Use of wet/dry filter

[wally]

I am setting up a 75 gallon tank to cycle as a future home for 6-8 discus. I have a wet/dry filter I made for a reef tank. Can I use this for added CO2/oxygen exchange. Aslso should I have any media inside of the exchange box.

[Carol_Roberts]

Hi Wally:
Sorry, I don't know anything about wet/dry filters. I use basic sponge filters or Aqua Clears with internal sponges.

[wally]

Thanks for the reply. As you can see I am just starting with discus. Very nice site.

[Webzilla]

Wally,

I've been using a wet/dry trickel setup in my 175 reef housing 18 discus. This system has worked wonderfully for me and I strongly believe in Wet/Dry Trickel Systems. They offer massive biological filteration. I have a 40 Gallon Sump using 10 Gallons of BioBalls. I can't say enough about it. I also use the Lifegard QT-40 UV Light prior to pumping the water back into the tank. If Wet/dry's can keep reefs and inverts flourishing they will be superior in a Discus Tank. My tanks is proof of that.

PS. Make sure you have good mechanical filteration in your wet/dry (Foam or Filter Media) prior to the Biological filteration to clean the crud out of the water and keep this clean at all times when housing Discus.

Good luck!

John....

[Cosmo]

Wally,

My understanding is that wet/dry's are unsurpassed in gas exchange which make them excellent filters for a Discus tank.

Not familiar with Webzilla's trickel system, but would love to learn more from him - most common wet/dry setups use pumps that output more gpd than is normally used in a Discust tank. I have a traditional wet/dry sitting dry (unused) because of this, so... WEBSIZILLA.. how'd you set it up to trickel?

Currently use an Eheim wet/dry in my big show tank specifically for the gas exchange quality of wet drys but would love to setup this other with a drip system for my breeder tanks if that's possible.
Jim

[kpix99]

THE BEST FOR GROWING BIG DISCUS IME!


Cary Gld!

[Webzilla]

Cosmo,

Well this is the second time I typed this. I closed the window down accidently :(. So here we go. About my filteration Wet/Dry. I have an oceanic 175 Bowfront Reef tank. It has two trickel overflows in the back in each corner. In the Overflow boxes there are two spnge filters each about 8 inches high and about 6 inches wide to catch all the debris first hand there. It works great but I got to tell you it is a pain in the butt to clean.

That is plumbed at the bottom of the tank using 2" clear mess tubing each side connecting into a T adaptor routing into one 2" drain directly into the filter sump. It's first stage it passes through the blue/white filter media and into 10 Gallons of bio balls. The water then flows under and over into the chemical area, where I run Chemi-pure bags (6 of them) - This Chemi pure stuff is great, try it out! I makes your ater crystal clear and has a softening effect on the water which the Discus seem to like. It then flows under and over into the 40 gallon Sump. It is heated there using a 300Watt heater which is enough to get the water to 90 degrees max temp. It is then pumped using a rio "2600 I think" into the Lifegard QT-40 UV Filter and then pumped to a 1" T and split back into the tank. The water pressure on the Rio is full blast. I don't get the water flow that is rated on the rio because of the T split and the head room. It is flowing up 4.5 feet on each side and that is 9 feet because it is split.

The system works great for me, Wet/Dry's are great systems and I have had great success with it. I have 3 Discus that are huge. I'm not kidding but they are about 10" from head to tip of tail. and to think they both were only 1" to 1.5" when I got them.

Any how any questions you have about setting up the WD and if I can help I would be more then happy...

Thanks!

John....

[RyanH]

John,

You have a moral responsibility to post pics when making claims of 10" Discus. ;D
It's written in the rules of conduct somewhere I'm sure of it.
:P

[Webzilla]

LOL.... It's a rule huh? Heh - I'll post a pic... A Rule is a rule!

[shalu]

The Koi lovers have found a great side effect of wet/dry filters(they call them Trickle Towers): REDUCING NITRATE! you read it right. I know most of us were told that trickle filters are "nitrate factories" because they are very efficient for biological filtration. However, when configured properly, it was found that the nitrate in the water column can be kept low (like around 10ppm) almost indefinitely without water changes! Nitrogen escapes into the air as gas. What I learned from the Koi forums is that there are a few factors for this to happen:
a) A tall wet/dry media chamber is better than short/fat design(almost all commercially availabe wet/dry filters are very short).
b) The media chamber should be as open as possible for free gas exchange. Again, commercially availabe wet/dry filters are almost always fully enclosed on the sides, leaving only small gaps at the top. Some people use air pumps to supply counter current air flow in the wet/dry chamber.
c) High KH is very beneficial for reducing nitrate.

I have used wet/dry filter on my heavily planted tank for two year now, and loved it. Many people with planted tanks worry about oxygen supply at night when the plants compete with fish for it, I never have such worries with wet/dry filter. Oxygen is never in short supply. It initially had only one discus plus other fish, moderately stocked, so nitrate was never high. In fact, I had to ADD nitrate to maintain a 5-10 ppm level like many planted tank people do nowadays. I really got into discus about 6 months ago and put over a doze juv in a bare bottom tank. Boy, that was a lot of work with daily water changes! To me, anyway, even using python with straight tap water. So I moved them to the 100g planted tank, which now houses 13 4"-6" discus plus 80 other fish. It is overstocked by many standards, I know I am breaking way too many rules here as a beginner :) I only learned about the nitrate reducing effect of wet/dry filters recently, so I am running some experiments, tweaking the wet/dry filter along the way. It has been 10 days since last water change, and my nitrate measurement has been 10 ppm the last few days. I added a grain of tree stump remover(potassium nitrate) into the test tube afterwards, and sure enough, it turned deep red, proving the nitrate test kit is not giving me crazy results. I will run more experiments and report later.

These links might open some eyes about wet/dry filters:
http://www.koi.com.my/cgi-bin/koiforum/gforum.cgi?post=3071;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;f orum_view=forum_view_collapsed;
http://www.koivetforums.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-13769

[Anonapersona]

I am very interested in this, for I studied trickle filters for ponds before I brought fish into indoor aquariums. (Never did build it, but I did get the plan done and the parts collected, there was some info on 24" as a minimum height being necessary and some ratios of flowrates and media volume)

My concern, beyond the humidity in the house, which is not an issue for the fish pond outdoors, is that there may be things other than ammonia/nitrite/nitrate that are produced by the fish that need to be removed from the tank. Most of the serious koi people I knew online that had trickle towers still did water changes, even with 8' tall trickle towers. And, of course, koi are stocked at fish/gallon ratios that we discus keepers only dream of.... 1 fish per 100 gallons was typical. Nope, my error, I went back to review some of the koi sites, 1 fish per 250 gallons is the rule of thumb I saw.

anyhow, some good info on filtratin here...http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/water/waterhome.htm

[shalu]

Ana, one Koi can weigh as much as 30 pounds, how many fat discus would that be? ;) When comparing different species of fish, the stocking rule of thumb should be weight/gallon, not inch/gallon or fish/gallon. I am not trying to totally avoid water changes, my usual routine is 50% weekly water change, for the plants as mush as for fish. I am just trying to explore the boundaries with some experiments. If daily wc were ALWAYS REQUIRED for discus, I would have flushed my discus down the drain by now. I THOUGHT I could handle daily wc to grow out some juvs, but I was soon worn out, plus the fish in bb tank just do not do anything for me.

[Anonapersona]

I was at the Oriental Garden in Austin today, watching a huge koi and wondering how many adult discus that might equal :) If one of those monsters required 250 gallons, then 10 gallons per discus seems about right (mentally slicing up that fellow into 25 slim fish!)


How much does a discus weigh? I'm not about to try to weigh one, maybe someone knows though.

That koi reference talked about ammonia production based on food weight or volume and sized filtration to ammonia removal. It talked about the importance of solids removal.

All very interesting, and I'm with you on this, just trying to establish the boundaries. This daily water change thing can only last until early October, for I have a 10 day trip then and Grandma is not likely to want to do this for me.

I did find that with only frozen foods, shrimp and bloodworms, no BH or NLS pellets, there was very little solid waste in the tank after this overnight trip.

If I can get all the fish moved around by then, I might be able to get the wet/dry installed for the discus. Cichlids to the 58 and 55, discus to the 105, switch all filters around. I dunno, I might make it, might not.

[Cosmo]

Hey John,
Thanks for all the good info - main thing that's stopped me is the concern of the hi gph that standard w/d filters normally requires. The T split I'm sure makes a huge difference, but don't you still have a pretty healthy stream going back into the tank? I"m trying to come up with a scheme that will trickle in as well as trickle out.. not sure if it's doable but you've given me some great stuff to work with.

Like yourself, I am a true believer in Chemi-pure... great stuff. Use 7 bags in an eheim 2217 on my 180. Still do 40% W/C's religiously, but do notice a difference when the CP isn't in there.

Thanks again, and thanks for the offer of future help, I'll probably be taking you up on it :)

Jim

[Anonapersona]

Cosmo,

What sort of gph do they use for wet/drys and why can't that be slowed down?

I have a wet/dry from a used SW tank that I will put into service when I move the babies to the big tank, but I have to buy a water pump. I don't know how to size it.

My current waterchange water pump will put out about 75 gph at 5' and I may buy one from Lou that does the same. It seems a bit strong, but with a larger hose that might feel more gentle.

I would think that the filter would not care about the flow rate, slower would be better as it increases dwell time. The only concern would be getting proper turnover in the discus tank.

How do I know what proper turnover for a wet/dry is??? 75 gph vs 100 gallon tank volume might be too slow.

[Webzilla]

Cosmo,

The input pump pumps the water across the top of the tank. I have two outflows, the water probably pumps as fast as 1/2 an open tap in your sink on both sides. The tank is 4 feet deep so in my case it probably isn't such a big deal. I don't think Discus like alot of turbulance in a tank, one thing you could do is build a spray bar of some sort and put it 1" inder the water level and aim the water for the middle of the tank upward to the top. That will solve a lot of problems.

Hope that helps...

John.....

[Webzilla]

Anonapersona,

2.5 to 3 times the size of your tank. Personally I don't think that would really matter. The important thing to remember is to have your BioBalls or whatever material you use for your bacterial bath :) gets a good trickel "a constant" trickel. It is more important to keep the water flow slower for discus then say a mega pump like one would use in a reef. One way is to build a spraybar on the return and point it up to the surface from 1-2" under the tank line. Point the spray bar to the middle of the tank - this should help eliminate the undertoe! :) If your see your Discus flipping and rolling as they swim by that would be a strong indication that the water flow is way to high... I would go with your 100gph pump and see how it works before you invest your money in a new pump... Although, if you split the pump keep in mind it also splits the water flow ratio. ie... Pump pressure...

Have a great day!

John.....

[Anonapersona]

What is "splitting the pump"?

And, explain this to me, if you don't mind... (so much I don't know!)

This wet/dry has a hang on box that has a u-tube to the outside part, a sponge prefilter then goes to the filter below the tank. Now, when I do a water change, will I lose the siphon each time? Looks to me like if the water level goes below the box, it might break siphon... or does the water STAY inside the box to keep siphon when I drain the tank. Or will the weight of the 5' of water outside the box tend to pull all the water out of the little box? Yes, I think that is how it works, designed to keep siphon, but will it on a tall tank? --- sorry, I have the thing up in the attic and can't look at it, photos online only do so much. It was used on a SW tank and that was a lot shorter than my 105 gallon tank.

So, I need a pump that can run in relatively low water levels and when I shut off the pump I may or may not have the full tubing of water come down the line if it breaks siphon during water changes.

Making this transition may get tricky.

[Webzilla]

Splitting refers to putting a T after the pump and turning 1 return into 2. And to answer your question about losing siphon, yes you will once the water level drops below the siphon line.

John.....