Just curious do any of you use sand filters for your large systems . i have seen a few brands they all look nice and also have heard people talking about beaded filters too. would this be good for a 720 or 600?
thanks,
jc
thanks,
jc
Sand filters for larger systems?
- Thread starter jpcampbell123
- Start date
Hayward EC40AC DE pool filter. $199 delivered from Amazon. I always have perfectly clear water! The sump is for biological filtration and oxygenation. I would guess the DE would be fine for Biological filtration with the abundance of surface area... probably more than any other media I can think of but I like the huge amount of oxygen a sump adds to the water.
(I am making a stand to fit the DE filter and sump)
Here is what I have learned from reading:
Sand filters:
Great for mechanical on a tank, and Super low maintenence. You just "backwash" them. So you don't have to get your hands dirty at all. You just flip some valves, and you pump water backwards through the filter and out to drain. This is a double function. You clean your filter at the same time as doing a water change.
However.....It is not good for bio filtration. You'll need to run a sump, or some other form of bio filtration in conjunction with the pool filter. Which begs the question.....Why use a sand filter when you can just build a nice sump that does mech with filter sock(s) and has a wet/dry???
Bead filters:
This seems like the best of both worlds. It's basically a sand filter that runs backwards. The water flows up through the beads instead of down through the sand. It can do both mechanical and bio filtration. I'd get one of the ones that has an air pump agitator for better bio filtration.
Works the same as a sand filter as far as cleaning. You just flip some levers, and it "backwashes" by running water backwards through the filter and out to drain. Again, doubling as a water change and filter cleaning.
The negative.....Bead filters are pretty darn expensive. Again, begging the question, why go with one of these when you can build a nice sump that does it all for a fraction of the price?
Sand filters:
Great for mechanical on a tank, and Super low maintenence. You just "backwash" them. So you don't have to get your hands dirty at all. You just flip some valves, and you pump water backwards through the filter and out to drain. This is a double function. You clean your filter at the same time as doing a water change.
However.....It is not good for bio filtration. You'll need to run a sump, or some other form of bio filtration in conjunction with the pool filter. Which begs the question.....Why use a sand filter when you can just build a nice sump that does mech with filter sock(s) and has a wet/dry???
Bead filters:
This seems like the best of both worlds. It's basically a sand filter that runs backwards. The water flows up through the beads instead of down through the sand. It can do both mechanical and bio filtration. I'd get one of the ones that has an air pump agitator for better bio filtration.
Works the same as a sand filter as far as cleaning. You just flip some levers, and it "backwashes" by running water backwards through the filter and out to drain. Again, doubling as a water change and filter cleaning.
The negative.....Bead filters are pretty darn expensive. Again, begging the question, why go with one of these when you can build a nice sump that does it all for a fraction of the price?
The tank is only a 110g (pretty small for this board)! I started by putting an Ocean clear canister between the sump pump and the tank return. Stupid thing leaked and leaked and leaked. I love my Diatom XL DE filter for water polishing but it will plug after about a day. I figured for $200 I would take a chance and experiment with this DE pool filter. I think I figured it has about 200x the filtering surface area of the Diatom XL. And most importantly it maintains the water quality of the Diatom XL constantly on an ongoing basis. After about two months the water flow slowed through the DE filter. I turned the pump off, cranked the handle on the DE filter up and down a half dozen times to knock the DE powder off the filter screens, then turned the pump back on. The Flow resumed to where it was when it was new.
The Awful particle board stand you see in the background came with the 110g tank when I bought it used. I started a new stand but then the renters moved out of my gf's double wide leaving it trashed. The double wide rental rehab has take priority over the new stand.
The picture pretty much says it all. There are more pics in the attached link. One black kink free pond tube comes from the tank to supply the external filter. The return black kink free pond line from the filter just goes back into the tank. So I am running the Sump and the DE filter in Parallel. After the stand rebuild I will run them in series (tank --> sump --> pump --> DE filter --> tank). But right now my stand pipe wont handle the flow from the external pump! I will be drilling the glass 110g when it is moved to it's new stand.
I figure the maintenance will be even less (than cranking the handle every two months or so) after I finish my new stand. The Sump will then act as a prefilter and catch the big stuff in filter socks. And the tank won't have 6 months of neglected debris on the bottom to deal with.
When I first added the DE I stirred up a ton of junk from the bottom of the tank multiple times to the point that you couldn't see through the water any more. The filter cleaned the water to sparkling in under a quarter hour (The Diatom XL would have taken a few hours). I forget the flow rating on the pump but it is a pressure pump and it does flow A LOT. The high flow of the pump is more responsible for the quick water cleaning (high turn over rate) than the huge filtering surface area... But I couldn't maintain the high flow rate without the huge filtering surface area!
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?434493-Mechanical-filter-for-a-sump.
I had a sand filter on an above ground pool and it does a nice job but a DE filter produces MUCH clearer water. DE just filters too a much finer level than sand.
The Awful particle board stand you see in the background came with the 110g tank when I bought it used. I started a new stand but then the renters moved out of my gf's double wide leaving it trashed. The double wide rental rehab has take priority over the new stand.
The picture pretty much says it all. There are more pics in the attached link. One black kink free pond tube comes from the tank to supply the external filter. The return black kink free pond line from the filter just goes back into the tank. So I am running the Sump and the DE filter in Parallel. After the stand rebuild I will run them in series (tank --> sump --> pump --> DE filter --> tank). But right now my stand pipe wont handle the flow from the external pump! I will be drilling the glass 110g when it is moved to it's new stand.
I figure the maintenance will be even less (than cranking the handle every two months or so) after I finish my new stand. The Sump will then act as a prefilter and catch the big stuff in filter socks. And the tank won't have 6 months of neglected debris on the bottom to deal with.
When I first added the DE I stirred up a ton of junk from the bottom of the tank multiple times to the point that you couldn't see through the water any more. The filter cleaned the water to sparkling in under a quarter hour (The Diatom XL would have taken a few hours). I forget the flow rating on the pump but it is a pressure pump and it does flow A LOT. The high flow of the pump is more responsible for the quick water cleaning (high turn over rate) than the huge filtering surface area... But I couldn't maintain the high flow rate without the huge filtering surface area!
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?434493-Mechanical-filter-for-a-sump.
I had a sand filter on an above ground pool and it does a nice job but a DE filter produces MUCH clearer water. DE just filters too a much finer level than sand.