REACTORS- Filtration for stingrays

DB junkie

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DB junkie

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I was worried about clogging strainer. That is a perfect idea and I have a chop saw. Thanks DB! I don't like the barrel too much either but I like the roundness. Gonna use 1 30 gallon blue barrel on each drain.

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Make sure you properly pre-filter. Dump fish crap into a moving bed and I'd expect the crap to get sealed into the media by the biofilm...... ;)

If it means putting socks in your overflows I'd do it, or just do like I do and use tanks to hold the socks then just drain from them to the reactor...... But the last thing you want is unfiltered water going in there.
 

Reedmaster16

Piranha
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Oct 13, 2005
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I never even thought of that..... I'll have to check my wet/dries for chips.... lol

http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/1331/Trical-Netting

That's the stuff I'm trying now..... Might actually be able to make dividers out of it too.
Yea I originally used slotted pipe I cut with a miter saw and was surprised the chips were able to make their way through.

If you use a slotted pipe already you can just slide the plastic tube over it, easy fix.
 

snake8myelbo

Fire Eel
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Nov 24, 2008
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Make sure you properly pre-filter. Dump fish crap into a moving bed and I'd expect the crap to get sealed into the media by the biofilm...... ;)

If it means putting socks in your overflows I'd do it, or just do like I do and use tanks to hold the socks then just drain from them to the reactor...... But the last thing you want is unfiltered water going in there.
Dang! Back to the drawing board :banghead:

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burbon44s

Candiru
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There seems to be a couple different ways in design. I'm still trying to figure out if i should put the return in the middle or more on top of the reactor

I have the main feed line going through the top in a pvc tube that runs to the bottom of the barrel. That's where I'm going to have my air Diffusers. So once the water enters the bottom, it's attacked with air.
So I'm kinda thinking , the return should be higher up
What do u guys think?
Any other design thoughts?

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burbon44s

Candiru
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Sorry about the last dumb question
I started thinking about doing a barrel inside a barrel and i realized the return is just going to set my height.
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DB junkie

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When I used an additional smaller pump (1K gph) to run my pair of reactors I ran the feed line down into the bottom of the drums and cut at a similar angle to the drums, seemed "spinning" the incoming water against the side of the drums yielded the best boil. Drain was in the side, with a 45, then slit pipe and a cap. Problem was lots of media gathering at the intake.

Flip side you could drain the bottom and dump in the top, using incoming water to help agitate and you should be able to loose some gathering media if you have the air higher up off the bottom then the drain. Drain will need a stand pipe up the side and vent at top so there's no siphon, and to set water level. I never tried this so I'm not sure how much less these style drains flow as opposed to normal ones, so you may need to pipe it a bit bigger then you would normally. I believe you're looking at horizontal flow for pipe diameter as opposed to vertical drains.

I'd rather monkey with drain diameter as a variable then fight media clumping at the drain.....

Another idea might be setting the drain towards the middle, run a standpipe up the inside of the drum then making a mesh half circle to protect the standpipe, essentially making that whole half circle screen guard the strainer. Not sure if it works this way but with that much area on the strainer maybe the media would just bounce right off and not stick? Sounds good on paper right? LOL
 

Tor-Eriik

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Im just thinking, wouldnt it be best with the drain low? Dont matter how you do it, but low. Since this type of media is designed to float? So if you have the drain low, it will automaticaly try to go the oposit way.. the trick must be to have such a huge return that there will be no preasure in it, just freefloating. I gues if its preasureised it will drag media aswell.
 

Miguel

Ole Dawg
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Dec 28, 2006
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this is what i am currently doing.

Two strong pumps, K1 in permanent circulation ( boiling ) bar one small traffic jam at one corner, and drain below, protected by a net that does not allow K1 to flow through ( and, as you say, it floats and is pushed upwards by the circulation pumps )
 

skynoch

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Jan 14, 2007
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Started looking at this thread but it is way to long too totally read through. Started reading about traffic jams and found that weird as that is something I've never seen in mine. Currently I'm using a 50 gallon rubbermaid garbage can with 5 large round airstones fed from an ap-100 pump which only supplies a fraction to the airstones. My inlet is on the bottom and as soon as it comes in it 90's to keep the water circling. My outlet is a prefilter for a sump pump found at the farm supply companies out here that has a 2" npt male connector on it and a mesh style barrel filter housing. My inlet is a partial feed found after my pool sand filter outlet. Everything works great except most my bio actually lives in my pool sand filter so I need to revamp putting my inlet for my reactor before my sand filter inlet and then through a mechanical filter. My sand filter will support more bio than my tank puts out but come backwash time I loose alot of my bio down the drain. I've got at least 5 cubic feet of k1 and biochips in the reactor. When I was backwashing daily and doing large waterchanges for breeding my pool sand filter would loose most of it's bio and the reactor took over and worked perfect. Not sure on the points I'm making but just putting it out there if people have question. And if you don't know me my tank is 2200 gallons and has some massive rays and fish with about 4 lbs of food a day when rays aren't pregnant.
 
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