billberet
Aquarium Advice Freak
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2012
- Messages
- 393
well I've been fishkeeping for 30+ years and I've always had canisters on the FW side of the house. but I am tired of cleaning them and they become a nitrate factory. so I decided to build a system that never needs a water change or cleaning. So far so good, all my chems are 0 and I do a 40GPD drip system that creates a full water change every 7 days.
lets start with my original system, simple, one 150gal FW with a UV and FX5.
you can see the beginnings of my drip system with my carbon block RO system on the wall feeding the tank.
lets start with my overflow, I have a eshopps 1100.
I modified it by removing one of the tubes and replaced it with a 1/2 inch flex tube, which I punctured with a hard airline tube that runs to a LIfter pump to my sink, but i'll get to that later. the trick with overflows is to properly match the return pump to your overflow. I knew the 1100 was too high so all you have to do is replace your overflow tubes to adjust that volume. I never have to worry about air bubbles because I made the flow almost identical so there is a tremendous head pressure in those lines, sounds like a jet engine. NO bubbles can survive. it's a simple fix that most people don't do, they leave their bubbles and get pumps to fix it, granted I have a pump on mine, but it serves a different purpose.
my overflow then goes into my RS-300 from eshopps, I took all the media out of my fx5 and put it in the second chamber, after the filter socks, this way the water is cleaned before passing over the media. then it travels into the second section which is full of K1 micro and fluidized.
the last chamber is for my return, where I added my ato and sensors. you can see the color difference from the FX5 media to my new 3 week old K1 micro, soon the color will turn darker and they will drop more, but for right now they are doing great. a benefit of a fluidized bed is healthy bacteria. all dead bacteria is knocked off the media by the constant churning. I do this by both air and water, I created a bubble bar, with big bubbles, and I have a power head on the far end. the two of these things really fluidize things well, there are tons of videos on fluidized beds, most only use air, because it's cheap, but it's also NOISY. but in my case I needed more flow so I used a power head and the air bubbles create a chamber of maximum constant gas exchange.
to avoid floods, I put a leek detector inline, when your dealing with an unlimited water supply, this is a must !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I then added an additional float switch to kill the ATO if the level is reached.
the return then goes into the UV before returning to DT. my FX used to pump into this, so I just removed the fitting and added a new one from my sump return pump. and I kept the existing plumbing from here on.
then finally I have my lifter pump that pulls water from one of my overflows
here is my flow out of my tank from the pump, this then goes to an exit drain, then the tank is filled by my ATO. so my water changes are constant. it's not really a water change but a water dilution. which is safer for your fish.
I hope I gave some ideas to you,
this is just one way of doing things.
everything is still raw, I haven't polished the setup yet, when I find all my final locations for my items I can pretty things up.
so far I am running 2 months without a water change and all my chems are 0
so I think I'm doing good !!!!
lets start with my original system, simple, one 150gal FW with a UV and FX5.
you can see the beginnings of my drip system with my carbon block RO system on the wall feeding the tank.
lets start with my overflow, I have a eshopps 1100.
I modified it by removing one of the tubes and replaced it with a 1/2 inch flex tube, which I punctured with a hard airline tube that runs to a LIfter pump to my sink, but i'll get to that later. the trick with overflows is to properly match the return pump to your overflow. I knew the 1100 was too high so all you have to do is replace your overflow tubes to adjust that volume. I never have to worry about air bubbles because I made the flow almost identical so there is a tremendous head pressure in those lines, sounds like a jet engine. NO bubbles can survive. it's a simple fix that most people don't do, they leave their bubbles and get pumps to fix it, granted I have a pump on mine, but it serves a different purpose.
my overflow then goes into my RS-300 from eshopps, I took all the media out of my fx5 and put it in the second chamber, after the filter socks, this way the water is cleaned before passing over the media. then it travels into the second section which is full of K1 micro and fluidized.
the last chamber is for my return, where I added my ato and sensors. you can see the color difference from the FX5 media to my new 3 week old K1 micro, soon the color will turn darker and they will drop more, but for right now they are doing great. a benefit of a fluidized bed is healthy bacteria. all dead bacteria is knocked off the media by the constant churning. I do this by both air and water, I created a bubble bar, with big bubbles, and I have a power head on the far end. the two of these things really fluidize things well, there are tons of videos on fluidized beds, most only use air, because it's cheap, but it's also NOISY. but in my case I needed more flow so I used a power head and the air bubbles create a chamber of maximum constant gas exchange.
to avoid floods, I put a leek detector inline, when your dealing with an unlimited water supply, this is a must !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I then added an additional float switch to kill the ATO if the level is reached.
the return then goes into the UV before returning to DT. my FX used to pump into this, so I just removed the fitting and added a new one from my sump return pump. and I kept the existing plumbing from here on.
then finally I have my lifter pump that pulls water from one of my overflows
here is my flow out of my tank from the pump, this then goes to an exit drain, then the tank is filled by my ATO. so my water changes are constant. it's not really a water change but a water dilution. which is safer for your fish.
I hope I gave some ideas to you,
this is just one way of doing things.
everything is still raw, I haven't polished the setup yet, when I find all my final locations for my items I can pretty things up.
so far I am running 2 months without a water change and all my chems are 0
so I think I'm doing good !!!!
