First of all, here's a picture of my handiwork:
I've had it running for about 3 days now and all that I can say is that it is absolutely amazing. The health and activity of my 4 species of loaches post-installation more than makes up for all of the learning and troubles that I had in making this.
The system is installed on a 75 gallon All-Glass Aquarium w/ a 600gph cpr overflow box. Within the filter itself, i have approximately $16 worth of pot scrubbies from the dollar store, the 9x9x4 cell pore media denitrification block that i bought from a friend for $32 (he didn't like the kent bio rocker on his salt tank), and a rio 17hf powering the system. the rio is plumbed into 2 closed loops redirected back into the bio tower and then the main return is plumbed into a 40w UV sterilizer that was given to me (why not put it to good use? lol). The bio tower itself measures 11"x9.5"x9.5" and the sump itself measures 24"x12"x15".
This was certainly a lesson in engineering for me and the rewards of having done it myself and seeing the improved health of my system made it well worth my time. My recommendation to anyone thinking of making one of these themselves is: DO IT!
I've had it running for about 3 days now and all that I can say is that it is absolutely amazing. The health and activity of my 4 species of loaches post-installation more than makes up for all of the learning and troubles that I had in making this.
The system is installed on a 75 gallon All-Glass Aquarium w/ a 600gph cpr overflow box. Within the filter itself, i have approximately $16 worth of pot scrubbies from the dollar store, the 9x9x4 cell pore media denitrification block that i bought from a friend for $32 (he didn't like the kent bio rocker on his salt tank), and a rio 17hf powering the system. the rio is plumbed into 2 closed loops redirected back into the bio tower and then the main return is plumbed into a 40w UV sterilizer that was given to me (why not put it to good use? lol). The bio tower itself measures 11"x9.5"x9.5" and the sump itself measures 24"x12"x15".
This was certainly a lesson in engineering for me and the rewards of having done it myself and seeing the improved health of my system made it well worth my time. My recommendation to anyone thinking of making one of these themselves is: DO IT!
I made my own wet/dry and there is no doubt it is the best way to go.
