No baffle sump. Will it work?
- Thread starter P.A.NativesBPM
- Start date
Thanks for the tip, they're on the front page of the site for $19.99. Can't beat that.
Going baffless would you not be losing contact time? with baffles the water is forced threw the media as without the water may just completely miss a section of the media?
Not as long as your media is in the flow. I use pond boxes on the big tank and big sponges on the pump intakes of the smaller tanks and the media sits on top of them in media bags. I have one tank that just has a mag 18 with the media bag resting right against the intake.
Baffles just make cleaning sumps that much harder IMO. They just get in the way.
My sump is 6ft long, and is egg crated in sections for k3 moving bed and also a ceramic media area that the water has to go through to get to the other end where the pumps are.
I think even if you had a big square tank without directing the flow to your media it would still work. It's water, it's going to get mixed up.
The only reason I liked having baffles is I have an extra layer of Poret in there to add more mechanical filtration, but with good filter socks it's unnecessary. I think my Poret is getting clogged with BB only, so why not just take it out and remove the baffles.
ah i see, so to go without baffles filter socks must be used, I have a 7ft sump with about 8 baffles in it so you can imagine cleaning but a good 4ft of that is just poret foam and jap matt, I couldnt see how it would work without the water being forced to run past it.
I think I will have to find a spare tank and try this out on a smaller system with some pond cages on the return.
Thanks guys for the feedback.
I think I will have to find a spare tank and try this out on a smaller system with some pond cages on the return.
Thanks guys for the feedback.
7 foot sump? Mother of god how big is the tank???
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It depends what you're trying to achieve. My sump has baffles as I wanted to create a settling area for the heavier waste produced by my Panaques, and because I used Poret foam for my mechanical media as I wanted something that was going to last longer between cleans than filter socks. Ideally I'd run a pair of 50 micron socks after the foam as it still lets through some of the finer particles (finest sponge is 30ppi) and I've noticed a bit of a build up in my matrix, but at 2.2M long already I didn't have the room to extend it further to incorporate the socks! I could run the socks where the matrix is then put the matrix in bags in the last compartment, or the other option I'm considering is replacing the matrix with something like K1 that is self-cleaning.
I really like the no-baffles set up, and if I were doing a sump for a smaller tank, or with different stock (no wood-eating catfish!) then I would happily go down that route.
