How does sediment build up in a trickle filter?

[Bengalcats888]

Hi,

I’ve seen several trickle/baki filters.
Top layer has the spray bar and some
Mechanical media.

What keeps this type of filter from getting
clogged without a prefilter or sediment filter?

Will there always be dry areas on the trickle filter since the spray bars don’t wet all surfaces 100%? If I make diy, I just don’t want to screw it up.

 

[Oughtsix]

I find a drip plate usually works better at spreading the water out than a spray bar. Not every sq mm will be wet, the more you can spread out the water the better it will be though.

DIY wet dry / trickle filter should be a very easy build and almost impossible to mess up. The best part about a trickle filter is the amount of air/water interchange surface it creates. Allows for good off gassing from the water and great oxygenation of the water at the point where you have a good bacterial buildup... due to the large amount of oxygen. I always stick an air stone under my media so air is coming up through the media as the water is going down through the media.

You will get some sediment underneath all the media and it does need to be cleaned regularly. The more effective your mechanical filtering before it hits the trickle the less cleaning you will have to do.

 

[duanes]

Just as in rotating biological contact-ors you sometimes need to ream the holes out with a screw or nail to clear them of gunk. Could be sediment, could be biological growth. When I was using Mainland bio-wheels, I had to ream out holes at least once per week to keep them clear, especially on tanks with large species, I found by vacuuming out grunge before it was picked up by the filter to be the best medicine for plugged up holes.

 

[twentyleagues]

You can easily incorporate mech filtration before a wet dry in multiple ways. Best is to use filter socks. You could use poly pads. Just depends on how you set it up. Any mech will cut back on sediment but probably not all. Like other have said you will still need to provide some maintenance for bio film. I also agree with drip tray to better disperse the water over the media, then just pull tray clean and replace.

 

[Tobiassorensen]

On one of my showerfilters i have both spraybar and drip plate. Spraybar sprays on polyfill then comes the drip plate and distributes the water even over the media.

 

[esoxlucius]

I rigged up a trickle filter on my 300g. To get it working perfectly involved a bit of trial and error, i made a few miscalculations but I think i've got it pretty good now.

The most important part is to ensure your drip tray drips the water evenly all over the trickle media below. The tricky bit, I found, was the correlation between size and quantity of holes I drilled in the drip tray in conjunction with flow rate through my system.

Too many holes and water flowed straight down leading to poor coverage of media. Not enough holes and water partially dripped down with the majority of it flowing over the edge of the drip tray, again leading to poor coverage.

After making several drip trays, and binning most of them, I'm pretty happy with my current one. It gives good even coverage of my media at my current turnover (if I decided to increase my turnover then i'd have to make more holes in my drip tray).

It is important, as mentioned previously, that no or little gunk gets through. The drip tray holes will clog and problems will occur. To combat this problem I have several fine sponges used in conjunction with filter floss filtering my water before it reaches the trickle bit. Everything seems to be working fine BUT this system has only been running for a couple of weeks. I may, or may not, need to tweak it.

 

[Bengalcats888]

Can you some sketch photos of a mechanical pre-filter that connects to the trickle filter?
Ok, my setup will be indoors and I have limited space. I’m assuming the mechanical pre filter has to be same height as
top trickle filter.

For top trickle filter, does it make sense to use 2 spray bar down to drip plate?

I will start with two 5 Gallon Storage bins. Small scale. Which Bio Media performs well but not too costly, bang for the buck.
Bio Balls, Seachem Matrix?

I will post a sketch soon. Really appreciate your help! Since indoors, vital there are no leaks, over flow, needs to be very easy
to clean. This most likely is a temporary setup.

 

[esoxlucius]

Below are a couple of pictures of my very basic set up on my 300g. I like to keep things simple.

Picture one is of my 45g drum at the side of the tank which houses all my gear. You can clearly see the grey PVC overflow pipe.

Picture two is just me standing over the barrel looking down. In the barrel is a four tier crate system. Three large crates for pump (bottom), submerged media (next one up), trickle media (next one up) and then a smaller fourth crate on top for my mechanical. All the crates have lots of small holes drilled in the bottoms. Basically my return pump sucks the water down through the crates. The level of water in the barrel just ensures my submerged media crate is actually submerged. The trickle media crate, obviously, is above the water level. Running at this level means when I switch the pump off I still have enough space in the barrel for excess water from the main tank.

You can also clearly see the beige drip tray underneath my mechanical crate. The amount of holes i've drilled in there ensure an even coverage of water going into the trickle crate (trickle crate contains bagged up bio balls topped off with more coarse sponge)

The third picture is the same except i've removed the lid from the mechanical crate (the lid's only purpose is to help prevent splash back and it also helps with noise). You can see the sponges and filter floss. The filter floss gets tossed every 2 or 3 days. I could get longer out of it but I want crap out of the system asap rather than let it start decaying.

 

[Bengalcats888]

Nice setup!

The large grey pipe is overflow from main tank?

If pump is on bottom of barrel pushing water up,
how does top tray get water(trickle).

I’m not quite seeing it overall. The black hose
looks like it goes to your pump at the bottom.

Where is the out take back to the tank coming from?

Thanks for taking time out to post details
and photos. Helps a lot.

 

[Tobiassorensen]

Nice setup!

The large grey pipe is overflow from main tank?

If pump is on bottom of barrel pushing water up,
how does top tray get water(trickle).

I’m not quite seeing it overall. The black hose
looks like it goes to your pump at the bottom.

Where is the out take back to the tank coming from?

Thanks for taking time out to post details
and photos. Helps a lot.

The water overflows through the gray pvc into first part of the tower wich is mechanical with floss and sponge. The trickles over the bioballs in the next part. Then goes through submerged media then pump pumps water back to tank through the black hose.

Simple as that