wet/dry

[rbb302]

i wanna make a wet/dry filterany ideas on what i would be needing or how hard it would be. if any one as done one and knows some where i can find some plans that be great

[fatman]

There are just a few principles to a wet dry filter. One the filter media must remain above the water level in the container it is in. Which means typically it is elevated on a shelf made of lighting grate. Two the water should be evenly dispersed over the surface of the medium, meaning a drip tray is usually used. Three the filter media should be inert and have a large surface area in relation to its mass/volume. Lots of commercial filters are made using media that resembles the plastic strips that hold together the old style six packs of soda pop, plastic hair rollers are often used, ping pong balls, even marbles for those who have an old marble collection. Short pieces of PVC pipe is used by people who have access to a chop saw to cut the pipe easily. They are frequently housed in trash cans, five gallon buckets, small aquariums, dish pans or even tupperware containers. Or you can be really, really silly and buy a MegaFlow Sump Filter for $240 to $360 plus shipping. That would qualify anyone for a Duh reward.

[rbb302]

some one just gave me 10gallon tank i thank im going use that and make one

[Bifferwine]

Do you really want a wet/dry filter? Why not just turn it into a sump?

[rbb302]

ok now im confused i thout wet/dry and sump was the same thing

[daugherty]

no a wet dry uses bio balls or some other media that the water trickles over then drains to the bottom where the water is collected(best word i could think of) then pumped back to the tank. most reefers sumps are a tank with different lengths walls inside the tank to make seperate sectons. but every thing is under water. look at this link ans you will see a sump
http://www.livingreefs.com/forums/do...worksop-2.html

and this link is a wet dry filter
http://www.livingreefs.com/forums/ta...ty-s-50-a.html

[rbb302]

ok thats help a lot thanks man. but what would u say be better

[fatman]

Trickle filters really are typically only recommended in a fish only tank, where the fish load is very heavy and there is no appreciable amount of live rock and no deep sand bed. Nitrates run high when using a trickle filter, but ammonia and nitrites never appear even with heavy waste input produced by many large fish, such as in a predator tank. Trickle filters are the best filter available for nitrification, they are so good they cause problems with reef tanks. They also do no denitrification. Fish can tolerate large levels of nitrates, most invertebrates and coral can not tolerate high nitrate levels.

[Bifferwine]

If you are going to have a fish only tank, then you could do either, because as Fatman pointed out, wet/dry filters often lead to nitrate problems, but fish can tolerate high levels of nitrate.

If you are planning on having any inverts (shrimp, crabs, snails, corals, anemones, clams), then you should go with a sump, as these animals will not tolerate even moderate levels of nitrates, and it would be very difficult to keep your nitrates low down the road if you are using a wet/dry.

[Damseluver]

Here is what I would do working with a ten gal which will be tight quarters to work with.

Take some acrylic sheet and cut for a single baffle. Before glueing it in cut a hole for a 1.5 inch bulkhead in the center a few inches down from top. Use some pvc to direct water from the bulkhead through a micron filter sock. This should keep most if not all micro bubbles from getting to return pump. You will likely want to have a skimmer so make sure water in compartment is large enough to accomadate.

The typical overflow box with one inch drain will handle about six hundred gallons an hour. Ten gal sump likely will not. Keep this in mind when choseing a return pump. If you already have a pump but its to strong you can plumb in a gate vavle in the return line to redirect some water back to the sump. I would install one regardless so that you have complete controll over how much water is going to the display tank from sump. This design will provide raw water to your skimmer and then some filtration as it passes through the filter sock on its way back to the return pump.