Four of my tanks are currently running low tech DIY sumps. All of these started as floss over scrubbies over lava, and 3 also have a flow-thru gravel bed.
2 of them also have big bags of Fluval bio-rings. Several tanks have foam filters too.
We've had much discussion about lava as effective media, & clearly it's not the media of choice, but the thing I wonder more about than the lava is the effectiveness of mattenfilter & foam filters as sump bio-habitat? Do they make sense?
I have poret foam filters in many of my tanks as prefilters or in place of just airstones, but they're ugly and take tank space. Now that they are well cycled I have started moving them all into the sumps.
In 3 of my sumps I replaced the pot scrubbers with sponge filters in the pump chamber. I was already running airstones in the sumps, so the air was there.
I hated the pot scrubbers. Too soon to tell if the foam filters work better or not. The pot scrubbers are all over a year to 2 years old now.
Anyhow, I clean the foam by squeezing right in the sump, then I flush the sump. Much easier than lifting out of a deep tank & into a bucket to clean.
I keep bio-rings and (in some cases lava) in bags, but I usually just rinse everything in the sump and flush it all out.
Anyhow I copied this from the web:
from http://www.swisstropicals.com/library/swisstropicals-poret-foam/

Unfortunately nothing here about lava or Fluval , Eheim, Hagan etc media.
2 of them also have big bags of Fluval bio-rings. Several tanks have foam filters too.
We've had much discussion about lava as effective media, & clearly it's not the media of choice, but the thing I wonder more about than the lava is the effectiveness of mattenfilter & foam filters as sump bio-habitat? Do they make sense?
I have poret foam filters in many of my tanks as prefilters or in place of just airstones, but they're ugly and take tank space. Now that they are well cycled I have started moving them all into the sumps.
In 3 of my sumps I replaced the pot scrubbers with sponge filters in the pump chamber. I was already running airstones in the sumps, so the air was there.
I hated the pot scrubbers. Too soon to tell if the foam filters work better or not. The pot scrubbers are all over a year to 2 years old now.
Anyhow, I clean the foam by squeezing right in the sump, then I flush the sump. Much easier than lifting out of a deep tank & into a bucket to clean.
I keep bio-rings and (in some cases lava) in bags, but I usually just rinse everything in the sump and flush it all out.
Anyhow I copied this from the web:
from http://www.swisstropicals.com/library/swisstropicals-poret-foam/

Unfortunately nothing here about lava or Fluval , Eheim, Hagan etc media.