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Diy Trickle Filter


Leema

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This is how my father and I constructed the trickle filter for my 5ft tank.

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We got a bucket and filled it with our bio material. This is apparently off cuts of bio balls, but I'm not really sure. There are HEAPS of these little plastic things stacked tightly into the bucket, to provide as much surface area as possible.

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The bottom of this bucket has big holes drilled in it. The holes are at the lowest point in the bucket.

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This is my drip plate. A ice cream container cut down in size with holes drilled in the bottom. It's probably about 1 inch deep.

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My mechanical filtration sits on top of the drip plate. It's foam from the aquarium store.

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Then the lid fastens on top. The lid, obviously, has a hole in the top at the middle.

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As odd as it looks, this is to prevent the bucket and so the biomedia sitting in the water. We found that the plastic lid bowed over time to allow the bucket to sit in the water.

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This is what sits in the cabinent under my tank. It's a plastic tub which I think is about 40L... Not quite sure. The hose coming in at an angle (to the big hole) is a siphon from the tank and, the hose on the left coming straight out of the tub is from the pump.

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This is the pump that sits inside the tub, in the sump. (Excuse the mess!)

Note: This was before I had filled the tub up. The water level does not go beneath the height of the pump regularly.

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There is a little groove around the large circle for the power cord to the pump.

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We wanted the sump to be completely closed off from the cabinent to prevent moisture.

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This is how it sits with the bucket in place.

The valve for the return was originally inside the tub, as otherwise it'd leak. However, we were able to get metal fasteners to prevent leaking and so the valve now sits outside the sump.

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We put carpet all around it to try to muffle the noise from the pump and also prevent it rattling against the sides.

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This is where water comes from the tank. It's a diagonal strip of glass that sections off a corner of the tank. The water overflows into here. The foam is on the siphon head so that fish don't get sucked in. Please excuse my snails and plant debris!

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This is the return to the tank - a spray bar. (It only has air bubbles coming out when if first starts to work, not regularly.)

I'm thinking of modifying the return after a recent siphoning incident...

So there you go. Hope that's helpful! Questions I'm happy to answer.

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It was about a year ago... Ummm... Bucket tower: Free, had it lying around the house Biomaterial: $10 for HEAPS. It did this filter, the filter in my pond, and I still have plenty left over. Ice cream tub drip tray: Free... Of course. Foam: $12 White sump tub: $40 (exact fit for cabinent - if you weren't so particular, it'd be cheaper) Pump: $64 - $126 Total Piping, valves, etc were additional. I don't remember the prices for those. <_<

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hey leema very nice idea just wondering how you go with power outages as your return pipe seems to fairly deep into your tank does the sump hold enough water when the tank starts to syphon when pump stops oops just read your last comment I'm thinking of modifying the return after a recent siphoning incident. still a very good job and would like to know if you have had any other problems and do you run your heater in the sump Ray

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Nice Job Leema. There is one part i dont understand though. How is the water moving from the tank to the bucket? just by a regular siphon or is there some sort of suction from down in the bucket. Just wondering if your pump becomes clogged and dosent pump enough water out if you will eventually just sipon the tank into the bucket and empty it, or is it a sealed closed system?

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Thanks for the comments. :dontknow: I'm going to be adding a checkvalve SOMETIME to the return valve to stop it siphoning... It's only done it once though - every other time it has had the 'opportunity' the top hole on the spray bar is quite high, so it stops siphoning rather quick. Alrighty, Phil! The water in my tank, once it is pumped over a certain level, overflows into a compartment on the side. At the top of this compartment is a drilled hole where a bulkhead is attached to the tank, and from there the pipe leads into the sump. I created this pipe into a siphon - it siphons water out of the side compartment, and into the sump. From the sump, it gets filtered, then pumped back into the tank by the spraybar. This addition of water causes water to overflow into the compartment once more. I hope that makes sense! :eadshake:

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Hey leema if you add a check valve try and go up a couple of sizes as i found with mine it restrics the flow greatly there is not a lot of movement on the valve part so it reduces the flow also they are not 100% as i have found out I had one syphon back into my sump there must have been a small ampunt of crap get caught in it :eadshake: Ray

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