Looking to do a 55 gallon drum with a sump set up for my 320

[Gill Blue]

my drums came from my brothers job at a country club. they use them for fertilizer for the golf course.
I've seen them on craigslist multiple times from multiple sources for free.
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I wasn't impressed with the matala, am very glad I went with the poret instead. much more surface area.

 

[Niners4952]

Think im all set I am getting 3 55 drums tomorow , heres my plan so please let me know if you see any flaws. going to link the 3 with a single 3" pvc with uni seals. Chamber one will have 3 matala pads, green, blue, and black. Pipe coming from tanks will hang over and trickle over the matala to the bottom and forced back up then into chamber 2 that will have 4 cubic feet of K1 pushed by a pondmaster ap60. I watched videos of the ap100 and ap 60 and the 60 will meet my needs better. I am running a drip system into the tank so barrel 3 will have return pump and heaters with a bulkhead at the water level I desire connected to my drain pipe in the floor. Feel good about this setup and am ready to order everything but would like so input before I order

 

[Dieselhybrid]

What pump do you plan on using? External?

Poret foam was mentioned before, it is great stuff for mechanical filtration and polishing, also homes bio. Tad expensive so I only use one layer in each drum after the finest matala layer. Could be spendy filling an entire drum. If you find you need better mechanical after running your system it's something to consider.

You May want to consider dropping the black matala and adding grey. Black is very coarse, grey is much more fine, more so than the blue pad.

 

[Niners4952]

was going to run a pondmaster 1800gph pump submerged in the barrel. Will look into the grey pads for sure was going by what amazon recommends

 

[Dieselhybrid]

I'm not the biggest fan of submersible pumps. Maybe because i've only tried a few models. I would go with an external. If you're doing rays you want turnover. Some recommend up to 10X turnover per hour. You've got the 350 gallons from the tank plus around an extra 100 from your filters capacity ( plus or minus a few gallons depending on fill lines). The 1800gph from that pump ÷ 450g= 4 times turnover. This isn't factoring reduced flow from head pressure with that smaller pump.

Imo. You'll need a much bigger pump. I'd recommend a reeflo dart or Barracuda/hammerhead model.

Some other folks will chime in soon

 

[Niners4952]

Thanks for the pump recommendations I will definitely look into a bigger pump. What are the advantages of an external pump I've never had one.

 

[Dieselhybrid]

They tend to have higher HP than submersible pumps

 

[Niners4952]

Any other suggestions on the pump, maybe something a little cheaper. What about a used pump, found a reeflo dart on Ebay for $200 in mint condition

 

[millerkid519]

That's a decent price for a dart. If you decided to go another route D davenmandy just hooked up a deepwater aquatics dc pump and really likes it and it's 4000gph at 5' head pressure.
Have fun with those 3" uniseals u will need 2 guys to get them all together it will be a nice filter when you are done tho.

 

[Niners4952]

so the 3" uni seals will be difficult, should i go with bulk heads?