fluidised sand bed filters

[Paul_MTS]

I'm doing research into filtration for my planned 10ft in the summer.

I'ved decided on FSB's for the biological side of things and small sump as the prefilter.

The only proplem being i'm not sure how big i need to make the FSB's. There going to be 2ft tall and they need to handle 4000lph. And still be able to hold quite a bit of sand for the bioload of the fish.

So any ideas on how wide I'll need to build them.

I'm planning on 3 return pumps, 2 4000lph to power the FSB's and UV's then a single 6000lph as a straight return.

This is a freshwater project by the way.

Cheers.

[Entropy]

My reef club just visited UCSB to look at their setup. They pump NSW from the Pacific into there auqatics department and their sand bed filters are massive. I would say 10 feet by 10 feet, and they have 4 of them. The director said they have to be big to be effective and they where not as useful for smaller systems. They push about 600gpm though theirs, so it might be different on low flow. Of course this might not apply to FW at all. :)

[Paul_MTS]

I know TMC design FSB's for shops marine systems and in some cases the systems are smaller than my planned tank, I know 1 shop has about a 500gallon system and they have a FSB about 3ft tall and 8" wide running there tanks, so it must work on smaller systems even in SW.