New Sump Idea

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
TheBlackPearl;4137578; said:


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You still have your ceramics way to close to the beginning of your sump. Because they have such fine porous holes they are the most prone to clogging thus need to be at the very end of all of the mechanical filtration.

Where you have cenramics & blue pads, put coarse sponges...

Where you hve the first set of "filters", which look like sponges, put a finer sponge...

Scoot that next baffle to the left and put a third tier of sponges...

Scoot that next baffle to the left as well and fill the gap with polyfill / quilt batting...

Now you will have excellent mechanical filtration that is practical to cean.


With the design you have now, a drip plate over your bio balls is useless. The water level in the bioball chamber is decided by where the water will drain out of that chamber on the other side (right side). So the water level in the bio balls will be the height of the baffle of the chamber to the right, which means the bio balls will be submerged.

Why are you so attached to using bioballs? In a wet/dry application they work great as they allow air to get inside and feed oxygen to the bacteria. I personally think that wet/drys are overemphasied as aquarium water has ample oxygen for bacteria to thrive. So you will be served adequately by ceramic noodles. Sure they cost more, but you will need far less of them.


Following the above advice will leave a good bit of open space. I suggest you consider putting plants in this open space.
 
If it is drawn anywhere close to scale I believe you may have a problem when the power goes out. The water level that is going to be required to keep the sump operational is not going to allow for much water to be drained from the primary tank which could very possibly result in flooding.
 
I agree with the Plants in the Open Space.

Your filtering is out of order. You need to have your ceramics after your Filter Media, then Have the BioBalls after the ceramics. No drip plate needed, but wont hurt. The "More Filter Media" spot seems a bit useless to me in this setup, as everything should be clean before it get to that point. If your planning on plants in the ???????? area, then maybe you need something there, but a single floss screen is more than ample.
 
Each diagram you've made has been more efficient than the previous one... so you get two points gor progress!


TheBlackPearl;4139148; said:


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This one is almost there!...

Two chambers for sponges is pretty good. I would do four, but you can stack two grades of sponge per chamber and still use 4 grades...

You get two additional points for figuring out the plant chamber. The baffles on both sides of the plant chamber need to be bottom opening, just like you have drawn. Although I suggest making them a little higher so the water depth is 1/3 ~ 1/2 the depth of the tank.

Switch the ceramic noodles and the purigen. Because you'll be leaving the ceramic noodles for months if not years without cleaning it. The Purigen will be removed, recharged and replaced every month or two.

Then put both sets of "Blue Bonded Filter Pads" on bottom and both bags of Purigen on top. There's no benefit in staggering them... adn there is benefit to maximizing mechanical filtration before the purigen.

The last baffle to the right is to high. The water in the last two chambers will be as high as the last baffle. By lowering the last baffle you lower the water level int he last two chambers which will allow a portion of your bio balls to be above the water level in their chamber. If you use a drip plate above them this will make them "wet/dry" media, which is the best way to utilize bio balls.

You can use a layer of quilt batting on top of the drip tray to both filter the water (fine mechanical filtration) as well as distribute the water across the entire drip tray.

I'm making the assumption this diagram is not to scale, as the pump chamber is unnecessarily large in the drawing... the chamber to the right of the bioballs only needs to be an inch or so thick... the chamber to the left of the bio balls needs to be much more than an inch, but probably not as large as it appears...

You want the plant and bio ball chambers to be the largest and to be as large as possible. If I were in your shoes I would make the plant chamber a bit larger than the bioball chamber...

With the design you have shown, you could use "Lucky Bamboo" (Dracaena sanderana) just like you have drawn with Java Moss tangled in the roots. Both of these are hardy plants that will thrive with almost any lighting.
 
ok so like this lol i hope this the lasr one i have create haha kinda a pain


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thanks for the help and it not to scale but i see what your saying am i missing anything? maybe another media filter baffel some where? system will have a auto water exchange and top system thank to some diy people i have seen do it and will copy them
 
in this most recent edition...

You loose two plants for goofing up the plant chamber. You will want the baffles on either side of the plants to be bottom opening... and to be large openings...

That is, of course, if you take my suggestion on using Lucky Bamboo & Java Moss. If you use fully aquatic plants you can keep the baffles the way you have them which makes the plant chamber maintain a very high water level.


PS - My point system is meaningless and points hold no value... just like on whose line is it anyway...
 
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