my home made trickle filter, but a few ????

[cuprajake]

hey guys bought my bits today,
40 litre bin set £7.00 from instore, came with dish bowl, strainer and cutterly holder
so i used the bin for the filtetr box,

the strainer for the bottom clear water area

then put in the last layer of fine filter

then used corigated plastic tube for the bio balls lol

then covered with a few more layers

then i used some 1.5" to make another clear area covered with foam

ontop of this is going to be my corse filter media,
as for the spinkler section i used the bowl,

the pump pipe will go onto this, and will be cable tied on to it,
so it looks like this

thant is, im fitting it tonight,
only concern is the pump mite over flow the bowl so i mite have to redo that bit lol
jake

 

[cuprajake]

well its all done, bit of a night mare really made it a little too big, dont think the pump can hack it lol, there is no chance of it overflowinf, it isn't the torrnet i expected lol, more just a constant flow. it seems to work though.
pics

vid of the working

i mite modyfy the top bowl, to hold more water or add the other pump, only prob is there quite noisy
jake

 

[cuprajake]

im thinking of putting the pond pump in the top, with a downwards facing fountain/sprinkler, then having the hose suck water up instead, as it would be behind my foam background the drag would be not to bad,

all i want to know is if the inline pond filters are noisy????

 

[cuprajake]

got myself another pump, it seems alot better, its a 1500lph, but witht the 1.5 metre pipe it will be doing approx 700l/166 gals an hour which aint too bad,

 

[cuprajake]

i have two 1500 lph pond pumps in the tank now, pushing through 1 metre of hose, so im getting about 2200 lph actual water flow, this goes up to a 40 litre bin, with media filter in, the water is sprayed out through two fountain water jets, just like a shower head, this then trickles down through the media and out through 2" pipe, down a 90 degree bend and into a closed off section to make a spray bar, im not sure how much water is in the bottom, but i know that the media is never in still water. i also have a cascaed 1500 and a fluval 205, all on a 55gal tank, he he

do you guys think this will actually work well enough?

i think im going to add some filter floss the fine stuff, i need to filter foam the sides as thie shower head effect hitting the plastic bin makes a little bit of noise.

 

[Dr Joe]

Welcome Welcome

What better way to join a forum that to post a complete project!!!

Nice little hack, should work ok, but I'd load up on more bio-material (plastic pipe), can you find the plastic pot scrubbers (scrubbies) where (?) your from? They're 6/$1 here. 30 pieces would give a better bio-mass.

Did you seed it with and old media?

Make sure the water isn't bypassing the filter media at the sides too.

Keep us posted, it will be interesting to see its performance in a month or two.

55g huh... Unless your separating hydrogen from oxygen you can have to much filtration .

Dr Joe

.

 

[cuprajake]

hi dr joe

thanks for the welcome,

i added the second pump, but tbh it makes it more noisy, so im back to one pump at the mo. i use the shower head fountin attachment so i get an even spread, i didn't put any media in there, my only worry is that -does my media have to be submerged or is it ok to have it flowing through????

i think its working well, as it seems cleared but that could be the placebo effect hahaha

there is a bit more current in the tank too now which the fish seem to love,

i cant actually do any arm over filtering can i lol

the updated pics are on the way

 

[Dr Joe]

The bottom return line kinda precludes having a very high water level in the filter .

Water cascading over the media will be fine in this case.

W/D usually have a percentage of the media under water (25%-75%).

Your problem will come if you have a power outage, the media will dry quickly and bacteria will die off ... So don't let it stop for more than a few minutes, even when servicing it unless you can fill the whole sump with water.

Did you seed it with and old media?

Well it's been 2 hrs and still no pix!!!

Dr Joe

.

 

[cuprajake]

i was trying to figure a way to do it either by putting something in the bottom to hold the water up a little, with less holes so i get a back log of water

i cant/dont have enough room to turn it into a propper sump under the tank if i did have enough room, could i mod my bin to do it?

ps i forgot my camera/pc wire lol

jake

 

[cuprajake]

modified my idea to turn it into a enclosed sump lol

this will go under the tank now.

like so

i still have one pump in the tank as i can really fit an overflow to it, this pumps water the same way through a shower head, onto the media, this time though i have the other pump(both are identiacl) in the bottom, this goes out through the bottom outlet, through the black flexi hose, i will actually use the 2" pipe with a 90 bend and more pipe to the top of the bin, this is because the bin has a 2" hole in it ( hope you inderstand)
the 2" will act as a channel for the pump hose to sit it, this then returns water to the tank, now because both pumps have the same out put i will put 25 litres of extra water into the sump and hopefully it will continue to run ok

do this sound possible, and this way the media is submerged

jake