JMorgan
Member
I've just got an above tank trickle filter for my Roma 200, which is actually 175 litres.The tank is quite heavily planted with swords, crypts, java fern and anubias - nothing demanding - is low/medium light with akadama substrate and has a bunch of corys, tetras and a pair of angels.
Having zero prior experience of trickle filters, at least beyond those I've DIY'd for my pond using garden planters, I'm wondering what kind of spec to aim for with the pump?
While all the pumps I'm looking at could be considered low power in that they're less than 40W, as this is going to need to run continuously I'd like to use the minimum power to get the job done. I'm wondering to what extent if any I could use a lower flow rate than typically thought normal (between 5x and 10x) because of the massive amount of oxygen available in a trickle tower?
Obviously this is a low tech tank without CO2 and most of the info available tends to assume using a canister filter for aquariums and those that discuss trickle filters are either in marine sumps or referring to pond type volumes as well as koi and goldfish level muck production.
In case anyone's interested the filter is on eBay here
I'm also going to play with growing some plants in the top layer (it will have a pre-filter) so ideas on small attractive, possibly trailing, plants that don't grow as big as peace lilies or get as straggly as pothos and which would cope in the low humidity of a centrally heated house very welcome
cheers
Julian
Having zero prior experience of trickle filters, at least beyond those I've DIY'd for my pond using garden planters, I'm wondering what kind of spec to aim for with the pump?
While all the pumps I'm looking at could be considered low power in that they're less than 40W, as this is going to need to run continuously I'd like to use the minimum power to get the job done. I'm wondering to what extent if any I could use a lower flow rate than typically thought normal (between 5x and 10x) because of the massive amount of oxygen available in a trickle tower?
Obviously this is a low tech tank without CO2 and most of the info available tends to assume using a canister filter for aquariums and those that discuss trickle filters are either in marine sumps or referring to pond type volumes as well as koi and goldfish level muck production.
In case anyone's interested the filter is on eBay here
I'm also going to play with growing some plants in the top layer (it will have a pre-filter) so ideas on small attractive, possibly trailing, plants that don't grow as big as peace lilies or get as straggly as pothos and which would cope in the low humidity of a centrally heated house very welcome
cheers
Julian