Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait water trough and filter

Im kicking around getting a rubbermaid 300 gal water trough and keeping some bait in it (fatheads/shiners). What i was thinking of to run an air pump all the time and then hooking up an extra battery/solar cell to my bilge pump with some sort of filter box and running that 2-3 hours a day. Any ideas or suggestions on the filter would be appreciated. Also with minimal filtration how many fish would be max?

with a new tank and no bacteria---max # of fish is zero. You will need at least 3" of small gravel in the bottom to begin the growth of bacteria and enzymes to neutrilize the ammonia, nitrate, and nitrites from the fish waste. Ammonia levels will spike quickly and become toxic with only a few small fish without the bateria. See a good pet shop and they can sell you a good "starter" bacteria, such as StressZyme. Regardless of your filter choice, it will need to have a BIO-Filtration component that operates continually.

I use the Fluidized Bed Sand Filter (model FB-900 by Pentair), it can handle overstocked fish or up to 900 gallons. Cost is right at $100. For waste I use Marineland Magnum 350 filters Ebay about $85).

Maybe a dumb question but I have to ask. Why does bacteria need gravel or foam to live, why can't they just live in water?

Thanks

Gravel provides a surface for the bacteria to live on. The gravel also provides a lot of surface area for more bacteria to grow.

this cant be exactly correct as i already have 2 barrels full of fish for 2 months now with only aeration.
I was thinking about building a filter with trays layered to hold water inbetween media of some sort so the filter would not dry out inbetween running.

I think it depends on how much biomass is in the system. Ammonia and nitrate reach there highest concentration near 21 days in a normal setup. If the tank has a low biomass it may take longer two reach toxic levels.

One of the students here at Tech had a RAS setup with 50 2" Pompano. He didn't add any filter media until a month after the system had been running and after two months the fish started dying. The system is about 400 gallons.

How well do aquatic plants remove A/N? If they do.

plants help to remove the nutrients. bacteria is all I can recall converting the ammonia and nitrates. Put a good qty of plants in a pea gravel subtrate and you have an excellent recirculating system (RAS).

Rainman -
Do you hook up your FB-900 up to your Magnum 350's outflow, or do you run the FB-900 on its own powerhead?

I've used both Wiess, but the sand filters will clog and are hard to restart if you stop the flow, like when cleaning a filter. I now use a 600gph dedicated pump for the sand filter with 2 ball valves to control filter flow and the excess flow goes back into the tank. My main/show tank has 3 magnums in parellel pulling water from 3 inlets, filtering, going through a 40 watt UV sterilizer, then valved out to 2 outlets and 1 sand filter. With this setup I can shut down 1 filter at a time to clean it without having to totally stop the flow.

Rainman - That sounds like a very nice setup. What size is the tank?

Also, I have a Magnum 350 Pro (with the biowheels and quick disconnect valves) that is basically brand new and working great. I purchased an FB-900 after you mentioned it on this thread (you're quite influential my man). I hooked it up in line with the Magnum 350 with a t connector with the idea of diverting half of the output to the biowheels and half to the FB-900. I have not been able to get water to flow more than a trickle in the FB-900, so obviously the sand is not fluidizing at all. I am using the top input and output on the FB-900. Any tips on getting this thing to work? The specs say 200 GPH is the max flow they suggest for the FB-900, and that 70-100 GPH is generally the best, so I should be getting good results with this combo. Should I try using one of the bottom inputs rather than the top one? Important to note that I have also diverted 100% of the outflow to the FB-900 and still just a trickle of water and a struggling pump. Obviously a clog huh? How do you fix that? Remove sand and start over? ick.

Weissguy, you'll need to put a ball valve in the discharge line NOT going to the sand filter. I also recommend a valve on the inlet of the sand filter to shut off before shutting off your pump to make restating much easier. You've got about 12 pounds of sand that is pushing against the output of you're magnum. The pump I use for the sand filter is a submersible fountain pump I got off ebay. Here is a link to the pump I use--- http://www.rambridge.com/products/irrigat/tuscan/tuscany.html
I have a couple extra new ones. The model is 2300, it pumps 583 GPH with a max 9.3 ft Head.

Weiss, I just re-read you're post. It doesn't matter which inlet you use, the top inlet has a small tube in the back-center that routes the upper inlet to the bottom of the casing. I unclog mine by CAREFULLY adding pressure to the inlet of the filter with water pressure from my tap water. After it starts to flow, run the sand to nearly the top and quickly reconnect your filter discharge hose before the sand settles in the bottom again. Keep a close eye on the clear filter housing for too much expansion or it will rupture. You'll probably hear some minor carcking sounds though. Fortunately, an email to PentAir got me a free replacement filter the first time I uncloged mine........................ That wet sand never completely comes out of the carpet, but it gave my wife one heck of a laugh when she saw me covered in it!

Ps.
when I put my last filter in, I added a hose bib and valve just to restart the filter in case of power outages and heavy cleaning maintenance purposes. Turns out that I can power drain my 150 gallon tank with the hose bib too.

mtalley and robbor,
The nitrifying bacteria (the ones that break down ammonia and nitrites into nitrates) will grow on any surface that has oxygenated water. By using an undergravel filter it keeps water moving through the whole gravel bed increasing the usable surface area for the bacteria to colonize. If there is no oxygen in the lower layers of gravel you can form anarobic bacteria (the black stinky stuff you sometimes step in on a silty lake bottom.

The nitrates (end product when the bacteria break down ammonia and nitrites) are less harmful to the fish but at high levels can cause weakened immunities in your fish making them more suseptable to infections. plants use the nitrates as fertilizer. but in a small system with high biomass a periodic water change of 50% is the best method of keeping nitrates in check.

My recommendation would be to use an undergravel filter, start with one inch of fish per ten gallons for the first month or two (average time for bacteria to colonize), then slowly add more fish. Get an aquarium test kit and monitor nitrate levels, this will tell you how often water changes are necessary. Get yourself an aquarium gravel vacuum (siphon tube with a lage diameter tube at the end)to perform your water changes because this will remove organic debris from your gravel bed. By the way the water you drain during the water changes/gravel vacing is great for your garden or other house plants.
just my 2 cents hope it helps.

FWIW, for many years common sense and common practice lead us to believe the undergravel filter is the best way to go for exactly the reasons bassandgrass stated. For years there was no test data on that theory other than the fact that they appeared to work well. Now every study (and there are now thousands) on the reality of underground filters is that this not to be the case. The water actually only "flows" through a few small passages in the gravel and clogs easily, that's why they need to be vacuumed often. With the new Wet/dry and other bio-technology, far larger and more effective bacteria colonies are formed and continually replaced to provide superior nitrification than their undergravel counterparts. The "fluidized bed" sand filters offer by far the largest amount of surface area for the bacteria to grow on, and the constant "bumping" of particles knocks off dead bacteria and alows new groth to take place----eliminating the need for cleaning and greatly reducing the need to change the water. One pound of sand replaces over one hundred pounds of gravel with less maintenance required. Granted, you WILL still get an anarobic, stinky gravel bed, but that is part of a natural ecosystem and not always bad.

I have over 200 inches of tilapia in my 55 gallon tank with only 2 small "bio-wheels and over 600 inches of bluegill, catfish, and FH minnows in my 150 gallon tank. I only have to change the water every few months unless the fish slow on feeding.

I agree with Rainman that the under gravel is not the most efficient system. But Robbor said he only wanted to run a pump for a few hours a day. I would be concerned with losing the beneficial bacteria with a bio wheel or a wet dry filter because of drying out when not being run continuously.

Do those sand filters help address the nitrate levels some how (I am unfamiliar with them)?
Or is the level of ammonia produced reduced due to the fact that there is less debris(food and crap)trapped in the gravel?

B&G, I don't know the answer to the nitrate question.---I've not researched it or tested for nitrates. I base my water changes on available time and observations of the fish' behavior.

I don't know how much pumping occasionally will help either since ammonia can rise rather quickly. If you used a sump system with a biowheel, like a tidepool, the bacteria may remain viable. I have a secondary 55g tank that I use to keep hundreds of fry and eggs in before selling and the bio-wheels in it are often dried out when not used, yet when I refill the ank and resart the filter system, the ammonia rarely ever climbs above 1ppm.

B&G, seems I recall some "starter" nitrifying bacterias that are sold dry? Maybe the water is only required for growth and effectiveness-----just wondering out loud......

water trough and filter,what is this how does it work of this?








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Aprilaire Furnace Filters

Sorry for missing your question Jams!

First off, Welcome to the forum!!!

In this case, the water trough and filter are more or less an aquarium set-up. Instead of an aquarium a water trough or large tub is used to hold the water in.