DIY Wet/Dry filter design. What do you think?

I got this idea from my local LFS, and I am going to build it myself. I just bought a Overflow for my tank, I also bought 2 Home Depot Buckets and a 16 Gallon Rubbermaid Storage Bin. I took the one of the buckets and I cut off the bottom 3 inches of the bucket and drilled alot of holes in the bottom, this is my Trickle Bar. In the other bucket i drilled a hole in the middle of the lid on the top, and alot of little holes in the bottom of the bucket for the water to flow into the rubbermaid bin. I put 3 gallons of bio balls and a lot of thick filter looking material that I got at the LFS. This is on top of the bio balls. and the trickle bar(lower 3 inches of other bucket) is on top of the filter material. in the rubbermaid part I am going to put my Protein skimmer, and my 300 watt heater ( if i can find a small plate of glass to mount it on so i dont melt my rubbermaid) I have not bought my return pump yet, but I plan on buying that wilth christmas money . What do you think of my plans. It is only a 16 gallon rubbermaid, but my tank is only 46 gallons, even with a power outage, my tank wont drain more than a few gallons.

 

Sounds like a good start. I started my sump the same way and it worked great. It's good to see you chose Rubbermade for the main one. They are the strongest and give the most without cracking.

Just one question. You said you're putting your skimmer in the rubbermade. Will this be the same area as the return pump? If so you may have some problems with micro bubbles, and water level changes will make the skimmer run inconsistently.

Also instead of the wet/dry assembly, why not make it a fuge? A fuge will remove much more waste than a bio-ball set-up will and doesn't carry the rick of producing nitrates.

 

how do you make it a fuge?i havent put it together yet, so some help would be appreciated

 

Ok on the picture from right to left. The chamber at the right will be the area you plumb your overflow into and the chamber the skimmer is in. Get a container about 1" shorter than the big rubber made you have for it. Just make sure this one is big enough for your skimmer to fit in. The next chamber to the left is the refugium. You want this one to be about an inch shorter than the first, so the first has to overflow into this one. This is where you will put some macro algae, probably chaeto, with a light over it. The next chamber made up by the rubber made is where the water will finally overflow out of the fuge to. This is where to put your return pump.