K1 Moving Bed in a 40g breeder

[Danh]

I've currently got a 30g sump. It's a typical sump with a small settling chamber overflowing in to filter socks, under a baffle to the main media chamber and then a over and under baffles to the pump chamber. I run it nearly full with about 60lpm of air fluidizing the center section with k1.

I want to replace it with a 40g that should be 90% K1. I'll run through a separate mechanical pre filter dumping in to the end of the 40...

My question is can I get away with no baffles before the pump chamber? Can I put in a doubled up lighting diffuser just to keep the k1 from getting too close to the pumps... As long as can keep most of that air away from the pumps keep the K1 at least getting stuck to the intake cages. I'll have some ceramic media and crushed coral in bags that may not get the flow that I could get with baffles... but otherwise my biggest concern will be getting air in the pumps and micro bubbles, right? Anything else I'm missing?

This will only be the second K1 bed I've worked with - after the 30g I am using now - so I dont have a lot of experience with K1. I'm running 1500-2000 gph through it from the display and another 1500-2000gph that I am just recirculating through the sump to a reactor that is helping the moving bed.

 

[Crazylegs78]

Baffles are just a way to force water along a certain path and through all the filtering media. With your 40g K1 sump, there will be enough agitation that all water will be well mixed and effectively filtered by the K1. There may be some initial air getting into the pump from uncultered K1 media, as it likes to hold air bubbles at first. If you use the dividers as mentioned, I don't think you'll have any problems once bacteria gets established on the media.