New filter design

Joey

Moderator
Hey guys.

Im in the process of making a new filter for my ray/aro tank.

The current one i have now does a great job, but i think i can do better.

The new design will incorporate a wet/dry(trickle tower), and a fluidized bed.

The fluidized bed will be the first contact point, then the tower will be second.

I have not seen any thing like this as of yet, so i had nothing to go on for designing it.

I will be posting this in videos, instead of pictures..

Heres what i have now:


Heres what im working on:





 

cheon

New Member
Wow keep on the vids I have been thinking about thrown out my fx5 due to irregular flow but never new where to start on a sump. Great vids looks solid very nice post
 

jsodwi

New Member
Nice work I want to revamp my 180g wet dry to hold more submerged media like matrix. I like your layout though keep up the good work
 

Joey

Moderator
Nice work I want to revamp my 180g wet dry to hold more submerged media like matrix. I like your layout though keep up the good work

The first video i posted has a submerged section in that design...

Post some pics of your filter and im sure we can come up with some ideas...

I will for sure be following this as you allways have great ideas and great builds.

Thanks skynoch.
 

Joey

Moderator
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcPe_f-GETA"]YouTube - DIY Aquarium Filter Part 6[/ame]
 

RDFISHGUY

New Member
I'm curious to see how this works out for you with the K1. I have some in one of my sumps. The problem I had was the K1 is so small and light that it needs a barrier so it doesn't flow over the weir.

Perhaps a wall of bubbles in front of the weir would keep the K1 from flowing into the next section. You will have to find a way to get it to flow against the direction of flow in the sump.

I used a pump. At first it was very difficult to keep all of the K1 from sticking to the intake sponge on the pump. I tried to lengthen the down tube on the pump and it still clogged. I tried to totally submerse the pump and direct flow upward and it still clogged.
My solution was to stick a bioball over the intake so that even if the K1 sticks to it, which it still does, there is enough flow and it doesn't limit the output of the pump. Not as many bioballs stick to the intake and it flows pretty decent.
Now you've got me pondering the idea of building a bigger sump for my 230. I also have 2 sumps to design for 2 - 8x2x2 acrylic tanks I just built. I have a ton of K1 media left so it would be nice if I could utilize it in the new sumps. I also have some of the black disc media I could incorporate into the system as well.
 

Joey

Moderator
Thanks for the interest RD. Great info you provided.

For a barrier, i am trying a piece of egg crate befor the weir. Im hoping that will work.

I had some problems with my order of 50L of K1, but got that cleared up last night. Im hoping it will be delivered next week...
 

RDFISHGUY

New Member
The K1 media fits through the holes in the egg crate I have. K1 is only about 1cm wide and 7mm thick. Smaller than the tip of your pinky finger.

I thought it would be much larger, and honestly, I think a larger version would work better for sump applications. At such a small size it is difficult to make it do what you want it too.

A piece of acrylic with a bunch of tiny holes may work better than egg crate.

I always thought it would be better to keep it in the next compartment as it would naturally float to the surface and the water pouring through the weir would keep it agitated. This way no pump is necessary and if you have a sponge on the bottom it won't go through to the next section.

Its an idea I came upon last night purely by accident as I was cleaning part of my sump and some K1 fell into the first section where water pours over a weir but I had removed the drip trays and media and the K1 was in the water at the bottom rolling around and around. I may have to build a new sump to try this out.
 

RDFISHGUY

New Member
The K1 media fits through the holes in the egg crate I have. K1 is only about 1cm wide and 7mm thick. Smaller than the tip of your pinky finger.

I thought it would be much larger, and honestly, I think a larger version would work better for sump applications. At such a small size it is difficult to make it do what you want it too.

A piece of acrylic with a bunch of tiny holes may work better than egg crate.

I always thought it would be better to keep it in the next compartment as it would naturally float to the surface and the water pouring through the weir would keep it agitated. This way no pump is necessary and if you have a sponge on the bottom it won't go through to the next section.

Its an idea I came upon last night purely by accident as I was cleaning part of my sump and some K1 fell into the first section where water pours over a weir but I had removed the drip trays and media and the K1 was in the water at the bottom rolling around and around. I may have to build a new sump to try this out.
 

Joey

Moderator
Interesting. I'll have to trade out the egg crate i have there, and switch it for something else. Im now thinking some sort of screen would work good. Like fiberglass screen used on windows. That might work perfectly......

I didn't want to use the larger size(K3), due to the lower surface area.

I also wanted to have my trickle tower in this filter. That trickle tower also needed to be below the lip of the sump. I couldn't have it in the first section or it would simply be a submerged area... which i didn't want.
So have the filter designed as is, was the only way to go.

So with the 50L i have comming, im thinking of just using a spare Mag Drive 7 i have here... that should do it....
 

RDFISHGUY

New Member
You won't be happy with the sponge solution to block the weir. It will work until you try to remove the sponge for cleaning then all of your K1 will be on your drip tray. I have the same problem. I have to insert an acrylic divider to block the K1 from going through when I clean the sponge. If I had thought of this at the start I would've made it a permanent installation.
 

Joey

Moderator
I shut down the filter when I do any maintainence, so no water is flowing. the water level then drops in the k1 area to the point where it cannot overflow. We'll seewhat happens when it gets here. we'll cone up with something.
 

skynoch

Moderator
Looking good so far. The only thing about incorporating the moving bed filter into the sump that I wasn't sure about would be the flowrate might be too high for it to be as effective as it could be. I didn't get a chance to research this alot but was told when I did my bioreactor that a slower flowrate was optimal. There both the same sorta principle so just wondering if you know if the flowrate in the moving bed filter will change it's effectiveness?
 

Joey

Moderator
There is no specified flow rate for this media. The only thing i can find is if you use it in the filter made for K1, the max is 2200GPH per 50L of K1.

This media is rated on how much waste it can support.

http://www.evolutionaqua.com/acatalog/Kaldnes in More Detail.pdf

So with the information provided in that link, It will process a max of 250 grams of waste a day(just over a 1/2 pound) per 50L of kaldness.

Based on that, i can stock up to 55 pounds of fish if i feed 1% of their body weight.

If i feed more, like 2-3% of the fish's body weight, i can have 27-40 pounds of fish.

In my tank i have approx 15 pounds of fish, and i'm feeding around 2% body weight.

So this will be almost twice as much as i need.

Plus i also have my bio balls in the same filter(75L)



I suspect that if the media is kept fluidized properly, and you have enough media to support the amount of fish you have, then flow rate will depend on tank size, and turn over rate. I will be running my filter at 2000-2200GPH. (Main tank + volume of water in sump = 320gals)
So my turnover rate of the main tank will be around 6-7X an hour. Which will allow for enough contact time with the bacteria.

I suspect this will be more than enough contact time with the K1, but i will know for sure once i see or dont see the bacteria build up on the K1 like i'm suppose to see.

NOTE: Ive also recently read that farms and breeders using this media have rated K1 at 3X the capacity that kaldnes rates it at. Meaning they say that K1, in their filtration systems, is able to handle three times the ammount of waste that kaldnes says it can. They go on to mention that they have never had any issues at this rate either.
 
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skynoch

Moderator
I'll try and find the flowrates for the bioreactors hopefully later tonight. Right now through the bioreactor in my tank I'm running less than the koi farms are saying ( 5 pounds of food and 4 cubic feet of kaldness) and finding some nitrite in my system. I have no clue on the weight of my fish but it is mainly large rays. My system usually runs fine until thier are a few pregnant rays and then the feeding goes up and the nitrites appear, I'm playing with some flow rates now to see if it makes a big difference or not. lol, I guess I'm pushing the limits.
 
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