Thinking of building a bio tower. Need some help.

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koop171

Fire Eel
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Feb 1, 2008
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I know this may not be much help but from what I understand your turn over rate is related to how many gallons the tank is and should be in the neighborhood of about 5 times the tank amount. So a 100 gallon tank should have around a 500 gallon turn over rate. Hope this helps and good luck with your build! I'm interested to see what you do.
 
koop171;2648018; said:
Hey I think I might be adding a bio tower to my big sump. but I need to know a few things.

1. where would I get a pipe for this that's say 16"+ around?
2. How tall should it be?
3. How many GPH should I run? I am thinking between 200-500GPH.

and what's the best media to put in the tower? I am thinking these.

http://www.pondarama.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?store_code=POWGS&screen=PROD&product_code=Eml085

thanks in advance guys.
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scrubbies are cheaper and so are the trays at walmart
 
brianhellno;2648104; said:
I know this may not be much help but from what I understand your turn over rate is related to how many gallons the tank is and should be in the neighborhood of about 5 times the tank amount. So a 100 gallon tank should have around a 500 gallon turn over rate. Hope this helps and good luck with your build! I'm interested to see what you do.
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Bio towers run a less turnover rate. that wat the water has more time to contact the BB. the whoel tank turnover should be high but with a bio tower you have a small pump running clean water to your tower and back into you water return "pit" and then water get pulled from there at a faster rate back to the tank. that way it can be flushed back to your mechanical media and cleaned faster.


I hope that makes sense.


I.E. my tank is 585 gallons. With a 100 gallon rubbermaid sump. Running two 1200GPH mag drive pumps. with a bio tower I would need a third small pump running about 300-500GPH.
 
That makes sense. Are bio towers better than just the biological filtration of the sump alone? Like say would you be able to remove the bio filtration from the sump since you have the tower and maybe add more mechanical filtration?
 
Here is my bio tower just for ideas. Simple and cheap: Rubbermaid drawers and scrubbies.

P1200018.jpg


Upside down shower drain to connect the pipe:
P2020019.jpg


1/2" pvc cube to hold the bottom just at water level in the sump:
P8040020.jpg
 
I got a tank from a water softener for free that I plan on using. It's ~12" diameter and 4' tall. I was going to fill it w/ bioballs.
 
RBE17;2649067; said:
I got a tank from a water softener for free that I plan on using. It's ~12" diameter and 4' tall. I was going to fill it w/ bioballs.
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Don't forget to take pictures!!
 
I'm using the plastic drawer system as well. If you want something cylindrical, you might try to find a couple of trash cans or plastic barrels of the appropriate size; it'll probably cost you less than a length of 16" pipe.

Also, check out pond-style trickle towers like these: http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1056606&postcount=5. They're built on the same principle as a biotower, just on a larger scale.
 
In a bio tower I have a VERY hard time believeing that water flowing 500 GPH is going to fall throught the bio tower any slower than 5K gph. In other words if it's falling it's falling regardless of what GPH it's being pumped up to the top of the tower.

Before commiting to a bio tower I'de look into submerged media...... Sopposed to yield better results. I'm guessing this would be because of prolonged contact time.
 
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