[dutchfrompredator]

i followed the instructions in nitrorfish's diy thread about making a wet/dry. i am a retard with anything i haven't done before so it took a little trial and error but she's up and running well. i need to make a lid for over the tray to reduce noise and dust, but for now it's fine. it's for a 72 gal tank. i used a ten gal. tank as a sump. rio 1700 and generic overflow. two gallons of bio balls, acryllic from lowe's and some silicone. wish me luck. here's a pick of it running and staying in one piece to my delight.

 

[stingray]

Any tank-pics , for how you let your water IN and OUT the filter ?

this situation must be 100% safe, if it's not some day you can come at home and your tank is empty

 

[dutchfrompredator]

yeah, give me a few minutes. it's an amiracle overflow with pvc fittings and rubber o rings and standard pre'filter sponge on the way down into the drip tray, and the return is another pvc to tubing operation to the plastic outlet hook. all hoses are bound down with those metal rings you can tighten with a screwdriver any time they meet with a fitting and the return outlet has a hole drilled just under the water line. that way, reverse siphoning is prevented. i ran all the equipment out of a bucket for a full day to see any potential trouble spots. none so far. let me see about a pic of the upstairs part.

 

[dutchfrompredator]

jesus christ you're making me paranoid now. anyone see any problems thus far?

 

[acidWarp]

Only problem I see is that cover missing from the top of the drip tray (but you said you were going to add that), make sure you secure that line to the tray, you dont want to find it's moved and decided to empty onto your floor instead one day

Also, do you have your overflow beside your return? I would move each to opposite ends of the tank to get a little current going.

Cept for that, looks awesome

 

[dutchfrompredator]

you're right acid warp. it is too close to the prefilter box. i'll move that when it gets settled in and i identify a configuration i like. right now it's just a trial run to make sure the whole setup works so the tank is kinda thrown together. it's not a total loss because i oriented the outlet nozzle so it's pointed nowhere near the overflow box. i'm going to do a drip tray cover and make sure that elbow is secure so no spillage with wandering hoses occurs. for now i have it zip tied down. this was kinda a practice model so i could familiarize myself with the ins and outs so i can build a big 30 gal one when i upgrade tanks. any questions about it feel free to ask. i do recommend building one if you feel interested in not spending the full amount on a trickle filter. if you are even slightly competent with projects you can do this. i am not at all and it kinda came out decent. if you already own a pump and overflow box and they're not in use, you can do this so cheap it's not even funny.

 

[dutchfrompredator]

one more of the whole setup. needs a background i know. twin ac500's and two gallons of bioballs sound adequate for a 72 gal. tank?

cutting a cover for the sump today.

 

[acidWarp]

you're right acid warp. it is too close to the prefilter box. i'll move that when it gets settled in and i identify a configuration i like. right now it's just a trial run to make sure the whole setup works so the tank is kinda thrown together. it's not a total loss because i oriented the outlet nozzle so it's pointed nowhere near the overflow box. i'm going to do a drip tray cover and make sure that elbow is secure so no spillage with wandering hoses occurs. for now i have it zip tied down. this was kinda a practice model so i could familiarize myself with the ins and outs so i can build a big 30 gal one when i upgrade tanks. any questions about it feel free to ask. i do recommend building one if you feel interested in not spending the full amount on a trickle filter. if you are even slightly competent with projects you can do this. i am not at all and it kinda came out decent. if you already own a pump and overflow box and they're not in use, you can do this so cheap it's not even funny.

[snapback]874790[/snapback]​

Yeah, I plan on making one of these for my 150 gal when I get it setup. I'll be buying the overflow, but the sump will be a tank. Any suggestions as to what size I tank I should use for this?

 

[dutchfrompredator]

i'm not an expert, but you want to accomodate about 1 gallon of bio balls per 35-50 gallons of water in the tank. if you're doing a 150, why not get a cool five gallons of balls and filter the sh*t out of your water? i'm not sure how big a sump you need, but i will say i used a ten gal tank and have room for three gal of bio balls easily. you could probably go as small as 20 gal or as large as you can fit under your stand imo. what size tank do you have lying around? i'd use a 20. wasting a tank larger than that cuts into habitable piranha space.

 

[acidWarp]

I have a 15 gal i could use, I'm thinking the most important part is the quantity of bio balls you can house (I use the little 1" coralife ones in my 180's wet/dry, more surface area), so if I can pack a lot in, it should be good. If not, I'll probably go with a rubbermaid container. Thnx for the input.

 

[MR HARLEY]

Looks Great Dutch

 

[stingray]

It looks nice dutchfrompredator

What is happens whit the tank when you take out the electricity , is the capacity from your dry/wet filter enough to have the water ??

(sorry for my bad language)

 

[dutchfrompredator]

the tank i used is a ten gallon. when operating the tank it only has about and inch or two of water. if power fails, then a little water comes back to the sump but less than the gallons it will take to overflow and destroy our home.

if you drill a small hole in the outlet hose just under your water line, there is no physical way it can over flow the sump because the hole becomes exposed as the water line goes down, allowing in air and destoying the revese siphon after a couple minutes of back flow and cuts off. my heater's in the sump too. my fish love their setup. their color is awesome and the fake plant jungle is their bag baby. they just hover and cruise all day about halfway deep around the plants. the ac500's are stacked with carbon and ammochips to boot. i also add instant amazon and ketapang extract to keep my fish feeling alright. their bellies are brightly colored but they are so dark up top it's awsome. they're growing like weeds and eating like hogs too.

 

[sweet lu]

growing like weed eh?

nice fish, and like like your set-up to man

only thing is, mine wet/dry owns yours :rasp:

 

[dutchfrompredator]

dude, if you made it yourself and it's kickass, hook me up with how you did it and what you used. i'll certainly be making another larger one sometime soon and would love for it to be amazing now that i kinda know what's up with them. yeah, the fake plant rainforest is stimulating as hell i must say. it's quiet enough that you can sleep, but you get that trickling and green leafy plants swaying in your room thing. i'm not going to lie. i'm going to piss myself when i get a 125 gal and hook that up so it's shoal tastic. i'm thinking i'll add a couple more caribe because mine is the most active, fast growing, huge eating, up in your face on the glass whenever you're in there just seeing what's up, little fish. the fish are fuc++++ delighted between the filtration and plants and fresh salmon they just ate.

 

[Jebus]

what happens when your power goes off for 20 mins, and ur sump fills but does not overflow, then after 20 mins the power comes back on turning your pump on but not re-syphoning your over flow box,? wont u either runn your pump dry for as long as it takes for u to start the syphon again, or might the pump over flow your main tank since the syphon hasnt started again in the overflow box wich in tern lets no water back into the sump

 

[Roger]

damn that water is crystal clear

 

[dutchfrompredator]

roger-thanks
jebus-that's scary. i've never heard anyone mention it happening. do you lose the siphon in that case or does water just remain in the tube? i don't know. once again, i'm a little worried now.

it's still purring like a kitten as of now.

i took a nice media bag of ceramic rings out of my ac500 and added it to the bio ball pile that's getting all the trickling since ac's are not known whatsoever for their bio filtration. those ac's will be doing strictly chemical and mechanical from now on and leaving the boys downstairs to do the heavy lifting. BACTERIA HO!

 

[Atlanta Braves Baby!]

Superb filtration system for that tank there bro!

 

[sweet lu]

dude, if you made it yourself and it's kickass, hook me up with how you did it and what you used. i'll certainly be making another larger one sometime soon and would love for it to be amazing now that i kinda know what's up with them. yeah, the fake plant rainforest is stimulating as hell i must say. it's quiet enough that you can sleep, but you get that trickling and green leafy plants swaying in your room thing. i'm not going to lie. i'm going to piss myself when i get a 125 gal and hook that up so it's shoal tastic. i'm thinking i'll add a couple more caribe because mine is the most active, fast growing, huge eating, up in your face on the glass whenever you're in there just seeing what's up, little fish. the fish are fuc++++ delighted between the filtration and plants and fresh salmon they just ate.

[snapback]875084[/snapback]​

it was easy, ill write how i did it and stuff and include some pics, i made mine just really tall out of a 10g tank, the tower takes up half of the 10g and the tower has about 3 cubic feet for bio media balls to fill into, i was just going to use leftover legos as bio media, but i ran out, going to go out and get some bio balls for it and some ceramic rings and filter spong to, it also has places i made so i can add carbon and filter pads, and also a place for heaters and such, pretty sweet for about $70

look out for a thread coming sound about it