Cheap DIY trickle tower with sump

[Zslaugh]

I just got my first reef tank 10g nano, light stock so far. I found people using desktop organizers as a trickle tower and a plastic bin as a sump. After some research I found these types of filtration increase nitrates in the system. How can I get around this? How can I best set up this system?

[treesprite]

I'm trying to imagine this in my head. Can you post any link to an example?

[Origami]

I just got my first reef tank 10g nano, light stock so far. I found people using desktop organizers as a trickle tower and a plastic bin as a sump. After some research I found these types of filtration increase nitrates in the system. How can I get around this? How can I best set up this system?

Nitrates become elevated because of two factors: The trickle tower is highly selective to aerobic bacteria that process ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate. Second, the nitrates are released into the water column and not in close proximity to anaerobic areas harboring bacteria that process nitrate to nitrogen gas.

 

Live rock offers aerobic surface environments for the first type of bacteria and, just below the surface, harbors the second type close by so that nitrate can be further reduced to nitrogen.

 

Alternatively, you could employ macro algae to help the uptake of nitrate and phosphate.

 

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[Zslaugh]

Here is the link to the video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2WBo3u9arUo

 

 

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[Origami]

Thanks for the video. This approach to using a plastic drawer set was proposed years ago by SeaSave (a local Maryland entity). They may not have originated the idea, but I do remember seeing it quite a while back. 

[Bruleyii]

Do the plastics leach anything into the water?

[Origami]

Do the plastics leach anything into the water?

Nothing has ever been said of it. Honestly, I've not followed the use of these. But, because of the tendency to elevate nitrates, they were deemed suitable for fish-only systems but less so for other systems that might have more sensitivity to high nitrate levels. There are lots of ways to build a cheap trickle filter tower. This was just one. You could do the same with a 5 gallon bucket with or without some egg crate.

[treesprite]

Wow, lots of interesting ways to use plastic containers!

 

Honestly, I really don't understand the value of a trickle filter, but have never used one.

 

What if the trickle filter incorporated an algae scrubber? The water could flow over the algae, then below the algae a panel made to distribute the water to get the "trickle" rather than a waterfall.

 

For that matter, the bottom level could have a DSB in it. Might be a good way to deal with limited horizontal space. I guess the panel below the AS would be able to block most of the light from it, and the lower levels could be black to keep from ending up with stuff growing in the DSB reservoir.

Edited October 20, 2016 by treesprite

[Origami]

Tying it in directly to an ATO might give better results than the DSB approach. Once the nitrate is in the water column, it's considerably slower to diffuse into the anaerobic layers.

 

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