How to connect Pump to system?

[Jeff]

Out of curiosity, if you use a sponge filter, doesn't that leave most of the fish waste solids behind in the tank, thus not delivering them to the grow beds?

I don't want solids in my growbeds. In fact, I pre-filter the water through a mechanical filter between my pump and growbeds to eliminate them. Plenty of nutrients in the water alone without gunking up the growbeds with extra crud. There are also plenty of solids that make it past the sponge prefilter and wind up lodging and decomposing in my mech filters.

So despite the little bit of poop that makes it past the sponge filter, is the rest of the poop just sitting in the fish tank? If so, do you have to occasionally clean that out somehow? Or does it just eventually break down into small, microscopic poop pieces that get sucked up through the sponge over time and into the system?

[bsfman]

So despite the little bit of poop that makes it past the sponge filter, is the rest of the poop just sitting in the fish tank? If so, do you have to occasionally clean that out somehow? Or does it just eventually break down into small, microscopic poop pieces that get sucked up through the sponge over time and into the system?

Yes, it stays in the tank and eventually breaks down. The dissolved nutrients are always in the water. Two of my systems pump from a sump separate from the tank, so with or without sponge filter, there's still going to be solids in the tank. In my largest system, the sump is the tank. It's an 8' diameter wading pool, so there is really no way a single pump is going to manage to suck all the poop and leaves from the tank anyways. All of my systems use a mechanical/biological pre-filter before the water enters the growbeds.

[keith_r]

occasionally i do siphon the bottom of my tanks if i notice any buildup..
i've read quite a few debates on the subject of adding filtration to an ap system, with folks pretty passionate about what they think
if i was gettinga buildup of anything in my growbeds, and my growbeds had a healthy worm population, i'd think that i was either overfeeding, or underfiltered, and would approach it from there.. by either adding growbeds, mechanical filtration, or reducing stocking density..
i've seen gravel growbed systems that were not cleaned in years that had no significant buildup..
the nitrification process occurs mostly on the surface area of the media in the growbeds... so i would prefer that the solids make there way to the growbeds..

[Jeff]

I have no problem leaving the sponge filter off my pump in the fish tank......I just don't know if this will damage the pump or lower the lifespan of it (it's a mag drive pump).

With this initial system, I wasn't having any sump tanks or extra bio-filters to buffer anything.

[keith_r]

completely a personal choice.. leaving the filter on does add a level of maintenance
on the other hand, i'm using sponge filters in my breeding tanks (minnows, crayfiish, scuds and glass shrimp)
for my first system i bought a pond pump from home depot, it's a mag drive, i never used the filter, and it's been pumping pretty much nonstop for 2 years this may..