New Filter Idea

Hey guys, I had an Idea for a different type of filter. Its kind-of a twist on the traditional wet/dry trickle filters. The basic setup is to use two pieces of egg crate to hold some bio-media within a PVC pipe. The Pipe would stand upright and water from the display tank would come in through the top. Then I would place an air stone in the bottom to oxygenate the water. My goal is to increase efficiency by increasing the amount of water flow and adding more oxygen then is added naturally in a conventional wet/dry apparatus. Also, instead of letting water just fall through it, all the media would be submerged and the air stone would provided the oxygen rich environment. I could be way off but the idea just came to me and I wanted to see what you guys think.



Hola8)

 

If the flow rate is going to be decent, you would want the air stone to be on the intake aide of the bio-balls. This would pull the air through the filter. You are going to run into the same problems as with a normal wet-dry with this though, so if you do it be sure to make it easy to get apart and clean the balls.

 

Thanks for responding mikejrice! I don't think I'm understanding why I would get better performance by shifting the airstone up into the intake. Can you explane it a little more please?

 

In your drawing, the air stone is downstream of the bio balls. None of the bubbles would flow through the bio balls. I'm not sure if that's what you are going for, but that's what he's referring to

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The way it works in my head is sinse the pipe is standing upright, the water will flow down and out, but the bubbles, sinse they float will move up through the media. I'm hoping it will work somewhat like a counter current skimmer where the water flow holds the bubbles in stasis for a few moments before they find there way to the surfice.

 

With any amount of flow there will be enough pressure to push the air bubbles down and they wont come up.

Another thing to consider with your idea is how are you going to stop/reduce the microbubbles that are going to form from the airstone?

 

Thank you khowst, I see what you're saying. I guess I'll have to move it to the intake. As far as the micro bubbles, I was just gonna make this an in-sump design and use a simple baffle bubble trap.

 

I think the best question is why are you planning this filter. It's basically going to fill the same position as liverock only with some downfalls. If you have enough rock already, I wouldn't even try it. Also if this is for a reef tank, you may run into nitrate problems with it, so I wouldn't try it either. You won't be gaining much, if anything, over a standard wet/dry filter in the end.

 

mikejrice, your points are valid. But for me its more then just reinventing the wheel because there comes a point when, well take for example cycling the tank. You can read about the nitrogen cycle, and you can study graphs and records from other people. But until you actually have a system setup and running you're never going to get a feel for what you can safely do. you know how your system reacts. My goal in building a different filter is to develope a better feel for how biological filtration works, how to judge what a filter can handle. And that comes with knowledge, and getting your hands dirty. And if you use several different filters you can develope a feel for how much bioload a potion of bacteria can handle, instead of judging by the filter type. This allows us to break free from convetional means and build custom (weird) setups that actually work. Am I making sense?

 

Sounds a lot like a diy canister filter with bubbles. But then with enoughair and water flow it would probably foam up like a skimmer. I would bet if you used sand as the media it would act like a fluidized sand filter with enough flow.