another wet dry question

[omartinez]

Hi, thanks for this site and all the things i've learn and will learn here.

So as i'm heading to add a 112 galon tank (60lx24wx18h) to my house and i know little about plumping, pipes and most of all wet/dries filters, I'm a litle confused about some things. I know this questions may have been answered before, have read some post about wet/dry, but most of them, with no offense at all, are in space rocket science language to me.

well to the point, i want to have this time a wet/dry filter as main filtration (and a fluval 305 as additional), these are the question i need to clear up :

1. for my tank i'm planning to have a CPR overflow box, the CS90DX to be exact. you said on another post that using a larger overflow is better, so do you recommend that i buy the CS100DX model instead?

2. On that same reasoning, i plan to get a Rio plus 3100 pump, if i change that overflow model should i get a stronger pump? the distance from the display tank to the sump will not be more than 4' foot

3. the w/d will have 30x16x16=33g of volume, is this good?

4. the filter will be diy and i've this primitive design in mind, what do you think? what do i need to improve?

 

[jerrybforl]

You have the right idea just backwards. Your sponge should be used right before your pump to help with micro bubbles. The size of your tank is not much larger than mine. I have a 100gallon and I use a 20gallon DIY sump. Works great with no problems. http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/8939-Step-by-Step-Sump-Build?highlight= This is my thread on my build. If your using a 30gallon, not sure you'll be able to do what you want with all the different chambers. You need good mechanical filtration. Say a a 100 micromol filter pad on bottom, followed by some sort of floss filter, and lastly a block sponge. That should trap all your mulm and what not. You should use around 3 gallons of bioballs. That should give you plenty of biological filtration. The pump will be plenty. I suggest using ball valves on your pump so you can adjust the flow of the pump. IMO you should just simplify your design. Say lose the piece that seperates the pump and the two pieces that surround the sponge. Slide everything over and that would work great for you. Hope this helps you out. The link of mine is there and has been running for about 6 months without a problem. Any questions just ask.

 

[omartinez]

i like the suggestion of doing just one large return pump and equipment area and one media filter area, but you said to remove the pieces surrounding the sponge, if i do that there will not be a sealed area, and according to what i read from tom, the in of the filter must be sealed the prevent co2 degasing, or i'm wrong?

 

[jerrybforl]

You are correct but if you look at my thread you will see that there is a a lid on top. You have to use the lip of the black trim on the tank as your seal. Simply cut out the acrylic to fit on that lip. My post explains how to set it up. You can place your block sponge just before your pump side. How was you planning on sealing that section? My CO2 stays. I get a nice pH from that. I've actually had this conversation with Tom about this face to face. He told me that to further seal off that section I could simply tape it off. But I have a pretty good seal. I'm sure its not 100% but for me close enough.

 

[omartinez]

with the help of a friend of mine, we will be making the tank for the w/d ourselves. The plan is to seal the inlet section with a glass sheet (dont know how big yet) and silicone, that way that secion will be sealed for good preventing degas, and the tube that take water down from the tank will be a little above the water line as i read somewhere that will regulate a litte more noise.

the initial idea with that design, is that water passed to that first sponge to reduce bubbles and initial filtration, on the next media area could be more mechanical media like sponge/floss (havent decided amount or type of each), on the second area i could place bioball or biobale; it look big in the drawing but it is no more than 5x16x16. With your suggestion i could remove that second media area and put all media together leaving more space for equipment

yet i dont have much equipment, a heater (optional because here in my country almost all year is hot), uv filter, red sea 500 co2 reactor, of course the return pump and maybe in the future a PH controller