Thanks Luke. I think I have gathered everything I need but am substituting Flourite. Hope that is as good. I saw people were using it it since the other stuff was too hard to find. I did find the brand of litter that everyone here was using.
I found these baskets. What do you guys think? They are sold as pantry baskets so I am assuming they would be safe for the tank. They will fit the refugium perfectly once I cut the handles off. I will line them with the plastic canvas. I need to drill holes in the top and bottom, maybe more on the corners. Once the litter and Flourite are in I will use small cable ties to close it up.
Am I good to go with this set up?
Anoxic filter baskets.jpg
Last edited by Jenene; 02-03-2018 at 04:59 PM.
"You can't trust water: Even a straight stick turns crooked in it." -W.C.Fields
"You can't trust water: Even a straight stick turns crooked in it." -W.C.Fields
It's out of desperation Ryan. I love my Discus but feel really guilty on the days I have skipped the changes knowing that those toxins are building up in there.
I thought this looked too good to be true but watched the original videos of the science behind it and now seeing it actually being put to use in Discus tanks is very encouraging.
Why mow the lawn with scissors if you have everything you need to build a mower and it would only take 10 minutes to make it? That was a really weird analogy but you get it....
"You can't trust water: Even a straight stick turns crooked in it." -W.C.Fields
Here's how to make a super cheap and large 5 gallon canister filter. Seems like this would work great with one of the prefilters attached to it. You could put a large BCB basket in it as long as you followed the principles of the "Lukeway BCB" canister filter video I posted.
DIY 5 gallon canister filter: https://youtu.be/hL271pKi_qY
Prefilter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00KN...ster+prefilter
How to BCB canister filter:https://youtu.be/4uefD7acEiI
Curious to know if anyone else testing the nitrates see a stall or slow down in nitrate filtering once the ammonia is used up.
Cant edit my last post, but this makes sense on how baskets work. My nitrates stalled out at 5ppm when my ammonia readings hit 0.
Ideally now I would need to eliminate all extra nitrafing bacteria surface area except for the baskets and use a couple pothos stems to eliminate the free floating nitrates.
Mechanical prefiltering would ideally be some sort of disposable media like floss or socks and changed out as much as possible. One of those new roller mat mechanical filters would work great for this type of filter. I would avoid sponges.
Continuous drip system would actually be really usefull now.
Last edited by shime; 02-04-2018 at 02:17 PM.
Hi folks!.
I also love the work of Dr. Kevin Novak so I must have the AFS in my discus tank setup.
My tank is 120x60x65 cm and holds about 432 liters of water and my sump is 60x45x45 cm (120 liters). I have 9 discus fish... 7 between 4.8" to 5.5" and 2 littles. I'm running 1 powerhead of 2000 l/h and a pump of 1000 l/h in an horizontal sump system (with bridges instead overflows).
I started the AFS in early december 17 and I use Cat's Pride Natural as my kitty litter and Seachem Flourite red as my iron source. The Cat's Pride Natural have too much dust to use it right away, so I had to rinse and sift well in 2 steps:
1. To get the big rocks (To use it in my BCB)
2. To get the small gravel (To use as substrate)
The Dr. also sold me the idea of a plenum, so what I made one using a lighting diffuser and camba. As substrate I use lava rock + flourite + cat's pride.
For my BCB the idea was... the biggest the better... the BCB works like a magnet so... 30x30x30 cm was my solution... I built it with the same materials as the plenum.
The AFS start the 12/02/2017 at today (02/06/18) it is 66 days old...
The nitrates were almost the same as always... between the 30 mark with API test kit... But in these 2 months I only did 3 wc... I also left my normal biological filtration (2 gals of pumice) in the sump. That's the reason of my nitrates... but in the process they did not go up fast, it's more like they kept constantly... I just did not want kill my fishes with an ammonia spike...
My set up was good, but not that good really... the water was passing only for some parts of the BCB so I just put an air filter in the other side to get more flow and with that I saw a decrease in the nitrates readings... So... The past saturday I remove all the pumice to left the BCB alone in the sump.
3 days later... the ammonia and nitrite readings (API) are 0 ppm, so... the System seems to be working and I hope a good decrease in the nitrates readings in no more than 15 days.
I don't have pictures right now... so... Until the next time!
Excellent. Thanks for sharing, I know I appreciate finding out other people's experiences.
Thanks Jack I was going to use the plastic canvas but the tulle seems like a good idea as well. Thinking water flow may be better with the canvas. Have to go get more baskets. My husband cracked them trying to drill them. I borrowed a better bit from our maintenance guy here at work. I’ll do it myself this time.
"You can't trust water: Even a straight stick turns crooked in it." -W.C.Fields
As mentined towards the start of this thread I am goi g to tryout the system first in my goldfish pond. Just ordered materials but I also git some of these
https://www.google.it/search?q=tetra...kL9iquJIUYoBM:
I think these canvas pond planters will cut down greatly the "dust" from the kitty litrer
From my experience, dust isn't really an issue. The day I put my BCB's into my sump, the tank went cloudy but ~ 24 hrs later it was clear again. Just rinse them off and it should be fine. The only time dust gets into the tank is when I take a basket out and even then the dust coming off of it isn't too bad.
Hi guy, I want to do this myself, but does the clay blow up PH somehow?
Hello Harry, the clay is simply zeolite, so it will not effect your PH in any way.