Planning and started a trickle tower system and sump for my new aquarium.

Have 3 x 20L containers stacked with ridged mesh grid in the bottom off each. This all sits inside but supported up off the bottom of a 75 Gallon Sump.

Will have internal overflow built into corner of my new tank that runs down 3/4" pipe to a home made square spray bar at top of trickle tower.

The stack can hold a lot of media but I am having difficulty in deciding or finding information on best media to insert.

Was planning on the following.

1st Stack - Course sponge, ceramic filter media.

2nd Stack - Medium sponge, Seachem Matrix bio media.

3rd Stack - Fine floss sheet, fine sponge, Bio Balls media.

All stcaks can be removed if required for cleaning. However as it has such capacity I dont know best way to utilise all the filtration space. Will post pics later of the monster I have started creating.

I am going to use 3/4" pipe from tank for overflow. Will this be to small and will I need larger hole in tank such as 1" or 1 1/4" ?

What kind of return pump are you planning on using. I think I halls around 2 inches, 3/4" does seem rather narrow but I'm by no means an expert on these type of filters. As for media, have a look at CD Aquatics website, they sell lots of filter equipment. One thing to bear in mind is that you will mean a lot of media. For this reason, when looking around for media, you may be better off searching websites that provide equipment for ponds, especially equipment that is used on koi carp ponds. You'll pay a lot less for this type of media than if you were to buy media made for canister filters for instance. Check this website out, this is where I got all my media from. I got some bacti balls from them that will service around 3000 gallons of water, and the price, just over £16 if I remember rightly. Imagine getting some Eheim media that would treat 3000 gallons of water, you'd be looking at quite a lot of money, over £100

www.cdaquatics.co.uk/catalog/aquatic-fil...dia-c-143_77_79.html

as a cheap altenative for bio balls,use can use those hair rollers that the old ladies used to use back in the days to get curls into their hair,these are made out of plastic with hundreds of little bristles in them and they work great.

we used these many years ago in a sump on a marine tank and it worked great.

Company who is making my tank will create wier and holes of correct size.

However I am actually questioning if a sump tank is a worthwhile expense. The tank will be 500 litres and I would use my two tetratec external canisters for it. Was alos thinking about a single Fluval FX5.