Fish sediment

[chrisfoerst]

I have another issue. The fish poo and sediment is collecting at the bottom of my 75 gallon tank and doesn't appear to be taken up at all by the pump. I am using a Quiet1one 1200 which works great otherwise. The only other thing I have in the tank are air bubbles from a whisper 300. Does anyone have a recommendation for getting the fish waste into the pump? Or, am I missing a step all together?

[keith_r]

what kind of tank? i have to occasionally vacuum out the bottom of my rectangular fish tanks.. but the slo's do a pretty good job of getting most solids into my "middle" tank - i've got 3 55gal glass tanks with the beds overflowing into the outside tanks, and the pump running in the middle tank

[chrisfoerst]

It a regular 75 gallon glass aquarium. By vacuum, do you mean one of those hand operated siphons? what kind of tank? What does slo stand for?

I have my tank on boards and around it rests a wooden stand I built that supports two half barrels. The water is pumped up to the barrels and then returns to the tank. I am testing Oliver's theory that a bio filter can double as a grow bed if they are at least 12 inches deep.

Thanks for the help!

[davidstcldfl]

Hi Chris, SLO AKA.... Solids Lifting Overflow. You can see a drawing I made of one here....
Flow or the water

I don't pump my solids...so I can't help you there...

The grow beds 'are' bio-filters, ( and most of the rest of the surfaces in your system, to one degree or another)...once nature has some time.

[rfeiller]

You can also create a current that directs the waste to the pump. But you will still need to do house cleaning.
Using the grow beds as Bio filters works good for me, even at 6 inches or less. You can have any surface at any depth it can be used as a biofilter. There is a filter surface area where the badcteria can colonize to bioload volumn calculation. There are endless arguments about what media and methods are most efficient, don't worry just keep the water circulating for oxygen. At a 12 inch depth you have way more surface area then necessary.

[keith_r]

my tanks are standard glass fish tanks (trying to figure out a bigger diy tank now).. as noted, slo is "solids lift overflow" so the water is drawn from the bottom of the tank into the tank with the pump
my "vacuum" is just a plastic tube i fill with water and siphon from the bottom of the tank.. an aquarium vacuum/siphon would be fine
in the summer this water goes to my dirt plants
and yes, the growbeds are biofilters, i have worms in mine to break down solids, and keep the roots clean. if you have sufficient growbeds, you won't need any additional mechanical or biological filters (unless you want to "polish" your water

[urbanfarmer]

I always get you fellers confused because of the prominent "r" in both your names...

Anyway, you have one other option since it's a small fish tank. You can add gravel to the bottom and then add some composting worms to the gravel. The worms will eat the fish poop, and the worm poop will be eaten by heterotrophic bacteria and released into the water in a process called mineralization. The plants can then absorb the processed waste matter.

[rfeiller]

The raft system is the only system that has had a negative affect with the detritus the other systems seemed to have benefited from it. I need to add an interim vessel for the detritus to break down.

[urbanfarmer]

The raft system is the only system that has had a negative affect with the detritus the other systems seemed to have benefited from it. I need to add an interim vessel for the detritus to break down.

Unfortunately, you are right about that. There are several ways to filter it out efficiently. If you need some ideas designing let me know. I have thought about it more than once!

[rfeiller]

i am going to set up two 4x4 trays to try out the air gap theory versus the air stones. the 6" in depth raft will have air, the 12" will have an air gap of 2". ahead of the two trays i'll install a sediment filter to attemp to seperate out the detritus. we'll try to kill two birds with one stone.