye?

Colin thats interesting on the nylon scrubbers - I have read that they are totally inert, perhaps there are some without the dye?

How about Bio Bale? I saw some at a website, and they have a LOT of stuff! I once built a 4 ft. tall skimmer that was too efficient fo my tank, using stuff I had ordered from them, just a bit I picked up along the way. http://aquaticeco.com

Happy cephing!

Homer Simpson, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!"
Rod Flanders, "Got 'em daddy!"

circa middle of the last beer.

Hi again :)

I have an aquamedic 1000 multi and I still don't get it... LOL My skimmer only works by drawing water and air through the pump and doesn't have a separate water intake unlike my aquamedic 5000 that has seperates... In thinking about it I don't really see how a 1000 could be worked by overflow at all... is there a different model?

I have a booklet from TMC that is specially designed for working out trickle tower capacities, I'll dig it out and check, I'll try and do that tonight.

choice e gets my vote :)

Hi Feelers, was thinking about the scrubbers today at work in a boring training course and actually, the first i seen them used was in an alligator's filter and they lost all their colour in a couple of months. The importer's tanks disaster was about a year later and I will see him on Friday so cant ask more.

I tend to err on the side of caution with plastics used in marine tanks and always recommend them being of food grade quality. That includes not using hair curlers for filters etc too... BUT I always like to be inventive and try new things so would love to know if anyone as used coloured scourers with no problem in a marine tank

cheers
Colin

What about a marine environment differs than freshwater that would result in the bleaching of plastics? Surely just the salt isn't to blame. I started using these scrubbies after they were recommended by a resident koi breeder. She has used them in her home-made filters for years, and never mentioned any problems. Granted, koi are a LOT tougher than most salt water species, but some of these breeder koi from Japan aren't so much (kind of comes with the inbreeding). And all of her other water parameters are impeccable, which she demands.

In the marine setups, are the scrubbies exposed to light? I wonder if they are just being naturally bleached by powerful lights from above and the "resultant" deaths were more of a coinsidence. All of my scrubbies still have all their colour after atleast 3 years, however they are in an enclosed filter. Something I do know to look out for when buying these, though, is that some brands come with antibacterial stuff in them so that they don't stink up and grow nasties. I don't think the fishes and friends really care much for that.

Cheers!

I have an aquamedic 1000 multi and I still don't get it... LOL My skimmer only works by drawing water and air through the pump and doesn't have a separate water intake unlike my aquamedic 5000 that has seperates... In thinking about it I don't really see how a 1000 could be worked by overflow at all... is there a different model?

There's two different models of the 1000. The Multi is designed for external use and draws everything through the pump. The "classic" 1000 has an intake for overflow water and just uses the needle-wheel motor to "chop" the bubbles.

Dan

did you ever think about buying more live rock and adding it to the sump? I have a 125 gallon tank with two 45 gallon rubbermaid sumps. The first one recieves the overflow water and contains 135 lbs of live rock and the TF1000 (used externally). This water flows into the second sump which contains a 6" dsb and two canisters for denytrificatioin purposes. In my cannisters i have a total of ten bags of chemi-pure filter media (removes all nitrates and dosent leach phosphates like carbon).. This set up keeps my tank running perfect with my nitrates and ammonia at 0 and i have a 13 inch octopus (vulgaris i think) with 13 blue chromis & 4 starfish.

anyways my point is that you can either add live rock to the sump or choose the exsternal bioball setup for biological filteration. If choose bio-balls i would deffinately reccomend you use a dsb or CHEMI-PURE because of the high levels of nitrates they release into the water. This chemi-pure stuff really does work like magic and holds true to its name when it says it eliminates the need for water changes. nitrates are not an issue anymore.

dont know if i made sense the first time but i meant to say that for biological filteration i would definately reccomend more live rock or the bioball set-up. i would personally never use a cannister for biological filteration. but i would definately use the cannister to house chemical filteration like chemi-pure or carbon. i strongly suggest you use chemi-pure though because it definately eliminates the need for water changes which will save you money if your using synthetic sea salt on such a large tank.

I don't think there is anything in the market that can eliminate water changes, yet, at least. Regular water changes are definitely beneficial if not essential to any aquaria.

Hi Feelers, was thinking about the scrubbers today at work in a boring training course and actually, the first i seen them used was in an alligator's filter and they lost all their colour in a couple of months. The importer's tanks disaster was about a year later and I will see him on Friday so cant ask more.

I tend to err on the side of caution with plastics used in marine tanks and always recommend them being of food grade quality. That includes not using hair curlers for filters etc too... BUT I always like to be inventive and try new things so would love to know if anyone as used coloured scourers with no problem in a marine tank

cheers
Colin


We season all new stuff in flowing seawater (or off the jetty) for AT LEAST a week! A) can get rid of any chemicals and b) starts a biofilm growing which aids settlement of critters and provides munchies for the grazers.

J

If your performing water changes to remove nitrate then chemi-pure does eliminate your need to change the water because it removes all nitrates from the water and dosen't let them leach back into the tank. However, i still perform 15% water changes monthly just to replace any other minerals or beneficial "stuff" that could have possibly evaporated with the salt - just to be on the safe side....

:hmm:
I've read some time ago, (not even about to show my age :razz: ) that there was a way to minimize water changes to about 5% a month, and the method was completely natural. I do remember two things, though A) small biological load, but not baren B) one powerhead to circulate water & C) The guy lived in Singapore. I think it was a lot of live rock, compared to tank volume. Just some food for mental stimulation.:bugout:

Here is a link to the TMc page i was talking about, I have it on a pamphlet but it is now online too... here its here http://www.tmc-ltd.co.uk/commercial/biological.asp but as it says on the page, use with caution and its just a guide.

Have you decided on anything yet or is this just typical 'making a job harder' LOL

Thanks for that link--truly the quantitative approach I was going for.

I know I'm going to go ahead with a bioball system, right now I just need to determine the specifics of the tower: am I going to have a bucket outside the stand, bucket over the sump, or a glass box built up over part of the sump tank.

A canister will probably come later for the "polish" and "shop-vac" applications. I need to do a bit more brand research on this: If one goes to a place like Reef Central and asks what experience people have had with different brands, you get a bunch of responses that say "don't get a canister filter, just get a lot of live rock and a good skimmer!" Which is a perfectly acceptable answer for a reef. Tell them its going to be ceph or fish-only and people are want to say "skip it and build a reef!" :)

Dan

Yes, i know what you mean on RC LOL

The first cuttlefish tank I had was made with three holes ate water level on one end. They were 3/4" wide and two out of the three of them went straight into a home made glass tower which started at the same level as the top of the tank. I dont have any pics but here is a (very) rough pic i just made in Paint...

It did mean that the sump was out the bottom of the tank but wasnt really noticed as i made the cabinet too, so it hid it ok.

It was something like that... the tank was 72x 18 tall by 30 wide and about 200gals including water in the sump.
there was a good prefilter of filter wool and pad then a drip tray to spread water over the media
the tower was approx 40inches tall and 8"by 8"

hope the pic makes sense

...hmmm trying to attach the pic :/

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1800&stc=1&d=1134725299

Thanks Colin.

That's really close to what I'm thinking. My "tower" will probably only be a 5-gallon bucket underneath the overflow sitting on a small table or another bucket, directly next to the stand. The sump will be inside the stand, but I'm thinking about a bulkhead on the bottom of the tower and a pipe that goes into the stand and sump. This setup would have very little, if any, standing water inside the tower.

Dan

...souns ideal, from memory my tower had about 4 - 6 inches of water at the bottom.

cheers

Hey guys, thought I might run my plumbing plans past you - I just thought about incorporating the bioball tower and what do you think? (The tower fits into the second diagram.)
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b279/Feelers/BioballTower.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b279/Feelers/Mysumpplumbingidea.jpg
This way my skimmer is gravity fed - I can adjust the flow with a ball valve, and I can control the flow to the fuge and if there is too much or I need to clean the skimmer I can let flow run out the middle tap. The will also be a ball valve coming from the tank - so I can disconnect the plumbing - (forgot to draw it in)

Whats the deal with a pre filter - and how could I put it into this system? Do you have any suggestions? At the moment I'm gonna have to rig up a bigger pump than the one on my skimmer - so I can sort the venturi to run whilst being gravity fed.

I'll follow that link and try and sort out how many bio balls I need, which will dictate the size of the tower. From the looks of it I'll probably go with around 3 - 5 L.

I'm completely in planning at the moment - so no rush. :grin:

I'm planning on about 4 gallons (~16 liters) of bioballs for my bimac setup. A couple things that pop into my head looking at your pics:

-I assume you have some sort of water distributing tray with holes at the top of the tower. This may be a place to put some prefilter material. Are you still looking at Dursos--you might be able to put a filter sponge on your overflow intake.

-You might not need to use the ball valve to control how much goes into the skimmer and how much to the other chambers. The skimmer gravity-feed inlet (on mine, anyway) is small enough that it limits the amount of water that goes in.

-I think having the standpipe in the tower will be counterproductive. Less bacteria are going to grow on the submerged bioballs than on the ones exposed to air.

Dan

Man thats a lot of bioballs!!!

Yeah I'll have something to distribute the water - dont know what exactly though. Still going with the durso's, I think I might be able to put the prefilter there - depending on how I octoproof it.

So the standpipe is out? - I was just thinking about how some setups have around 1/3 submerged, but if there is no reason to I'll take it out.

The ball valve in the skimmer is just because I'm not sure how much flow I'll be dealing with - and I have to swap the factory standard pump with a more powerful one - it will hopefully give me a little more control.

Cheers Dan :grin: , I'm slowly getting my head around things.

I believe the reason most commercial wet/dry setups have about 1/3 submerged is that it is a necessary design evil. Most setups have the tower right in the sump, and there has to be some water level in the sump to keep the pump and other equipment from going dry. If water is flowing from the bioball chamber into the sump chamber, physics precludes the water level in the bioball chamber from being lower than that in the sump chamber, unless the bioball chamber was elevated.

Dan

yeah, that sright, its just the way they are made. The big TMC trickle tower runs on top of the filter so it is all 'dry', quite handy.

Also, you will need baffles on the refugium so the beasties and algae etc doesnt get washed into the middle section and shredded with the pump!

Dont restrict how fast the pump works. That might be necessary in a case where the tank has just one overflow going through the skimmer. As you said you can bypass the skimmer into the sump but you'll then need a 2nd prefilter box.

you couldnt get the prefilter first, then skimmer then into bioballs?

I tried really hard to come up with a way to skim my system before the biofilter, but without an external/HOB (read: waterproof) skimmer, it pretty much means having to have a second sump right below the overflow with the skimmer in it, overflowing into the bioballs, then into the lower sump with return pump.

On the other hand there is a lot of oxygen demand in them thar bioballs, so as long as I have a prefilter, I think its a good thing to have the skimmer second.

Dan

I always liked having the skimmer second. I feel that the bioballs are the more dynamic media-they filter more when they are fed the most. The skimmer has a set amount it draws out-whether the waste is there or not.

Put in the most bioballs you can fit(with good water distribution) and they will be the cheapest, most effective bio filter you can get.

I am setting up my tank too. Just bought all my tubs at Walmart today.

I am using multiple sumps and just stacking the bioballs on first tub on top and a sand bed in the second on the bottom (water outlet high on the second tub). The third plumbed in the middle for water changes(so it is mostly closed from the system), and the fourth is for skimmers, chemical and return pump -all in the stand. Multiple tubs are cheap and good flood insurance.
I can make a diagram if you are interested.:grin:

Attached is my planned setup(tanksetup.pdf), and an idea for your setup(onetank.pdf).

Can you use a shorter first bio-ball tub to leave room for your skimmer in the sump and replace the sand with the skimmer and return pump?

Than you have a pre-filter and open air balls for max efficiency. You could have one sump under the entire tank and just go up in height. Split your single overflow to cover the entire prefilter/drip tray (Elevate the prefilter with a piece of flat acrylic for the drip tray to work.) \

Only thing missing is a nitrate filter, use live rock and a DSB.

Am I missing something here? :bonk:

People use live rock as biological filtration and also people use bio-balls for BF, one submerged in water (l.rock) and one out (BB's).

Well if live rock is the best natural filtration would it not be best to recreate that with bio-balls underwater.

Whats the benefit of having out of water?

On a another note are we saying bio-balls, solely for biological filtration, are better than live rock?

Cheers

the idea of having the bioballs out of water is that they only have a thin layer of water trickling over them at any time. It means that the bacteria, which is aerobic, gets lots of oxygen and its capacity for changing ammonia into nitrite and nitrite into nitrate is greatly improved.

Many people moan about them saying that they are nitrate factories because they do this 'too well'? But i suggest that getting rid of ammonia and nitrite produced by a cephalopod to a less toxic chemical, namely nitrate is the best thing possible.

Live rock being quite porous has areas within that are anaerobic so different species of bacteria can live in there that will reduce nitrate to Nitrogen which isn't possible in a tower because there is too much Oxygen.

I suggest that the normal ratio of live rocks to water volume for a reef or fish marine aquarium are one thing but a big messy ceph swimming about is totally different.

I could harp on about belt and braces again here LOL :)

Also, as a by the way, live rock can, over time get all clogged up just as easily as bioballs and stop working like it should, hence a lot of reef keepers have water blasting at the rocks from different angles and piles of rock in the middle of the tank rather than building up a traditional wall on the back panel of the tank.

At least with bioballs, when the ceph dies and its time to strip out the tank, which if it lived a full healthy life will need done, you can scrub and chemically clean the balls which you cant do with live rock, but then again, there are some people who cook their live rock...

NIce one Colin

youve convinced me on my next tank i should have a tower for the belt an braces!!

..but then again, there are some people who cook their live rock... :shock: :shock:

Nutters. Is that to get the poo out of the nooks an crannies?

Is that to get the poo out of the nooks an crannies
Basicially you chuck the rocks in a tank and turn the heat up (higher than reef conditions) and they rocks shed all the built up organics.

The reasoning behind it is that it minimises the die-off (because its all been cooked out) that happens when the rock is placed in the new environment of your tank, - which is often associated with high phospherous levels(and therefore hair algae).

Apparantly LOADS of stuff comes off.

Its my understanding that they use the word "cook" figuratively. People will put their rock in buckets of seawater for a month or two, changing it every week. No nutrients in. Eventually just about everything dies, gets eaten and secreted by something else, and then exported with water change.

I have yet to be sold by the idea.

Dan

Actually I might have been wrong about the turning the heat up thing , I just thought it was to speed up the metabolism of the bacteria, to make it shed faster, (but I'm not sure if I imagined that part :grin: )
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=485572

Sounds mental either way! is this tied into the theory that live rock stores up nitrates an then releases it by any chance?

I thought, well pictured people with big pans of s.water on the stove boiling away!!! :shock:

No, its just something people do to try to get rid of hair and bubble algae.

Dan

Originally posted by Scouse
I thought, well pictured people with big pans of s.water on the stove boiling away!!!

Yes dear, dinner will be ready soon, just don't try the soup in the BIG pot... What would that smell like???

cuttle girl wrote:
Yes dear, dinner will be ready soon, just don't try the soup in the BIG pot... What would that smell like???

:lol: :lol: Dunno if you've ever seen the film the Time Bandits?? You sound like the big fellas wife on the boat!! Brilliant!!! (if you havnt you've gotta see it!!)

I know!! Never thought of the smell, that would be mingin!!!

A cannister is only as good as the media and liverock is only as good as the organisms living on it.
I have pot scrubbers and many other types of nylon sponges in many a saltwater tank. Perhaps the best I have found are these large floor mop sponges. Very tough and very cheap. I used them to set up the saltwater pond filter. The marine bio lab down the road used these orange plastic woven bags that they sell oranges and onions in, in the supermarkets around here. I have also seen shade cloth used but as with all plastics make sure no anti fungals or anti bacterials
As far as ammonia and nitrite changing to nitrate.... well a few air powered sponge filters can do that. May not be pretty but they work.
I'd buy plastic army men before I'd buy bio balls..... but then i have bloody buckets and buckets of balls....

Any build up of mulm will produce high nitrate levels. UGF were well known for this, as people were too lazy to do regular cleanings. The same is true for cannisters.

My whole job is ballancing the poo/poo eaters. I recon octopus tanks do bloody well with fbf. Plus they are super cheap to make.

Nothing will stop you doing water changes. Nitrate levels are just a stable indicator of not just the nitrate levels but all the other random crap building up. If you don't test for it how can you know its not there?

Dilution still is and always will be the solution to pollution. Perhaps the biggest thing I have trouble hammering into customers (fresh and salt) is that you clean your filter media in water from the fishtank. Not under the sink in chlorinated water. Keep the poo eaters alive and it matters not what they grow on.

Live rock may keep tanks stable... but it is tricky to use it as bio media. Definitely creates a better ecosystem but seriously an old school platform filter with some colonised filter sponge in it removes ammonia and nitrite far more effectively. As for nitrate reduction... well it varies so much from tank to tank. SOme of my tanks are great but most I still water change. Even a rockpool gets 2 big water changes a day minimum so I try for 20% every 2 weeks on my occy.
Yes thats around a 150L water change.... probably obscene to most of you but me feather worms and squirts love me for it. Keeps my nitrates below 20ppm always. My liverock could be reducing this a lot more but I can't blast it with metal halides at the moment. It's a hot summer here atm and I'm even removing powerheads that are generating too much heat.


ah well theres my late nite 2c

Swarvegorilla Wrote:As far as ammonia and nitrite changing to nitrate.... well a few air powered sponge filters can do that. May not be pretty but they work.

Intrestin observations there mate, just try to get me head round an air powered filter...whats all that about then? Cant picture one.

Cheers

Air powered sponge filters I have seen were basically a powerhead (but not a powerhead) with a sponge prefilter, but used air to move the water instead of a impeller.

Picture a undergravel filter with a sponge at the bottom of the up tube-same thing but cheap and compact.

I took it to mean any cheap filter that moves water with a sponge (or plastic army men :wink: ) that can hold bacteria.

yea theres a hundred different types. I make my own for koi ponds. Basically you inject air into an uplift tube. The air rises and displaces water which is drawn in thru the sponge. Same principle as an UGF but using sponge makes it easier to remove and clean.

It's all poo in water and the best thing I ever did was go for a tour at the local sewrage farm. Hey even they didn't know someone might want to come for a tour!!
Those guys know how to process poo in water hey and it's kinda funny how all our wizz bang new aquarium filters are old school waste water things.

Brought in a squeezed sponge water sample and had the lab girl give me filter a nod. That'll treat ya poo, she said! :goofysca:
Now if I can just work out how to build a mini water wheel i am good to go!

As a side note heard a classic story about these drug dealers who got done in the states. They tipped all these gnarly chems down their dunny. The chems wiped up the bio filtration at the sewrage farm. Made a VERY smelly mess so they sent council workers out and by testing water at ever junction they managed to find the dealers house and take him down. I thought that was pretty cool but then :goofysca: yea....

So I drew up these diagrams of two bioball options. A standard 5 gallon bucket is used for the chamber. Note I've drawn an external horizontal overflow, that's not set in stone but it would make escape-proofing easier.

Let me know what everyone thinks. Should I go with one of these or bite the bullet with a canister?

Dan

http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/5993/75gallon2he.gif

As of about an hour ago my new system is up and running. It closely resembles option B in my graphic, with a few modifications: the pipe that drains the biotower flows directly into the skimmer to reoxygenate the water. It has its own little overflow directly before the skimmer because more water is flowing through than the skimmer can handle.

I will hopefully have pictures in the next few weeks, but I have made a horizontal external overflow (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=534878&) which, albeit is quite a bit risky, I believe will make it easier to octo-proof. In the mean time I'm working to reduce noise and microbubbles, both of which are related to eachother and are substantial. Basically I need to find the sweet spot for the T where the drain enters the sump. My 5 gallon bucket biochamber is only half full with bioballs so there is also substantial noise there with water falling from the tray (I'm using a plastic collander that fits right over the bucket rim with a circle of flossy filter inside). I don't want to add more bioballs immediately, so I might mitigate this by getting another strainer, trimming it so it fits in the bucket, and using it upside-down as a plenum underneath the bioballs.

Dan

noise is always the tricky one
if you can get a larger overflow surface area you don't get 'waterfalling'.
Its explained better here but it helped me cut noise about 50%
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-07/gt/index.php
Sounds like a beast.... how come you don't want to load up with bioballs yet? Or even pour it onto sponge instead of collander.
I dunno prob not helping here, hope the links handy tho, helped me out.
:grin:

Most of the noise was from water entering the sump (the black cloud to Mr. Durso's silver lining!) and has been taken care of now.

I think you're right that I can reduce some of my overflow noise by raising the level in the overflow. Right now I'm using Hofer standpipes which are very quiet, but I'm worried limit flow (it works just fine now, but I want some redundancy if one gets clogged) so I'm going to replace them with two dursos tonight, which will also raise the water level in the overflow and reduce some noise there.

The loudest component is still the biotower. The water does indeed go through a spongy prefilter that lies in the colander. I did go ahead and fill it with bioballs (I just wanted to save some money by delaying that action). I will probably just hide the noise from the tower by making a foam box around it.

Dan

Hey Dan what size return pump are you running? I'm kinda getting worried about the whole noise thing, my tank's about 80G, and my return pump is about 2000gph. If this is fed into the bioball tower will it be incredibly noisey? I will be having the tank in my room, so I spose I had better think about this. :grin:
I think I'm gonna run 2 dursos, in the corners. But other than that, I'm unsure.

Ya never know how noisy it will be until you build it.... or how quiet you can get it until you have toyed with it for 6 months.
Reading about this stuff does my head in.... much better on the ground. :goofysca:

2000 gph? Holy cow, I hope you mean liters per hour! I'm running a Mag 7 which theoretically gives 700 gph at zero head loss. Based on my return-line size, length and elbows, I believe I am actually getting somewhere in the range of 350-400 gph.

I wouldn't run 2000 gph through the sump even with a reef tank! As a ceph-keeper, you only need enough flow to keep your skimmer happy (Aqua-Medic says to run ~150 gph through my turboflotor!) and prevent too many deadspots in the display.

If you're running a pump that big, you're not only going to have lots of noise, but the entire system will be full of microbubbles because of how fast the water is moving through the sump.

Dan

Its rated at 8200Lph, 2000gph at zero head. It will be pumping 2 meters(roundabouts ), which should decrease the flow a little, and I am considering splitting the return. Its a pretty nuts pump :grin:, I think it can pump water up to 7.5 meters high, I got it new for about $100USD. Its a Laguna 7.

I was possibly thinking of a "squid" current maker thingy too.
Do you think I should put another baffle into the sump ? At the mo I have three.

2000 gph in an 80 gallon. Man, you could just about surf in there.:mrgreen:

That is not only a lot of flow in an 80 gallon display tank, but how big is the sump? 30 gallons? Even if you've got half the flow after taking hydraulic head into account, 1000 gph through a 30 gallon tank is a bit intense. I don't think any number of baffles is going to help you, the bubbles are going to get sucked right through.

If I were you I'd sell the pump for something smaller. Even the reef people who like thousands of gph of flow don't do it all through the sump, they put in closed loops and powerheads.

Dan