Jim Miller;70700 said:
Tom
I've been digging through your other posts on w/d. On your 60 cube it appears you have your w/d media directly below your drip tray with no medium to spread the water. Is that correct?
Where are the prefilters located that you describe? Or do you just let the detritus collect in the w/d material and get consumed by the bacteria?
Thanks
Jim
the prefilters are in the overflow hang on unit, search "CPR prefilter hang on".
There is a small sponge where all the shrimp generally end up(to be culled) and catches most of the larger muck.
I clean these weekly etc.
Takes a second.
The drip plate has not filter pad, often the wet/drys come with these, but I tape up the top edge where you can pull out these drip trays to remove the filter pads etc, so I do not bother, they clog and back the water up too fast anyway.
I put a nice thick foam sponge block in the sump after the wet/dry tower. this is the main bio/filtration, generally a 20ppi and 30ppi.
I use the foam from swisstropicals and cut the foam to suit using a bread serrated knife, these cut through foam like they do through bread.
Next up is the return pump.
I add the heater and stuff it up the tower generally and out of the way.
The needle wheels go right next to the intake of the return pump.
The activated Carbon/purigen etc, goes before the sponge filters if I use it.
A larger than needed over flow and a smaller return pump are wise, I'd rather run the return pump wide open without any ball valve or gate valve reducing the flow(waste energy).
The larger over flow will minimize any gurgling noise a bit more than an undersized prefilter.
Built in prefilters and DIY are another article etc..........beananimal's (search google) has some of the best types, but they are DIY and add stuff to the tank, if you are clever, having a built in overflow outside the rectangluar box, would be ideal.
Marine reef site shave many different set ups for sumps/wet/drys/plumbing schemes from Hades.
Worth a look.