After looking through a few pond/aquarium magazines, and reading a few threads here and there regarding pond biological filtration for an aquarium, I'm still left wondering why it isn't popular.
Some of these filters (namely, TetraPond clearchoice external (wet/dry) bio-filter.. up to 1500 gallon Koi pond for around $90 (or 2400 gallon decorative pond which is pretty irrelevant to this thread) bio media included) are ridiculously inexpensive... someone mentioned buying a pump, but that's something you're going have to do for a wet/dry anyways..
Now, I do understand that the average pond has a much larger surface area for the growth of BB. Still, I feel like running a 125G on a biofilter rated for 1500G (and koi obviously have a huge bioload) would be just as good as running a wet/dry rated for 300 gallons, if not better... for less money. Also, the max flow is 1,000 gph, drain tubing is 1.5", intake 1"... so you could run it with most aquarium powerheads. I just found one more thing:
1 Clearchoice filter- $90
2 AC110's for mechanical/chemical & extra bio- $140
1 1,000gph powerhead - $50
Tubing - $10
$290. Same price as your average FX5. It may seem more complicated to get the list above... but if you add a 2nd clearchoice for another $90, I'm fairly certain this setup would blow an FX5 away for less than $100 more. I've emailed Tetra to find out what the media capacity of the pf3 is, so I'll add that in when I find it.
Either way... am I missing something?
Some of these filters (namely, TetraPond clearchoice external (wet/dry) bio-filter.. up to 1500 gallon Koi pond for around $90 (or 2400 gallon decorative pond which is pretty irrelevant to this thread) bio media included) are ridiculously inexpensive... someone mentioned buying a pump, but that's something you're going have to do for a wet/dry anyways..
Now, I do understand that the average pond has a much larger surface area for the growth of BB. Still, I feel like running a 125G on a biofilter rated for 1500G (and koi obviously have a huge bioload) would be just as good as running a wet/dry rated for 300 gallons, if not better... for less money. Also, the max flow is 1,000 gph, drain tubing is 1.5", intake 1"... so you could run it with most aquarium powerheads. I just found one more thing:
Connect two of them at 90 apiece plus powerhead and tubing, and you've got yourself bio-filtration rated for a 3,000 gallon koi pond? that sounds pretty ludicrous.. it does do some mechanical as well but I'd probably want to use an AC110 or two for that job. Let's price it out:
1 Clearchoice filter- $90
2 AC110's for mechanical/chemical & extra bio- $140
1 1,000gph powerhead - $50
Tubing - $10
$290. Same price as your average FX5. It may seem more complicated to get the list above... but if you add a 2nd clearchoice for another $90, I'm fairly certain this setup would blow an FX5 away for less than $100 more. I've emailed Tetra to find out what the media capacity of the pf3 is, so I'll add that in when I find it.
Either way... am I missing something?
