Ya Reed that is a very tidy setup. Im impressed! Lots of K1 by the look of it. I like the air line plumbing inside the tank. Must be a massive air pump like a supreme danner or something of that sort. Great job.
Tank/System Update - Leopoldi
- Thread starter Reedmaster16
- Start date
Shelby the intakes are large intake strainers that can be found at aquaticeco, mcmaster, and a number of other places online.
Thanks Ade, Scott, and Peter.
Garbage cans can absolutely work perfectly fine as well. There are so many different options/methods/approaches key is finding the best fit for you and you're stock. I just really like the ease of maintenance of pressure filters for my mechanical.
I have two steps of mechanical before the water reaches the high output UV and moving bed.
All the overflows run into a very large tray with a fine matala sheet that catches larger debris before it gets to the pump. Always more efficient to prefilter before the pump to prevent the pump from blending the waste up making it harder to catch and remove.
Water is then pumped into the second mechanical stage of much finer filtration.
The black filter vessel I have is a true up flow bead filter (not a pressurized filter like an ultima or sand filter).
Water flows up through the beads and they pack together tightly catching all the very fine particles. It also has a blower incorporated to break up the beads and fully dislodge all the waste during backwash.
This helps by using a fraction of the water amount required to backwash and clean the filter.
Without the blower its very difficult to fully clean any type of media inside a pressurized filter housing.
Backwash also serves as my water change.
Some people try and use bead type filters for both bio and mech. I would only use them as mechanical and if you get a bit of bio out of them that's an added bonus. If you are truly cleaning them properly the bio film should never fully develop or else the media will cake together over time making it more and more difficult to get it cleaned during backwash.
Let me know if any of that doesn't make sense...been a long day haha.
Air is all driven by a single AP-100
Thanks Ade, Scott, and Peter.
Garbage cans can absolutely work perfectly fine as well. There are so many different options/methods/approaches key is finding the best fit for you and you're stock. I just really like the ease of maintenance of pressure filters for my mechanical.
I have two steps of mechanical before the water reaches the high output UV and moving bed.
All the overflows run into a very large tray with a fine matala sheet that catches larger debris before it gets to the pump. Always more efficient to prefilter before the pump to prevent the pump from blending the waste up making it harder to catch and remove.
Water is then pumped into the second mechanical stage of much finer filtration.
The black filter vessel I have is a true up flow bead filter (not a pressurized filter like an ultima or sand filter).
Water flows up through the beads and they pack together tightly catching all the very fine particles. It also has a blower incorporated to break up the beads and fully dislodge all the waste during backwash.
This helps by using a fraction of the water amount required to backwash and clean the filter.
Without the blower its very difficult to fully clean any type of media inside a pressurized filter housing.
Backwash also serves as my water change.
Some people try and use bead type filters for both bio and mech. I would only use them as mechanical and if you get a bit of bio out of them that's an added bonus. If you are truly cleaning them properly the bio film should never fully develop or else the media will cake together over time making it more and more difficult to get it cleaned during backwash.
Let me know if any of that doesn't make sense...been a long day haha.
Air is all driven by a single AP-100
reed love the set up and that your overflow type holes actually dont look half bad. i usually make overflow boxes for mine just for the top but i like the fact that it looks like you are also drawing water from the bottom as well. could you get me some close ups and go into more detail on your filtration. pipe size as well. i currently have 2" but am still considering a few more ideas for the new set up. also it looks like you are running two pumps what are the gph for these as well?
thanks for sharing and hope you enjoyed your visit to the shedd as well.
thanks for sharing and hope you enjoyed your visit to the shedd as well.
Wasn't allowed to take any behind the scenes pics but it is an amazing place. 3-4ft disc diameter tiger rays as soon as I walked in blew me away. Some of their tails had to be 5-7" thick at the base. Some very nice leo, henlei, and pearl rays as well. A lot of the tanks did not have as much open floor space as I would have thought. Lots of root structures and different types of cover. I could have just hung out in the amazon exhibits all day haha. I am definitely going back in the near future, I couldn't absorb all in just one visit.
Thanks jeffers. All 2" plumbing and I'm running both a 5500gph and a 4500gph pump.
The reason the bead filter plumbing looks elaborate/crazy is its a low head design meaning the multiport valve is bypassed when in filter mode. The multiport is only used during backwash. This solves one of the main complaints with bead filters needing a higher head pump to overcome the head loss of the multiport. So I can run an energy efficient pump while maintaining a high flow rate with minimal head loss.
The two black pipes with strainers are an idea I got from some aquaculture/aquaponics research papers I read a little while back. Real simple concept called an SLO or solids lifting overflow. They're still gravity overflows but help with pulling some of the waste off the bottom that does not get pushed up to the other overflow holes. Seems to be working as planned so far.
Another piece of equipment I really like is the flow meter I have installed on the main pump return line. Allows me to really fine tune and know the exact kill rate through the UV and contact time of the water through the moving bed.
Very long process to get to this point, none of these items were purchased over night. I spent a couple years doing a lot of reading/research, trying different approaches, and slowly acquiring quality pieces of equipment. The one big expense that took a while to recover from was the bead filter. I could have built one but when pricing it out the cost was about the same and buying from a quality company comes with warranty and support. I've made smaller versions of bead type filters for other tanks and a well planned/executed DIY makes more sense on a smaller scale.
Hey Reed,
If you prefilter before the pump how do you prevent the pump from running dry or straining when your prefilter clogs or slows down the flow of the water going through it? And is their an advantage to your SLO's draining by gravity rather than a pump draining them?
thanks for the info. could you post some pics of the slo's and also do you T it at the top so you dont create a siphon if the power or something goes out. that is what im really interested in. i will be looking this up as well.
Pump pulls from the sump. Before water enters the sump via gravity overflow it hits a very large tray with matala sheet. Think of it as a massive drip tray that catches larger particles & can handle 9k + gph. If the mat clogs it simply overflows the tray into the sump. No risk of pump ever running dry.
The SLO just helps pull stuff off the bottom. Its simply a gravity overflow that stretches to the bottom of the tank with a T at the top to prevent siphon.
Yep a T at the top to prevent siphon. Real simple idea that seems to work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUP3h_2u7Ug
Pellet day! lol
Mini update, finally stopped being lazy & took a minute to get a crappy quality (cell) video of the tank.
Tarpon & Aro are monsters in person.
Got a DSLR for Christmas I still need to learn how to use, so better pics/video will be forthcoming (hopefully haha)
Pellet day! lol
Mini update, finally stopped being lazy & took a minute to get a crappy quality (cell) video of the tank.
Tarpon & Aro are monsters in person.
Got a DSLR for Christmas I still need to learn how to use, so better pics/video will be forthcoming (hopefully haha)
