*** UPDATE ***
hello everyone, well we finally figured out what type of filtration that we are going to start to build, so i purchased 13.5 cubic feet of bio balls for 375.00 and for now im setting them up in 3 - 40 gallon garbage cans and running 1000gph pump to each garbage can, to get the bio balls full of bacteria, ive got till aprill 22nd before i can take ownership of the new house, so i figure if i put these 3 cans full of bio balls running on my pool with all the large fish, it kills 2 birds at the same time, #1 pre seed the bio balls with benificial bacteria and also will help filter the pool full of cats. (you can never have to much bio filtration) i made a drip tray out of the bottom of another garbage can and drilled ALOT of holes in it and filled the new tray with the blue and white fiber roll material, it dont hurt to have a prefilter also, i drilled the top of the garbage cans with a 1-1/8" hole that runs to the 1000 gph pump sitting in the pool for each of the garbage cans, i know it dont look that good at the moment, but id rather get a great start on loading these bio balls with bacteria, so when we do get into the new house, we just have to build the central filter system, we are using the 800 gallon pond that we built to go pick up the fish from washington as the bio / sump,
the water that enters will go through the filter sock tray that has a built in overflow to the bio chamber, in case the filter socks get filled up, the water will just run past them, into the bio chamber, the chamber will consist of the 4'x8'x40" area with pvc pipes drilled all across the bottom of the chamber and then we will pump air through the pvc from the bottom, air will rise through the 13.5 cubic feet of bio balls (roughly 9000) it will end up being double that, but at this time, i bought half of what i wanted to get them preseeded with bacteria, after i set up the filter in the new house i will buy the other half, mostly because of space at the moment, anyway, after the water passes through the filter socks then the huge bio chamber, then it will be pumped through the uv light system that i already have and back to the tanks, all the water will run into this filter from the overflows of each tank, and the second filter system will be a closed system, meaning it will pull the water from each tank from the bottom and go through the prefilter and then into the large bead filter then pumped back into the tanks, that way im filtering water from the top of each tank through the bio filter and the bottom of each tank through the closed loop system of the bead filter, so were looking at only running the 2 5000 gallon per hour pumps, and we will not have to worry about heating the tanks, as each tank will be sitting in a room that stays at 80 degrees from the heated pool and the overhead gas heater, that is how i heat all of my tanks now in my fish room, i installed 1 gas garage heater that is vented, i keep the room at 80, and all the tanks stay real close to that, the only one that is a few degrees lower is the pool, because it sits on the ground, which is carpeted cement, so it stays around 75-76 since it is so close to the ground, but all the rest of the tanks that are on stands all stay at 79, and all i pay for is the gas to heat the insulated garage, about 40-50 a month more than my normal gas bill, thats alot better than having 20 or so 300 watt heaters in the tanks, that would be around 6000 watts running all the time, the electricity would be more that 40-50 a month
ill get some pics up for you guys to look at here in a few,
take care
bigrich
