Any Trickle Filter or Wet/Dry fans out there???

[neodama]

Hi all,

I was wondering whether Tricke Filters & Wet/Dry filters have gone out of fashion since I last kept marine fish (10 or so years ago). I posted a similar question on another forum (MASA) but most responded negatively. I thought this was because it was primarily reef enthusiasts. So now I want your opinion guys: am I wasting my time trying to incorporate a trickle filter together with a DSB/fuge?

My setup will be FOWLR...about 700 GAL (2600 L) in total. Not planing on stocking lots of fish...just bit by bit...more variety than quantity...

Your opinions would make a big difference to me.

Cheers.

[SaltyMember]

Trickle filters are out of fashion in marine tanks now particularly with reef hobbiests. But, that is not to say they aren't used and can't be used. The biggest criticism against them is that they contribute to high nitrates which are undesirable in a reef tank.
You will come across the term "nitrate factories" when referring to them. Setups with enough liverock can handle the biological filtration for tanks without a trickle filter. Live rock also has the capacity to process nitrates in anaerobic areas of the liverock.

The bioballs or other media in trickle filters are very efficient at converting ammonia to nitrite, then nitrate but have no capacity to process nitrates. So, the tendency is for there to be a build up of nitrates unless you take other measures to decrease nitrates (ex. water changes, deep sand bed, macroalgae growth).
You can certainly use both a trickle filter in conjunction with a DSB/fuge but many people would say that is would not be needed if you have enough LR.
JMO, hope this is helpful.

[LisaD]

I am a fan of live rock in tanks. However, I had a 125 gallon set up for several years when I lived in Minnesota, from about 1991 to 1994. I bought the set-up used, and this tank had a huge home made wet-dry trickle filter. I think I kept it bare bottom, and added a lot of big pieces of live base rock. The system had a pretty heavy bioload. I don't recall that I had a skimmer. I was pretty disciplined with water changes, but they weren't anything crazy.

The tank always looked pristine, the fish were very healthy, and I never had a problem with water quality. I had good sized fish, too; a white spotted filefish, cuban hogfish and a mated pair of Naso tangs. When I moved to NC in 1994, I sold the set-up and adopted out all the fish. This set-up was not a nitrate factory, for whatever reason. Maybe it helped that it had a really good prefilter. The wet-dry used bio-balls. All my subsequent tanks since then use live rock and skimmers and/or refugiums. However, if I had that exact set-up again, I'd use it, and just add a good skimmer and refugium.

I would think if you have a really good-sized, productive, macro-based fuge, you could export a lot of nitrates. I have a HOT Aquafuge on a heavily stocked 55 predator reef, and I prune out about 3/4 of a gallon bucket of chaeto weekly. This isn't counting the caulerpa, halimeda and other macro that I prune out of the display weekly or biweekly when I do water changes.

Based on my experience, I'd make the DSB part of your fuge a bucket fuge that is easy to remove from the system if you have problems. I have not had great luck with DSBs, and have had nuisance algae problems with them.

[neodama]

You have both answered my question WELL to say the least. I have therefore decided to combine a trickle filter AND a DSB/Fuge into my sump. The main reason I'm insisting on having a trickle filter is to get rid of nitrites & amonia QUICKLY because I'm anticipating a lot of these compounds being manufactured by my huge FOWLR setup. I only hope my DSB/macro-based fuge can reduce the Nitrates to near as nil as poss.

Cheers.

[SaltyMember]

Since your system is large, just go big with the fuge also.

[lesleybird]

You know with a ton of live rock one might not need a wet dry filter. What I do is make both my overflows in my 200 gallon tank into a wet dry. What I do is use the big bioballs that have wide enough spaces between the spikes that they do not tend to collect crud to add to a nitrate problem. I fill my overflows over half full of bioballs and then use the micron filtration rags stuffed on top of the balls. I take the micron pads out every 2 weeks or so and wash them in the washing machine by themselves with a cup of unsented bleach and no soap. Take them out and put them in a container with water and a couple of caps of anti-chlorine/anti-chloramine stuff for a couple of minutes before putting them back. This way I have a wet/dry without having to make one in the sump. I do not use the new U Tubes that come with some overflow kits in the last couple of years....I take them out and use a shorter tube at the bottom of the overflow with some type of screw on strainer looking thing to keep the bioballs out of the return tube. Good Luck, Lesley in Houston.

[mattsilvester]

I purposely have not read the other replies, so that I can offer an opbjective opinion.

It depends what you want and what your objectives are - you say you want a variety - but is that a variety of predominantly triggers, eels, puffers and lions or is it a variety of angels, tangs and butterflies? And in either case - what is your idea of not heavily stocked? Your asnwers to this would dictate alot.

Lets assume it is the former - the bruisers. You main problem is going to be messy feeding and resulting ammonia/nitrite - nitrate is less of a concern and is secondary. To that end, I would not discount a wet/dry because they do have merrit - you can address nitrate as a secondary issue by having a remote DSB etc. Having said that, if you set up a bit enough RDSB, that in itself may take care of everything....... so it depends on how much space you have and how much you are willing to commit to it.

If you are talking less messy fish - angels / tangs / butterflies then disolved organics becomes more or an issue - in which case I would find it difficult to recommend a wet/dry. Depending on the amount of LR you (a) want to have and (b) can afford to have (it wont be cheap in a 700 gal tank) then the LR, along with a fuge / remote DSB will more than take care of waste issues, giving you better water quality.

You end goal, which will largely be dictated by the fish you choose, and their numbers is what will (or should) decide this for you. Are you looking for a big bold display with big bold fish, or something more subtle and mellow. How much time and money can you plough into this in terms of maintenance? Will you be looking for delicate species (relatively)? How concerned are you with obtaining maximum size / growth / colour for your fish? These questions are not meant to be rhetorical or judging in anyway - but if you are looking for large colourful angels and butteflies you need to aim for one thing - if you are content in the middle ground, its another, and if you want a tank full of bruisers its another thing again......

One last thing to consider - a 700 gal tank says 2 things to me:
(1) Even if you stock it lightly, you are still going to be buying quite alot of fish.
(2) If you ever have to get any of those fish out, for any reason - be that disease, bullying, overgrowing, etc. it is going to be a mammoth task.
Where am I ging with this? (1) Fish selection, and (2) Quarantine.
The fish selection is a topic for another day, teh q-tine however - well if you q-tine (and in my view you should, very carefully and thoroughly) then filteration is a matter of choice - if you don't / won't / can't q-tine, then when disease breaks out (and it will) you have to give consideration to how you'll treat the fish - and if you don't / won't / can't q-tine then that lets you 1 option - to treat "in tank"........ in which case the wet-dry gets a massive vote.

So - if I were you, I would ask myself these questions:
(1) Will I ever need to treat the fish in tank, or do will I elimiante the risk through careful q-tine?
(2) What type of fish will I have - delicate / sensitive OR big and messy.
(3) How much time and money do I have for the project? Investment in large skimmers, lots of LR, large fuge & DSB will pay dividends - but will cost alot to set up - relative to wet/dry. The wet/dry on the other hand will ultiamltey mean more maintenance, more water changes, more time & money in the long run.

HTH

Matt

[fishykid9212]

I am user of a wet/dry filter If you use a wet/dry and a skimmer and apply the sugar method like I do, you won't have to do water changes. I haven't done water changes in a couple years, the skimmer does it all. I made a thread somewhere about how to use sugar, its totally worth it