Haha thanks man! Just things I’ve picked up over the years. I like pushing myself and am trying to teach my sons to take pride in their work. My 16 y/o and I built that setup together.
Lets see what's in your stand! mechanical photo's
- Thread starter tcarswell
- Start date
Nice set up! I was going to pm you but it wont let me something to do with your settings. Are you doing some hydroponics there too? Id be interested in seeing that a little more. Ive been working on that to help make a more natural filtration and less water changes. Plus maybe grow some veg for us and the tortoise.
I designed this setup originally to create biomass to feed my shrimp and to remove nitrates and phosphates which it does very well, but I found out that it keeps the water pretty clear as it collects most of the solids that are suspended in the water and removes them automatically. This contraption along with a few plants has kept the water quality very nice in this system and I have never needed a water change just keep topping off the sump tank with a float valve as needed.
the fish room has been a project of mine for some years now. I enjoy playing with hydraulics, pneumatics, and energy recovery so I made a lab. All 62 tanks are on one water pump that moves 4600 GH on 200 watts draw plus many air lifts. From the pump the water goes through my filter/ bio mass generator and then through the tanks. I have several greens and lettuces growing in a NFT style aquaponic system still off the same water pump. These plants help keep the nutrients from the shrimp and fish at a balanced level and the greens taste great, plus the plant roots become snacks for the snails and shrimp. I breed and raise Macrobrachium rosenbergii which is a giant river prawn along with many other fish and snails.
I assume you want more on the filter. Its been a long quest to get where I am now. I will try to describe the filter for you. I started with a sand filter many years ago and realized how much more power the water pump had to use to push the dirty water through the sand, not to mention all the water waist when backwashing it. Next was a bio media trickle filter which uses much less power to run but had the same water waist when cleaning it. I took the trickle filter and turned it upside down meaning I took a barrel with a few screens to hold in the media and flowed the water from the bottom of the barrel up through the media and out a drain at the top. This works great. I used air to clean the media before I just opened a valve to discharge the dirty water. still a lot of water waist so eventually I connected another barrel under the media barrel to collect air and release it all at one time to clean the media. The dirty water drains into the bottom barrel cleaning the media then the pump fills the media barrel back up with clean water. the dirty water is now in the lower barrel and the dirt will settle on a drain system that will automatically push the sludge into an anaerobic system (another barrel) to finish removing nitrates and phosphates. After this process the sludge is removed with a valve to a mineralizer for an outdoor hydroponic system. This limited my water waist to almost nothing. I also figured out how to collect the air off of overflows and compress it for use on this filter it turns out the technology is called a troumpe and works wonderfully. I built a foam fractionator that runs another hydropic system with its discharge on the same system.
I am sure I left something out and I am glad to answer any questions, but remember I have sacrificed many fish learning how to build this system and there are many things that need to be considered if going to use this style of filter. It took me a lot of time to get the anaerobic filter to not be a nitrite generator and choosing carbon sources can be even trickier so be very careful.
Texas Joe
I assume you want more on the filter. Its been a long quest to get where I am now. I will try to describe the filter for you. I started with a sand filter many years ago and realized how much more power the water pump had to use to push the dirty water through the sand, not to mention all the water waist when backwashing it. Next was a bio media trickle filter which uses much less power to run but had the same water waist when cleaning it. I took the trickle filter and turned it upside down meaning I took a barrel with a few screens to hold in the media and flowed the water from the bottom of the barrel up through the media and out a drain at the top. This works great. I used air to clean the media before I just opened a valve to discharge the dirty water. still a lot of water waist so eventually I connected another barrel under the media barrel to collect air and release it all at one time to clean the media. The dirty water drains into the bottom barrel cleaning the media then the pump fills the media barrel back up with clean water. the dirty water is now in the lower barrel and the dirt will settle on a drain system that will automatically push the sludge into an anaerobic system (another barrel) to finish removing nitrates and phosphates. After this process the sludge is removed with a valve to a mineralizer for an outdoor hydroponic system. This limited my water waist to almost nothing. I also figured out how to collect the air off of overflows and compress it for use on this filter it turns out the technology is called a troumpe and works wonderfully. I built a foam fractionator that runs another hydropic system with its discharge on the same system.
I am sure I left something out and I am glad to answer any questions, but remember I have sacrificed many fish learning how to build this system and there are many things that need to be considered if going to use this style of filter. It took me a lot of time to get the anaerobic filter to not be a nitrite generator and choosing carbon sources can be even trickier so be very careful.
Texas Joe
Here’s my little setup .20 gallons Acrylic blue box with filter floss & bio balls, then water flows down to 200 gallons acrylic sump, first chamber has ceramic rings, second chamber has black filter foam with a intake hose from my fx6 canister connected to arctica chiller for the summer months and the third chamber has a c02 reactor & pump ,heater, return pump,
That's the first time I've sen an electrical outlet behind an aquarium without a single thing plugged in it.
Running the fluval FX6 and fluval Q2 air pump for my 120g. Absolutely love both and highly recommend. I also really like the fluval zero carb 3 packs.
