Increasing the efficency of a wet dry

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G

gman

Candiru
MFK Member
Dec 28, 2005
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I am experimenting with my first wet/dry and am open to any suggestions

here is what I have so far.

1.) prefilter

2.) bio balls

3.) I put an airstone at the bottom of the bioball chamber to increase gas flow in the bio ball chamber (is this a good idea?)

I was also thinking about getting some of those cylinders made out of a porous rock material and submerging them in the bottom of the wet/dry

Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.
 
Putting an airstone under your bio balls is a great idea. It increases the amount of oxygen the bacteria have available to them. The will benifit from this.

Cell pore slabs in your sump area are a good idea. they have huge amounts of surface area. I don't know what a porous cylinder is but if it has large surface area, it should work good as well.

If your bio balls can be "pinned" together you can get alot more bio balls in your sump. The bio balls from Lee's can be pinned together. The best description I can give you on this is that when pinned together, you can make rows of bio balls that almost perfectly fit together. There is practically no wasted space in your bio ball chamber when you do this. Increases surface area for bacteria a bunch!!!!
 
air stones under the bio balls won't do you any good. Your bio balls are already saturated with air because they are already open to the atmosphere. Now if you put the cereamic cylinders underwater in you wet/dry then add an air stone to feed oxygen to the cylinders it will increase the efficiency of the cylinders but not the bio balls.
 
I agree with dodgefreak. An airstone wouldn't do anything to the bioballs that are already exposed to the air. Best way to make your filter more efficient is just to add more bioballs or any other type of high surface area to volume ratio. And to make sure that your drip plate works well to get water to all your bio balls.
 
The way I set up my wet dry I have a prefilter pad that i cut in half to get rid of any large particles in the water. The prefilter sits on top of my drip plate and the drip plate sits on top of my bio balls. So my bio balls dont get alot of fresh air and that is why I put the airstone at the bottom of my bio ball chamber. Do you think the fresh air being pumped into the chamber will hurt the bacteria?
 
more air will never hurt your bacteria but the bioballs will get enough air as long as they are not submerged under water.one thing to remember is the water flowing over the bioballs has oxygen in it also so they are getting plenty of air. basically your system is only as efficient as the surface area you have for bacteria and the amount of water you can get into contact with it WITHOUT submerging your biological area. your setup will work fine though. I just feel that the air stones are not needed.. Also another thing to remember is you can only support as much bacteria as you have food for. If you are running a wet/dry filter twice the recommended size for your aquarium and cycling your tank 20 times an hour there is still only so much FOOD for the bacteria to remove. Any extra bacteria will die off due to starvation.hope this clears some things up. keep asking if it doesn't!!
 
wouldnt a cell pore slab in the bottom create the anareobic conditions for the nitrate bacteria thats what i was gonna do in mine put a few slabs in the bottom
 
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