| Steve
As far as Sequence Primer and Wave Dragon are concerned, they are equally as quiet as Artisian. I've had my Dragon 1/3 running for 4 years - I have to check the leaf trap to see the water flowing to know if it's running. IT'S THAT QUIET!!! Sequence are the same way. Both put out an incredible amount of water.
I agree with your philosophy about splitting the line intakes between your settling chamber and your skimmer. If you use a "swimming pool" skimmer, make sure it can handle the amount of flow you want.
I have been using a round Black Matala in my pump fed settling chamber. I added a piece of Jap mat on top as it wasn't catching all the solids prior to feeding my bio tank. When I clean this filter, I drain the tank down a few inches, hose off the Jap mat, then shake the Matala up and down a few times to release the dirt. Set it aside, drain the tank, hose it down, close the drain valve and BAM! done. Total time 8-10 minutes every 3 days during summer!! How hard is that?!?!?!? I'm still not totally happy with it however. I will be changing the black for blue so I only have one piece of media to clean. BTW, the pump picks the water up mid-level to feed this tank and you should see the waste it catches. Of course, like most folks, due to fish growth, I am now overcrowded and underfiltered - HaHa!! I'm probably going to change the configuration and incorporate an Ultima 6000 before the vortex,change the media to blue and bio from Jap mat to 1 blue and 1 grey round to get even cleaner water into the bio. It will actually end up increasing the bio value of the tank by 45%. Just have to wait till colder weather prevails and the water temps drop to around 50F.
See you at the meeting Saturday.
Mike |