Lets see your Bio Reactors/Moving bed filter!

[VLDesign]

Looking for ideas on new filtrations. I hear Bio towers are the new best thing but no one has any good plans or pictures..

I hear good things about moving bed filters.. Self cleaning? Really?

Junk has to float away to somewhere, right?

Share your setups and all the details! Been readin a lot on other Koi based boards and would like to see some newer info here.

 

[brich999]

i want to see... vamp has some great threads about his, but curious how many others are out there

 

[DB junkie]

Moving bed filters definetly get my vote.

I just built one. The concept behind them is great. There's also media available for them that harbors not only bacteria but also animals. Bio chip material from Kaldness is mixed in with normal moving bed media. The results are supposed to trump anything out there. The chip stuff is way spendy though.

Do a little digging, Mike from H20 just switched from the Ultima bead filters to this stuff. Says a lot right there in my opinion.

 

[DB junkie]

Here's my first attempt at reactors.

Huge mess right now as there's a 750 in the other room that's getting tied in to all this filtration. With several changes in the filtration coming.

The wet/dry is ran by a 4800 gph pump to 3 grades of mechanical pad. around 1500 pottscrubbies in the 2 bio towers. Water for the reactors is provided by a 1000 GPH pump that sits in the basin of the wet dry below the scrubbies. The mechanical part of the system (pads in top of bio towers) is being replaced by 55s that have socks in them then ceramic rings before water exits into the pond above the wet/dry pump.

Air is brought in via pondmaster 100. Drives both reactors with plenty left over for bubble discs is several tanks.

The reactors are just 55 gallon drums. I scored some brand new ones so no worry of contaminates. Built the 1st reactor with egg grate. Second without. After seeing the stuff in action, the egg grates unecassary I think. Diffuser is just 3/4" glued onto barbs stuck in a rubber reducer with a cut pvc cap in the end. First reactor had a grid type diffuser in it and the second one seemed to work better. Courser bubbles seemed to work better then fine, further out to the sides of the barrell better then in the center.

There's 1.5" drains in the bottom to clear out the dead/expired bio and whatever else winds up in there.

Will update once I get all the flaws/improvements figured out.


Learned alot. These things won't boil the first day or 2.

 

[Egon]

Not sure if this is what your looking for.....
This is my bio tower on my 360. It's about 5' from top to bottom.
First pic is the mock up. Basically how it's sitting next to, and under, the main tank.
The next few pics is the tower in operation. I have plastic peg board on top of the bio balls and filter floss on top of the peg board for mechanical filtration. Super easy to change out the dirty filter.
This is a loud set up, not roaring like Niagara falls but it does make noise. I have a 1" thick styrofoam lid on it and it helps a lot on noise and evaporation.

 

[VLDesign]

Thank's those help..

 

[DB junkie]

Rich, look into the new "Bio Chips" available to mix with the K1. Like I said, you're not gonna find better bio out there for any price.

Bio towers work but the mechanical side is a pain. Pads suck compared to socks.

It would take a rediculously large bio tower to consume the amount of food a reactor will. It's like comparing an army of spartans to an army of people ranging from 5-85 years old..... Not a fair fight. Bio towers everything builds up in. Reactors it all leaves through the drain in the bottom.

Contact time is also a huge issue easily addressed with reactors unlike towers.