# Question about sump media?



## Castro235 (Mar 4, 2010)

Hey everyone, so I've finished(to a point that it works, but it will be redone in the future) my overflow system, and my sump tank for my 55 gallon tank, but I have a question on if the medias I chose should work well, or if they will have a negative impact, or just be useless, etc.


I have the sump tank divided into four sections, the first section is empty, the water flows into there, then it goes into the second section through filter floss, then to the third section through porous rocks, and then the fourth section I cut up a large amount of small sections of 1" pvc tubing, as a sort of bio-ball type of thing, with no purpose but bacteria surface area.


Do these sound like they would be okay for filtration/bacterial growth?

Does any have suggestions on any better cheap medias to use?

Should I have them in a different order for some reason?


Would love to have any input on this.

The tank is still empty except for playsand substrate, i will be mostly doing large slate chunks, and stone for decor, either some large pvc tubing or some clay pots for caves and such(probably covered in stone), possibly a few fake plants, and probably some live plants, looking into christmas moss, java moss, java fern, and a few others.

The tank will house three still very small goldfish(comet/common), eventually there may be more, but these three are it's only inhabitants for quite awhile.

It seems to have been suggested that the tank would cycle best, and be most beneficial for everything if I were to do a fish in cycle with the three goldfish, so that is what I will be doing when it's prepared, but I just want to be sure I have a good enough filtering setup for them to have a good environment.









The PVC segments








The rocks I chose(they looked best to what I could think of as porous rock)








The sump tank, with a pretty bad, but to the point depiction of how the flow moves.


The red lines are where water travels over or under the divisions, and the blue section in the center is a solid divider, so the water flows into the back left corner, over a divider to the back right corner, under a divider to the front right corner, and then over a divider again to the front left corner, where the pump is pumping the (hopefully cleaner)water back into the tank.


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## iamntbatman (Jan 3, 2008)

What about using lava rock gravel as a filter media? You should be able to buy big bags of that for not much money compared to purpose-built biomedia.


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## Castro235 (Mar 4, 2010)

iamntbatman said:


> What about using lava rock gravel as a filter media? You should be able to buy big bags of that for not much money compared to purpose-built biomedia.


Would that be something instead of the rocks I have in there?
Or something good to have as well as them?


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## iamntbatman (Jan 3, 2008)

Well, the lava rock normally used for gardens is a lot more porous than the rock you've got in there now (at least from what I can see) so it might make a good replacement. I think it would also probably make a better surface for bacteria to grow on than the PVC rings you've got there as it has a lot more surface area.

I'm pretty sure most lava rock is inert, though something in the back of my mind says that it will sometimes raise your pH/hardness. This shouldn't be too much of a problem though as goldfish do just fine in fairly hard, alkaline water.


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## rsheets (Oct 25, 2009)

I have read that plastic does not offer a very good surface for bb to grow. I know bio balls are plastic but I have reason to believe that plastic does not offer a very good solution. I base that on the ammonia and nitrate problems I still have with my tank even though I have about 10 gallons of bio balls in my sump. 
A gravel bed may work well. Maybe you could even put an under gravel filter in your sump? I just added a round pool filter to mine as a huge bio wheel. Guess we'll see how that works in a week or so, maybe longer, I'm not sure how long it would take for the bb to grow on it.


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## Castro235 (Mar 4, 2010)

rsheets said:


> I have read that plastic does not offer a very good surface for bb to grow. I know bio balls are plastic but I have reason to believe that plastic does not offer a very good solution. I base that on the ammonia and nitrate problems I still have with my tank even though I have about 10 gallons of bio balls in my sump.
> A gravel bed may work well. Maybe you could even put an under gravel filter in your sump? I just added a round pool filter to mine as a huge bio wheel. Guess we'll see how that works in a week or so, maybe longer, I'm not sure how long it would take for the bb to grow on it.


I ended up getting some tufa rock, and I plan on getting either more tufa rock, or lava rock today or tomorrow.

Going to just scrap the pvc chunks, they were just something I had, so it seemed like a good idea, but I'd rather go with that I know will work, and lava/tufa rock is so cheap I don't mind buying it at all.

In comparison to a normal HOB filter, would the lava rock be the equivelant of the bio-canister, and the filter floss the water goes through be the same as the mechanical filtration?

I'm just not sure of exactly what defines bio-filtration, and mechanical filtration, but I'm assuming the water passing through the filter floss would be the same as normal mechanical filtration, and the lava rocks would serve the same purpose as a bio-canister in a filter.


Also curious, is there any reason not to throw some chunks of futa/lava rock right into the tank with the fish?

I like the look of it, and if it can house beneficial bacteria it would seem like the more the merrier, the only real concern I have is that it is kind of sharp and jagged so I don't know if it would pose a big hazard to my goldfish.


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## rsheets (Oct 25, 2009)

A lot of people put lava rocks in there tanks.
The floss will be good for both bio and filtering out particles as long as the water has to flow through it.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Castro235 (Mar 4, 2010)

rsheets said:


> A lot of people put lava rocks in there tanks.
> The floss will be good for both bio and filtering out particles as long as the water has to flow through it.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Gah, the filter floss will end up housing bactera??

I'm going to be all nervous of an ammonia spike now whenever I change it, not that it'll be too too often, but hopefully the rocks and decorations will hold enough to keep the tank stable, and I'll only chance half the floss at a time.

>.<


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## iamntbatman (Jan 3, 2008)

Well, bacteria will colonize just about every surface they can adhere to, but once the tank has been established for a while you should have enough bacteria in your biomedia and on your decor that the floss could be changed without issue. Also, you can just gently rinse the floss in the water you remove during water changes, which should help de-gunk it without getting rid of too many bacteria.


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## Sageo3000 (Apr 23, 2009)

all of your filter media is completely submerged?


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## Castro235 (Mar 4, 2010)

Sageo3000 said:


> all of your filter media is completely submerged?


Yeah, it's all completely submerged in different sections of the sump tank, so the water flows over/under/through everything.


Does anyone know if I may have made a big mistake using tufa rock in my tanks?

I can't really find as much info on it as I would think there is, but it looks like it raises pH and or hardness or alkalinity or salinity?

I see places that say its good for freshwater, and places that say its bad, so now I'm kind of lost.


Thanks again.


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## Sageo3000 (Apr 23, 2009)

Castro235 said:


> Yeah, it's all completely submerged in different sections of the sump tank, so the water flows over/under/through everything.
> 
> 
> Does anyone know if I may have made a big mistake using tufa rock in my tanks?
> ...


ammonia munching bacteria are highly aerobic so you'll need a lot of oxygen and a lot of surface area. You have a lot of surface area, but lacking in oxygen. of course there is dissolved oxygen in your water to begin with, but having a drip somewhere in the system is much more efficient. Think about adding a tray in the beginning of the system, as in, right after the output hose coming from the overflow. in the section under the tray, add as much media as you can, bioballs are great because of the mega surface area, and it creates spread out drip. put trays right after the output, one on top, on on bottom. bottom holds the biomedia out of the water, and the first tray, if there are holes in it, will spread the water out, increasing surface area.

your sump works as it is now, but you can always increase efficiency, creating less work for you and happier fish down the road.


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## Castro235 (Mar 4, 2010)

Sageo3000 said:


> ammonia munching bacteria are highly aerobic so you'll need a lot of oxygen and a lot of surface area. You have a lot of surface area, but lacking in oxygen. of course there is dissolved oxygen in your water to begin with, but having a drip somewhere in the system is much more efficient. Think about adding a tray in the beginning of the system, as in, right after the output hose coming from the overflow. in the section under the tray, add as much media as you can, bioballs are great because of the mega surface area, and it creates spread out drip. put trays right after the output, one on top, on on bottom. bottom holds the biomedia out of the water, and the first tray, if there are holes in it, will spread the water out, increasing surface area.
> 
> your sump works as it is now, but you can always increase efficiency, creating less work for you and happier fish down the road.



Well, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by adding a tray, the way I have it now the overflow goes into the water about 2/3s down, in the first section which is filled with tufa rock, I drew a really bad diagram, but it's better than my description probably.








The blue line is the water level, the green pipe is the flow coming from the tank, and the entire section is filled with tufa rock just under the water level.

Would putting an airstone into that section to keep lots of oxygen in the water right where the bacteria is supposed to be help?


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## Castro235 (Mar 4, 2010)

I also forgot to mention I have a large slow spraybar for the tank, it is from the return pump, so it's kind of far far away from the bacteria colonization, but I don't know if the slight aggitation of the surface would put much oxygen in the water, let alone enough to make it all the way back to the sump. It goes slmost half the lengh of the tank, but is a slow flow(I'm assuming because of it's size) so I don't know if it's really adding any oxygen at all.


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## Sageo3000 (Apr 23, 2009)

like this


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## Castro235 (Mar 4, 2010)

Sageo3000 said:


> like this


Wouldn't this leave most of the media dry if the water level is that low and it's just water dripping down over it?

I wouldn't be able to use bio balls because of the price as well, but I would assume the same theory would be suggested with lava rock.

I don't know that i would be able to set that up with my current sump tank setup, it's actually a really abnormal system I set up in a 10 gallon tank, where the tank is divided into the four corners, I'll try to take a few decent pics, but since it's not cycled yet or anything this would probably be my best time to consider redesigning it. Maybe I'll just build a better sump tank setup out of a tote box.


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## iamntbatman (Jan 3, 2008)

Well, the idea of a system like that is that the media is kept "wet" by having water constantly flowing over it, but is also exposed to a lot of air, which means there's a ton of oxygen available for use by the bacteria (the same sort of theory behind biowheels, for example).


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