260Gal Filtration questions

[Lillee]

Hello all,

Been snooping around for a bit, I have a few questions and I am tired of trawling through pages of searched threads without a definative answer.

I have a 7ft x 2.5ft x 2ft or 260gal tank planning for tropical fish.

The vertical braces on the cabinet (I have found out tonight) are not removable so won't allow for anything longer than a 3ft tank around 40gal as a sump. I have a 1500g/h pump, 2inch hole at the bottom of an overflow from the main tank. I plan to stuff it full of pot scrubbers.

Questions:

1) Is a 40gal of volume enough to filter 260gal? remembering that the media chamber itself is slightly smaller at around 20gal.

2) I can fit another 3ft tank beside it and drill 2 bulk heads and chain them up. Overflow from tank goes in one tank, pump sits in the end of the other tank, effectively this becomes a 6ft sump Has anyone tried this? is it worth it?

3) What's better: more sump water volume or sacrifice sump water volume for trickle filtering? I notice that some run sumps with trickle filters at the sacrifice of having the filter only fill up half way or so. Isn't it better to have more system volume in general?

4) Now throw in a new variable: For months I have been designing myself an automatic waterchange system based on a trickle system. In short, water gets pumped into the tank, the water overflows into sump, sump overflows into drain. Because I plan to keep Discus in this tank, I plan to change 20% water in the system every 8 hours (3 times a day) which is approx 45% water change a day (http://www.angelfish.net/DripSystemcalc.php). Given this new data, will a 3ft sump work just fine? or is it still better to go the 6ft idea(bigger is better right?

Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers!
Lillee

 

[Lillee]

Sorry forgot to click subscribe and because I am not a full member I cannot edit my original post!

 

[epond83]

As far as enough media i have no idea because i've never used scrubbies, but something ceramic media that has a higher surface to volume ratio can filter more water in a smaller volume. I'm not an expert on this stuff so i won't go into that too much.

The problem i see with running just the 40 gal. is that, if the tank were full, a 1500 gph pump is going to flush that tank about 35 in an hour, given that the tank is not going to be full that seems like to much flow in a small tank. I havn't set up a sump yet so i don't know for sure.

 

[jsodwi]

You would be ok with the 40g with the 1500gph pump on it. Do a drip tray over your scrubbies with filter pad over the drip tray to take out the debris. Put a check valve on the pump to prevent the water from flowing back in case of a power outage. Before I did a big sump on my 300g, I started out with a 34g sump with an 1800 gph pump. It worked great until the tank was overstocked with 20"+ monsters. Yoour bioload is not going to be crazy with the discus so you should be fine. And if you change your mind down the road and get some big fish, just throw an FX5 canister loaded with biomedia on it

 

[Juicer69]

I would look at a pressurized pond filter for your set up.

 

[Whiteboi_J]

...I plan to change 20% water in the system every 8 hours (3 times a day) which is approx 45% water change a day (http://www.angelfish.net/DripSystemcalc.php)....

GEEBUS! that's 156 gallons per day! u calculate out how much ur water bill gonna be just from ur WC along? And how is doing 20% WC every 8 hours = 45% WC daily????

also, u gonna let ur tank cycle before u set up ur massive drip system, b/c i doubt ur tank will have a chance to fully cycle.....or u just plan on keeping ammonia out of tank all together so nitrites and nitrates can't form? lol.

In ur autodrip system, does that include automatic addition of dechlorinator, or will ur "drip" system run the water from the wall through a dechlorinator first?

u will be dumping about 2 gpm back into the tank of new water, that might be pretty loud....just something else to consider.

also make sure that the rate of ur overflow box = rate of return pump from the sump. and no u can't use ur 1500 gph or whatever rating, u have to account for the head (distance being pumped back into tank) to get true gph rate

just my 2 cents. good luck!

 

[BadOleRoss]

I had a 220G SW tank and I removed and the reinstalled the center brace on the stand to get the sump I wanted under the stand.

 

[fox3]

I am using a 40G breeder for a sump/ fuge under a 210G RR display. I am flowing ~2000gph thru this sump with no problems other than a complaint of having to swap the socks mid week.

This sump is divided in half since I have a fuge innit so 20 gallons worth of tank gets 500 gph and the other 1500 gph flows thru the other 20 gallon partition of which about 1/3 is pump well.

 

[Lillee]

Thanks for all the replies

GEEBUS! that's 156 gallons per day! u calculate out how much ur water bill gonna be just from ur WC along? And how is doing 20% WC every 8 hours = 45% WC daily????

Yes, I worked it out to about $350 extra a year to run. This is acceptable as I worked out how much a marine setup would consume electricity wise and this figure was tripple that. Lots of water changes are a must. I can always scale back if necessary.

also, u gonna let ur tank cycle before u set up ur massive drip system, b/c i doubt ur tank will have a chance to fully cycle.....or u just plan on keeping ammonia out of tank all together so nitrites and nitrates can't form? lol.

Will be fully cycled without fish before I buy a single fish. I plan to drop $2000 on discus in one go so there's no room for error

In ur autodrip system, does that include automatic addition of dechlorinator, or will ur "drip" system run the water from the wall through a dechlorinator first?

Storage tank, auto doser. As I said I've been planning it for some time

u will be dumping about 2 gpm back into the tank of new water, that might be pretty loud....just something else to consider.

I plan to pump it under the waterline with a siphon break for power outages. I think this will keep the noise right down?

You would be ok with the 40g with the 1500gph pump on it. Do a drip tray over your scrubbies with filter pad over the drip tray to take out the debris. Put a check valve on the pump to prevent the water from flowing back in case of a power outage. Before I did a big sump on my 300g, I started out with a 34g sump with an 1800 gph pump. It worked great until the tank was overstocked with 20"+ monsters. Yoour bioload is not going to be crazy with the discus so you should be fine. And if you change your mind down the road and get some big fish, just throw an FX5 canister loaded with biomedia on it

This makes me feel a little easier. I will be keeping 20 or so discus that may grow to 7" each so the bioload will be considerable in the log term. While they are juvenile I will be feeding them heavily 5-6 times a day so this will also be a heavy bioload.

The tank has been running on this exact same setup by previous owner of the tank running marine so the 1500gph pump through the 40gal tank has worked for him. I was more worried about the volume of filter material and whether this was enough or not.

Because it is a totally automated system, including an auto poop removal design (bare bottom tank) I don't want to have to later throw in an external filter like and FX5 into the system. I want to design it in such a way that it will be able to handle large bioload from day 1.

Thanks for the replies. I think I have made up my mind and will daisy chain 2 x 3ft tanks so I have a much larger filter chamber. Better to be safe than sorry. I'll post up my plans at a later stage if anyone is interested?

Cheers,
Lillee

 

[Lillee]

I had a 220G SW tank and I removed and the reinstalled the center brace on the stand to get the sump I wanted under the stand.

Yes I have investigated this and it is not possible with the way the cabinet was built without damaging it. The other way would be to take the 300kg tank off the cabinet which needs like 6 guys to lift, make the mocifications then put it back on. Either way, I think 2 x 3ft tanks will be easier to manage... I can do this on my own without help << preferred as I then have to provide beer for the 5 guys helping me out