New to the forums and new to larger aquariums

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T

Truepaint

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 25, 2014
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Buckeye az
Hey everyone so I'm new here let me start with hello, the center brace broke on my 55g so I went ahead and upgraded to a used 120 acrylic, unfortunately it came with no filtration and being handy as I am I took it upon myself to build a filter. It's basically a two chamber setup (mechanical/bio) powered buy a 620gph sump pump. Will this enough filtration and do you see any flaws in my system? It's my first attempt at a filter. I added half the media from my c-220 to help boost the bio cycle.








 
Welcome!

Are you planning to use the old 55gal as the 2 chamber sump filter? If yes, then a 55 will work fine.
 
No petco is replacing the 55 it will stay a tank and go in my bedroom, I'm going to stick with the filter I built if you guys feel it will do the job, sumps are still very new to me so I'm not quiet ready to take that leap
 
You're going to ultimately need more bio media. I don't feel that 1 chamber is going to hold enough bio media for a 120
 
Right now it has 300 bio balls and 500g of ceramic, I will add another chamber to it if needed, I designed it to be expandable
 
I personally would go all ceramic media since plastic bio balls seems to be more effective in a wet/dry set-up.

With a 620gph pump the 120 will get about 5X the turnover unimpeded. Once you start getting waste that's surely to rapidly clog up that small entry area your gph (and water turnover rate) is going to noticeably drop.

The only way to know if your DIY filter will work is running it live and regularly testing the water parameters. GL
 
After the talk about my lack of Bio I had an Idea at work to add some extra bio media to the tank and a bit more flow so I attempted to make a on top wet/dry trickle system using plastic scrubbers as media. The flow is provided from a 160 GPH sump that heads into 4 spray bars which allow the water to trickle though the media than through the drawers and into the tank.









 
What are you using for a pump? I see you mentioned a sump pump so please clarify this.
 
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