Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations My second biofilter for one of the RAS tanks

I've built two rotating biofilter contact filters (rbcs) out of materials bought locally and they work quite well.




Both have been farmed out to local high schools to grow out fish for me for the winter and for them to learn. A win/win if they don't kill the fish. LOL

I decided to build a different type of filter that has a much smaller footprint and and is cheaper and easier to build. Thanks for the info I've seen here and for the blueprint of Briar's he sent me.

Anyway here's my version:



View showing air inlet on the bottom, water inlet on the side near the bottom, and an overflow pipe near the top. (55 gallon drum is turned upside down for the photo.)







Uniseals were used to plumb in all inlets and the overlow outlet. Much cheaper than bulkhead fittings!









Membrane Diffuser plumbed to the air inlet on the bottom. Note the plastic cage mesh that was used to keep media from getting trapped under the diffuser. I'm not sure that would have been a problem but just in case...





Media in open top drum boiling up and going back down. Note the mesh on the inside of the overflow outlet to keep media in.The media is isn't the recommended K1 Kaldness media recommend and probably has less surface area. However I had it around as I was using it to aerate well water and blow of gases.

It may not appear like it in the photo but ALL the media is constantly being pulled under and then coming back up except for four or five pieces that cling to the overflow screen. I verified this by using a piece of colored media.







1 1/2 inch PVC pipe pushed through Uniseal was used for overflow. Other connections were smaller in diameter. I have found you can never make your overflow pipe too large! Better safe than sorry.





First water is siphoned in with a U tube siphon and bottom drain to the bottom of the clariifer tank from the fish tank. From there the water is pumped up through the filter material to the top of the clarifer tank to the bottom of the bioreactor. (Pump sits on top of filter material in the clarifier tank.)

The membrane diffuser on the bottom of the bioreactor tank circulates the plastic media and adds air to the tank. Excess water dumps via gravity back into the fish tank and the cycle repeats itself.

Hey CB1 - thanks bunches for the pictures and description. All will help others who need a similar type of filtration. New stuff and ideas to get pond stuff done better are what we are all about here on Pond Boss. 1. Where do you get your uniseals and how much are they? Good idea. They are new to me. I can use some of those in various applications. Also: 2. where did you get your filter media? Another question: 3. any idea how much air you are putting through your diffuser at the bottom of the filter?

Cecil, would the uniseals work on IBC water tanks? I'm wanting to make a drip system, and was wondering how to get fittings on the bottom of the tank.

They are in the AES catalog on page 294 (2012) and you can find suppliers on the Internet by just typing Uniseal i.e on a Google Search. I believe they are actually made in Indianapolis, Indiana, but I'm not 100 percent sure. A couple things that are really important for installation though:

1.) Grind down a slight taper on the end edge of the PVC pipe before attempting to push it through.

2.) In addition, smear vaseline on the pipe to slide it in. Another alternative is to cut the end of the pipe at an angle before shoving in. However if you do that, make sure there are no sharp edges to damage the Uniseal.

It's next to impossible to shove an ungreased unaltered PVC pipe through once the Uniseal is popped into place, which shows you how good the seal is.

The AES catalog has them listed from $2.05 to $12.25 for 1/2 inch up to 6 inch respectively. (Cheaper in bulk). You MUST use a hole saw to cut the hole for the Uniseal, and the hole size is larger than the actual size of the pipe for the entire Uniseal to fit in. The sizes of pipe and holes are listed in catalog.

They are made of Dupont Alcryn not rubber but a space age material, which is rated to 40 psi and warranted for 25 years. They're immune to cold, will not harden, and hold pressure and vacuum.

Only good for tank walls up to 1/2 inch.



I got mine at least 10 years ago from a supplier in Colorado to use in my packed column for the trout pond. Can't remember the name of the company and can't remember the name of the media. Kaldness K1 are recommended (also in the AES catalog), but it's not cheap at $52.00 per cubic foot. 259 ft2/ft3 surface area. I have about 2.5 cubic feet of my larger media (four five gallon bucket fulls) in the tank. [/quote]

Someone directed me to a supplier of a similar media that sells theirs for half the price, but i can't find it now. I'll see if I can still find it asap. It must be on my other computer's bookmarks as it's not on this one. I get the other one back from the repair shop soon. Or maybe Phil knows? (JKB)



Not exactly. The linear air pump is 80 lpm and is too large for both the fish tank and the bioreactor. I had to put on an extra valve to bleed off some of the air. I have an inline valve and 't' to tweak the air flow for both the fish tank and the bioreactor.

Pretty cool CB!

Like I said, you are going to have to bust this up a bit to work well. Shear don't work when everything is moving at the same speed

Should be pretty easy to change the flow pattern in the barrel so the media is interacting in Kinetic form to each other. A deflector or two should do it. Just to bust it up a bit.

I so love this forum. Seeing all these details on something I may not use, gives me ideas for something I would use.

Thanks for including all the pics Cecil.

Phil there's a good thread on this on the Aquaponics Headquarters site. One point they make is the as the bateria builds on the media it gets heavier, sinks a little more, and flows better.

My belief, and I may be wrong, is, as long as the media has access to both oxygen and water and doesn't build up floc excessively it should work fine, at least for the small amount of fish I am holding over for the winter. The media does rub against itself quite well (my concern is too well), and EVERY piece does come up through the boil where there is a lot of shear, and EVERY piece does go back down at some point to repeat the cycle. I tested this with a colored piece of media.

The picture doesn't do the boil justice. It's quite large and noisy as the pieces rub against each other. Sounds like a bunch of ice crystals rubbing against each other.

Absolutely. As long as the tank walls are not over 1/2 inch thick.

The media I showed you a while back is: Createch Aqua Curler Advance X-1
You can get it from a company out of Jefferson, LA.

Not sure if this is what you were referring to when you said half price. I got a quote for 14 cubic feet at a cost of $36.14/cu-ft. Shipping was estimated at 250.00. I thought that was a bit much, but it was a bulk pack shipping -via- truck.

I just saw a system where Dr. Timmons uses this media. The MBBR was 300 gallons, half full (20 cu-ft) of media. The air flow thru the diffusers was 3cfm. He was using it in a Tilapia raceway system. The raceways were just over 10,000 gallons.

MBBR's are a great choice for anyone wanting to build a system. Not expensive, and just plain simple!

I'll be ordering soon.

If anyone want's contact info for the media, send me a PM. This is about the best stuff on the planet.

Phil,

You may have told me about this particular one but the website does not look familiar. The one I saw was $25 per cubic feet. I could have swore I saved it in my bookmarks but can't find it. It may be in my other computer that is in the shop.

I will take a look now in my emails as I vaguely remember mentioning it on the Ohio Aquaculture network.

The only thing I have seen at 25 bucks was the shredded PVC. Don't want to do that!

You always seem to have a puter in the shop. What's up with that

No, not interested in that stuff. Been there done that. I prefer biofilters that are self cleaning as in RBC's and MBBR filters.



Actually this one had repeated problems at least a year ago and I just got fed up and set it aside and used a hand me down old Apple laptop from the wife, which I have now. I've now decided I want to retrieve files from it and go to a newer Apple soon as she is getting an even newer one.

I'm on a lot of websites from political forums to aquaponics to fishing, Koi, NANFA, writing, Pond Boss, etc. etc. Also having a couple of websites on the Internet seems to make me a target. I have Spam Arrest because if I didn't I get several hundred Spam emails a day!

I have a virus control contract with a local company, but on a regular PC that isn't perfect. Fortunately since I started using an Apple I haven't had any problems.

Have you heard China got caught pre-installing malware on PC's made there?

http://news.techworld.com/security/33813...led-on-new-pcs/

BTW I've been using an Ipad and love it! It's great for freelance writing which I do a lot of. I can sit back in the bed with a head rest at night before I fall asleep and get an hour in of writing. The wife got me a key pad and a special stand etc.

How in the dickens are we supposed to know whether our new PC's are infected?

Beats me!

When an officer of the court is pounding on the door demanding payment for that 50K spending spree you went on a while back with a credit card, and you have no recollection of said events

A guy at work brought his laptop home to finish up a quote over one weekend.

His kid thought it was really cool, and decided to take it for a test drive

Anyway,
Dad comes back to work, hooks all up, and after a few minutes he's up in my office telling me that his puter is freaking out. OK, I go down to check it out. After a few seconds when my eyes adjusted, quickly yanked the network cable. (much more to this)

Long story, short. This thing needed serious attention if it was ever going to work again, and retain the files.

Sent it to one of my buddies in Muskegon. Picked it up the next day, and it was like brand new. Cool guys, but they are super geeks!

Dad's son learned a few things after this episode

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Here is a great link and pic to a thread on DIY MBBR's on a Koi forum. I wished I would have looked it up before I built mine. Notice the "hamster ball" from Petco on the end of the inlet and outlet.

http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?69028-Birdman-s-Fluid-Bed-Filter



Here's a thread I started with some good replies on air and water specs:

http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?134175-Built-a-different-type-of-biofilter-Moving-Bed-Bioreactor-%28MBBR%29&p=2215139#post2215139