PlanetCatfish.com

Seems controversial from online reading. If you have firsthand experience with long term usage of artificial turf (made for outdoor, sport, or lawn use, not specifically for fish tanks), please share. I've read some peers used it but their threads do not present long term picture:

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/foru ... st-7827139

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/foru ... nk.434679/

A good example of the turf is this kind: https://expressgrass.us/california-arti ... DwQAvD_BwE

Under More Information tab in that link above it says:

Yarn Material Polypropylene & Polyethylene - the perfect mixture of durability and comfort whilst maintaining a fantastic appearance.
Backing Weed Resistant Black PP (TBTB: must be polypropylene)
Warranty 10 Years
UV Resistance Every range has excellent UV Properties, all covered under a manufactures Warranty
Fire Rating Efl
Child Friendly Yes. All of our ranges are perfect to use for play and activity areas.
Pet Friendly Yes. All of our ranges are great for your pets at home.

So the materials must be pretty inert and benign - PE and PP.

Weed-resistant backing = a herbicide of sort is embedded or does it simply not let weeds grow through it by physical blocking? It does have holes for water drainage.

UV treatment = chemicals mixed into the plastics but usually these are quite benign to aquatics (I use a lot of UV-treated plastics in my biofilter for instance, like shade cloth, insect screening, etc.).

Fire Rating of Efl = normally flammable floor covering. So it is at least not made of asbestos

I never even heard about artificial turf, but as with all strange materials, I would need to look at the ingredients.

You made a few good points about some of them, UV resistence is most often not a problem, weed resistence I would not trust either.

The problem is, however, that the ingredients are often secret, and further, do we now how harmfull certen components are? I did study chemistry once, but that does not help me much.

Perhaps the best way is to test with short lived organisms. Daphina is very popular for this - you can have a few generations in a copple of months allowing you to see whether a population dies or not, and they are easy to keep. Best hace a control group along - in order to see whether you made errors or not. Obviously if the control groud dies out, the test does not say anything

Thank you Bas. Good points.

I am mulling over an experiment where I could pull off outfitting the 10K gal (18ft x 16ft x 5.5ft) with biofiltration in-situ, no separate filter, toward which purpose I'd need to provide a lot of surface area inside the 10K (need robust materials at the same time too) and good stirring for high oxygenation.

The turf would not be on the bottom, I'd not want for detritus to accumulate in or under the turf and then having to vacuum. I don't vacuum any of our tanks. I vacuum our 4 sump filters only once in 1-2 years. Except for the 25K, which has a mat on top of the shower tower filter that needs regular vacuuming. Even that got very old, I'd rather wallow in fish feces and vacuum a sump for one day in 1-2 years than vacuum this shower tower mat every 1-3 days. In other words, it might be nice to hook up the 25K to the 15K sump, the option I decided to pass on, back when I worked on the 25K.

I'd still need to remove the accumulating waste from the 10K and plan to arrange the current such that the waste collects in one spot, where a pump can be placed so that the waste could be filtered out and the water would get well oxygenated and returned to the tank.

On the bare bottom it is planned to have about 100 big boulders, about 1.5-2ft in diameter, not round but approx. This is for looks, additional surface area (the surface of the boulders is somewhat porous), and perhaps for small fish to avoid big predators.

I am mulling to try to have smaller frequently-breeding fish in the tank for large predators and to have safe(r) places for them to hide away and to breed / grow up. Toward that some artificial fish habitats can be home-built or purchased, e.g.:

https://www.thepondguy.com/product/porc ... es-3-pack/

https://www.thepondguy.com/product/pond ... ole-brush/

, to which I might attach the turf, as well as strips of turf can be hung here and there hanging from the tank's cover, like so

https://www.thepondguy.com/product/pond ... k-dropper/

and/or along the walls, not too wide strips, so the current and fish could easily access the space between the grass and the wall, but the big fish couldn't hide there.

Couple of constricting issues:

[1] the astroturf in the OP above is $1.68/sq ft, roughly 3x-4x cheaper than the grass squares made specifically for fish tanks, plus

[2] I've had these latter squares and the plastic blades / bunches can be relatively easily pulled out of the holding mesh, they are made with small(er) fish in mind, so the large 3ft-5ft fish may destroy them by accident or by simply swimming and brushing up against them often and when hunting around them. I don't know but I guess that the astroturf is made stronger and handle full human weight, cleats, etc., after all humans have to walk, run, engage in sports on the turf.

My plan is to not have a separate biofilter and, as far as the maintenance, to only wipe the front glass and filter out mechanical waste. But then again, we are back to having to vacuum the mechanical filter mat every so often, so maybe I should simply hook up the 10K to the 15K sump, as hard and as much work as it would be... But then again, I am mulling over making the 10K our first brackish tank (cheap brackish water), so that would exclude using the 15K sump which is being used for 3 f/w tanks.

Hi Viktor,
I believe I can assist with a few of your queries here.
You have the unfortunate situation of being too large for a typical hobbyist but too small for a commercial setup. Being creative and resourceful as you are becoming is necessary.

I have used artificial turf in tanks extensively without drama. Not long term but repeatedly for months at a time over multiple years. I can't see you having issues using it long term. I use as a refuge for small fry, as a sticky egg hatcher and to stop line of sight between territorial fish. Have you considered pond filter brushes? Or strips of shade mesh as I know you have plenty.

The weed mat (woven polypropylene) is fish safe and works as a barrier by blocking out the sun. I use it between 2 poles as fish stretchers with a flap pocket to keep their heads in darkness. Fish surgery, injections, egg and milt stripping etc. Even for delicate and valuable fish stock.

Why don't you spawn clown loaches or roseline dennison barbs for large attractive schooling filler species and a food source. They school, clean up leftovers well, stir the bottom, add color and provide a healthy food source if eaten by larger fish. A school of 5000+ schooling fish is fantastic to watch.

I would not put any rocks at the bottom of yourt tank as this will quickly become a sediment mulm trap. Not only physically trapping mulm but the slowed water pockets encourages more drop out and mulm attracts more mulm. The interesting problem to solve is you/we/all require a sufficiently high velocity to keep particles in suspension and be carried away but not too fast that the filtration cant keep up. Unless you use an expensive to run - hard to clean - pressurised filter. Some of this can be achieved with internal tank movement from air stones, power heads, periodic wave tank surges etc. However you can't get away from needing sufficient velocity and flow out of the tank too - preferably gravity (not pumped) but that water velocity then needs to be slowed down for fines to drop out and be captured without reducing the overall flow rate. Water velocity (speed) and water flow (volume) need recognition as distinct separate entities. A radial flow filter for example will remove approximately half the total suspended solids (TSS) and is considered superior to a vortex filter. A large settlement chamber which can be bottom flushed is another option if space permits. I utilise bottom drains in the tanks as its easier to remove sediment by pulling from the bottom than over the top side wall but I deliberately reduce their recommended velocity and flow and lengthened these drain lines so they become defacto settlement tanks since mine are designed easy to purge. You can retro fit bottom drains if you don't mind seeing visible pipework (which I do).

What I started building for myself is a static micro K1 upflow filter similar to the EA tempest filter. This is a simple mechanical filter that is very easy to clean. A closed system but low pressure pump fed back to the tank. In my case, I am using 300mm wide PVC pipe that is 3m tall for a 2m deep tank. The increase in diameter of the vertical pipe chamber slows the velocity but maintains the flow so suspended solids down to 25 micron drop out and captured by a static floating micro K1 bed only 30cm thick. Similar to a canister filter (but floating) or very similar concept to a bead filter which unfortunately needs high pressure. To clean the upflow filter; the pump is turned off or diverted elsewhere and a bottom tap is opened so gravity forces the water out with the negative pressure sucking in air which stirs and mixes the media clean as it falls. There are several DIY YouTube videos on static bed upflow filters but unfortunately most have the water velocity and chamber diameter calculations wrong.

I started building my upflow filters (I will have 4 in parallel) but recently I have been gifted with a rotating drum filter. This large complex mechanical electrical filtration unit is the antithesis of what I prefer for filtration but will provide me with the opportunity to compare when I finally get them implemented. Perhaps I will wait until my upflow filters are working well before spruiking further.

Thank you greatly for this.

So much appreciate your sharing your positive experience with the turf! A seasoned peer "jjohnwm" from the MFK also reported no problem with guppies living and spawning repeatedly in water with the turf in it:

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/foru ... st-8496613

"In a couple of enclosures, part of the turf was continuously under water; it served to provide traction for the animals to move into and out of the water easily rather than just slipping and sliding on bare glass. And in at least one of those enclosures, a colony of guppies lived, bred and frolicked for years without problems."

I note you didn't object having no external biofilter and having all the biofiltration to occur inside the tank, which amounts to your okay on this concept, if I take it correctly.

I looked at the static K1 bed upflow filters and found videos by this gentleman DazzleKoi good and useful. Seems an easy, elegant, and effective concept. I see what you meant by flow and speed.

part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKX7nl8tpd0
part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_M74pSqOss
part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZduVBpkGY-s

DazzleKoi refers to a POD filter in this series, so I looked at it too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pAxeJngTrE

Looks like EA Evolution Aqua make good product.

Hi Viktor,
Having the filtration within a tank is fundamentally simpler, safer and cheaper than external filtration but access for cleaning becomes less convenient. A small fluidised sand filter using an inverted traffic cone either above tank or submerged would provide ample biological fitration. Adding sufficient surface area for biofilm alone is fine, especially with your daily flow through rate. The humble undergravel filter for example shouldn't be overlooked. There was a large stingray tank in Holland made from 4 shipping containers that used air driven side drop filters. Stingrays as you already know require lots of biological filtration.

The upflow filter has it's limitations like any filter. If you do decide to go down that path, reach out to me privately. I am not using these as sole filtration. If you get tannic water or extremely fine - colloidal particles, look towards ozone.

The EA Pod is essentially a combined unit of K1 moving bed and downflow static K1 bed. Both these upflow and POD concepts used by EA have been used in industry, sewerage and aquaculture long before aquariums and ponds. Almost always additional filtration is still required in conjunction with the POD.

There is another YouTuber called Wrighty that emulates a POD with individual blue barrels. The disadvantage of static bed downflow under gravity (not pressurised) is much lower efficiency and the more frequent cleaning process requires a flood and air stir before dumping to waste. Like everything in life, it just depends on what each person considers convenient and what priorities they place on purchase cost, operational cost, time, ease, mess, etc. Wrighty also made an interesting automated upflow filter that periodically self cleans (twice). He's currently making his own rotating drum filter now.

In your case, perhaps a simple pressurised mechanical filter used once a week is all you need? Here biofilm within the filter is your enemy so you need to chemically clean (chlorine or citric acid) or physically clean it between each use. That's labour and time intensive but relatively cheap and simple. I will attach some front and back photos of my swim pool pump, spa heater and swim pool mechanical filter (single unit) which I rotate between tanks that are 10K - 15K litres only when they become too dirty. It's on a fridge trolley for convenience. Being a standard swim pool canister, I can use pleated filter cartridges or circular plastic disc cartridges of whatever micron aperture I deem suitable. The spa heater is 3.5K watts and only turned on when faster heating is needed.

If you click the thumbnail image, it will expand.
I have a much second larger unit using swim pool pump and canister that uses diatomaceous earth for when you need really sparkly clear water.