Building a trickling filter

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StiffMeister

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jun 14, 2006
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Netherlands
Guys, im planning on making my own trickling filter on top of my sump.
Here is my idea:

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The trickling will be on top of the sump, above the first 2 compartments.
The size will be just over 40 wide and around 25 high amd 25 long
In the last compartment there will be a pump. The pump will put the water over the trickling after which it drops back in the first 2 compartments.
In the trickling there will be the blue rough filter foam and bioballs.

Would this be good?
How strong should the pump be? ive got some spare 760 and 1000 l/hr.

How do i devide the water properly over the whole trickling? Is a spraybar enough or should i add something else?

Does it matter where and how i return the water into the sump? First compartment would be best i assume? When i drill holes in the bottom, will that be good enogh to return the water or is some sort of tap better?

This will be my first DIY project so any comments are welcome.
Thanks!
 
How are you planning on getting water to the sump from the main tank? If your using an overflow just run the overflow to your spraybar in the sump. Then use your pump to put water back to the main tank. As for the bioballs, unless you already have them, use pot scrubbies instead. They are much cheaper, support a better bioload and in my opinion easier to clean when you need to. Spraybars work well to distribute water over filter media. With this in mind I feel a drip plate works better. Basically a drip plate could be made out of anything. I've seen buckets cut in 1/2 and then a bunch of holes drilled in bottom to evenly distribute water over filter media. Hope this helps.
 
thanks. the sump is already running. it works on an overflow. is it not good to re-filter the water from the last compartment over the trickling to the first compartment? I can make a drip plate from some plexiglas.
 
only put bio-media in the wet/dry part. It doesn't need to be mechanically filtered again. Also, the foam/fiber layer on top and bottom will cut the oxygen supply to the bio-media; not a good thing.

I did pretty much this same design, just off line. The green tub is the wet/dry. I keep the lids open now to give it as much oxygen as possible. The pump that I am now using is a 180 gph pump. I was using a 66gph but it wasn’t enough. Btw, both were from Harbor Freight for ten dollars.

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In this next one it shows the spray bar, but there was not enough water flow to keep all of the media wet. I have since removed the fiber filter.
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Ya want to filter the water before it reaches the bio media, to keep it from clogging up and killing the bacteria. Putting it after the bio media serves no real purpose, unless it's not coming clean enough and there's not enough room for more mech filtration before the bio (bad sump design IMO.)
 
My take on this design is the wet/dry is to go on top of the existing sump; and there are no changes to the sump plumbing. If this is the case and the added pump is placed in the sump where the water is already filtered (as I did), then the design is sound.

The only difference of this design and my design, is I plumbed mine to operate off line.
 
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