Tank Upgrade 450-550g Planning

[TexasMFK31]

The sump could be on the smaller side, I run a 75G sump mostly full on my ~475 with a Jebao pump. If you are doing a drip with the overflow, it won't matter as if the power goes out, this will prevent overfilling the sump. You just need to make sure there is room enough for your heaters and media. I am going to raise my sump so it right behind my tank so if power fails there really isn't even a level change at all. I only have opinion on the sump , as that is all I have experience with. Can't wait to see the build!

 

[timtk]

Have you thought about running a smaller sump/less turnover in tandem with HMF? You might find yourself not having to wash sump filter socks very often with this combo, especially if you're only keeping a single aimara. Like the guy above me said you could throw in a ~75g ish sump. You can always find a cheap glass tank on craigslist and put in some DIY walls.

(I have no idea what Ultima/Biowave is so can't comment on that..)

 

[nzafi]

Have you thought about running a smaller sump/less turnover in tandem with HMF? You might find yourself not having to wash sump filter socks very often with this combo, especially if you're only keeping a single aimara. Like the guy above me said you could throw in a ~75g ish sump. You can always find a cheap glass tank on craigslist and put in some DIY walls.

(I have no idea what Ultima/Biowave is so can't comment on that..)

I am not sure this would work. HMF work with very slow turnover of 2-3x per hours. When you drastically increase that with change the sponges from bio to mechanical essentially. I have never run a sump and was always under the impression that you run them at higher turnover to achieve better water clarity. Running both in my opinion just adds a bunch of cost without significant benefit really.

 

[timtk]

I am not sure this would work. HMF work with very slow turnover of 2-3x per hours. When you drastically increase that with change the sponges from bio to mechanical essentially. I have never run a sump and was always under the impression that you run them at higher turnover to achieve better water clarity. Running both in my opinion just adds a bunch of cost without significant benefit really.

Increasing HMF turnover wouldn't necessarily change them from bio to mechanical. (Although you're right in the sense that nobody really does this, its just an idea and you seem inclined to use HMF. )Sumps operate at turnovers of 3-10x and have both bio and mechanical components (mostly bio). In fact most fish keepers in Germany tell me they like HMF because of the high bio capacity. You can operate a sump and the HMF both at 3x turnover if you wished. Even if you left the HMF at 2-3x turnover and the sump at 10x turnover I don't see why this would be a problem. Moreover the cost of running HMF pales in comparison to a sump, you're just using air pumps to drive water through the sponges with very little power. I would anticipate the power cost of operating one or two two HMFs and a sump at low turnover to being similar to the same as a single sump with 6-10x turnover.

Plus with a sump, you can house heaters, thermometers, refugium etc and maintain a cleaner look. Another way to minimize changing a sock to soften is to use a sponge or a filter pad that matches the dimensions of the first stage of the sump. Or buy filter socks with a very high pore size.

 

[nzafi]

timtk thank you for the feedback. I am nervous with the sump because I am not handy and the plumbing will be a pain, however, I do want to do the right thing. I am trying to manage costs and I don't see the added cost of sump with HMF not given much benefit. If I do a sump I will probably do sponges with filter floss that I toss instead of socks.

From a bio capacity, I am amazed with how much a hmf can handle. I connected with Steffan from SwissT and its crazy how much these filters can support. His calculation is the following:
- Area of the poret = height x width x thickness
- Filtering capability = Area x internal surface
- Capacity = 3lb of fish per sq ft (this is based on fisheries with insane feeding he said, essentially what the main german hmf website assumes)

For example, if I wanted to do two corner filters with a radius of 8in in my planned 8 x 4 x 30in tank.
- Area = 28 x 12.5 x 3 = 1050 x 2 = 2010 (covers 2 corner filters)
- Filtering capability = 2010 x 32 sq cu in = 64,320 (32 sq in cu is capacity of 20ppi poret)
- Capacity = 64,320 / 144 / 3 = 149lbs of fish ( divide by 144 to covert to sq ft and then 3 for assumed capacity needed per lb of fish)

Based on his calculations I can drop to even a 6in radius if I want. Ultimately with my stock level I will be way under. Pretty crazy.

This will be my dream tank and the wife is not going to be happy if after a couple months I want to spend more $ to redo things. This will be a show tank in my family room, so I am trying to figure out a way to hide the corner hmf filters or if I should go with just the sump. Researching what it will take to do a low tech planted tank and if I can use tree stumps and dragonestone to hide the filters. It would look awesome to have two "mountains" in each corner covering the filters.

 

[nzafi]

I do have a concern of heating the tank btw. For some reason, my heaters turn on a lot. I am running 650w on my 180g. The room itself is not cold as I keep it around 70-71 degrees. I am guessing having a cold water drip, HOB filters, and being next to external wall impact it. My hope is that with acrylic tank, and completely closed tank (assuming HMF filters) I will not need to spend a lot more on heaters.

I have my ranco controller set to 77 degrees and normally my temp does not drop below 76, but it does seem to be at 76 often.

 

[JasonsPlecosCichlids]

I hide all my heaters behind the matten, including extra media to seed other tanks. With a corner matten, you don't even really see it, its streamlined and mimics a corner over flow system. When people come over they ask me what filtration do you use with all those messy plecos, I tell them you are looking right at it, they look and look, then I usually have to tell them where it is. With my black background, the black mattens blend right in. Even if the mattens seem to take up room, that room will most likely never even be used by the fish, especially something as big as a wolf. You can also combine different ppi to catch the smaller particles, just have to clean it more often. This is also easier to setup a backup system, all you have to do is but an extra jet lifter or even buy the super lifter, have the main air pump on one line and an electric/battery operated air pump to the other lifter so when the electric goes out the pump switches to battery automatically and you still have filtration, not as strong as the central pump but you still have filtration, pair that central air pump with a UPS and you have an extra hour, at least I do with my 1250 watt ups, that's something many, many folks over look and something canister, HOBS or sump folks can't say they have unless the have invested a lot of money in a nice system or run sponges themselves and already have an electric/battery pump. I know for sure in my next house I will have a generator tied into my house for those purposes. I even put pothos behind the mattens to keep them in place, all kinds of things you can do with these.

 

[JasonsPlecosCichlids]

My house is around 73 right now, the heaters are 250-300 watt, the tanks stay at 80-83, same in the summer, so no issues here with heating my tanks.

 

[nzafi]

Quick update. I am heavily leaning towards HMF filtration. There are just a lot of benefits to having "closed" environment. pacu mom has given me a great idea of using pentair mechanical filters though to boost the mechanical side.

Essentially, I would use hmf on a 3-4 turnover for purely bio filtration. I can then do separate plumbing for pentair rainbow rtl-25 or rtl-50 cartridge filters with a dedicated pump doing about 6x turnover. The whole objective of this filter is to leave the HMF undisturbed for longer, but to help me achieve the goal of never doing any gravel vacuuming. I would essentially put two drain in the middle of the tank (bottom drains with strainers directly on the bulkhead) and then just plumb two returns coming in out of the HMF corner filters so you never see any piping.

My only issue I am working through is if the current will be too strong for any substrate. I prefer not to do bare bottom as I want this to be a "show tank". My thought is something like black diamond blasting sand might be heavily enough. Otherwise maybe I still with fluorite.

 

[TexasMFK31]

My only issue I am working through is if the current will be too strong for any substrate. I prefer not to do bare bottom as I want this to be a "show tank". My thought is something like black diamond blasting sand might be heavily enough. Otherwise maybe I still with fluorite.

Black diamond, at least the kind I use is fine, like a sugar sand. While heavy and settling quickly, it would settle right out the drain until you had a fine mesh cover over it.