DIY sump - filter material order

The best filter I ever had was just filter floss on top and bio balls in the second layer.  Floss is cheap and the maintenance is incidental.  Every several months - pick it up and throw it away.  Pounding poret foam on the driveway to clean it (I saw that on the importers website) seems like a mess.  Floss is dirt cheap.

I would cut out the bottom (or a large circle on the bottom) of the bucket and elevate the bucket in the tub.  You dont want the water to back up in the bucket. 

I would also make sure that a portion of the b a l l s are submerged in the water.  Its contrary to commonly accepted practice, but it seemed to work better for me. 

The foam on the bottom of the bucket wouldn't work for me;  Having to remove the balls to access it would be a drag. 

If you want to build a water polisher, cut some of that foam and attach it to the input on the water pump.  You can rig a real easy one with a chassis from a sponge filter and one or two fittings from the hardware store.

What's the purpose of the floss?  Is it just a disposable way of removing particulate before it gunks up the rest of the sump?

I hate to use any disposable filter media unless there's a specific reason for it, so I've turned into a Poret foam junkie for my DIY stuff.  So far, my projects have all been too small to have enough space for multiple grades of foam, but I've thought about it a lot.  It seems like if you wanted a really fine first layer to catch particulate, you could use the new super-fine 45ppi foam instead of floss.  Then maybe use a layer or two of larger pore foam as additional bio area, followed by the bio "spheres", and then maybe more 45ppi on the output as a polishing stage.

www.swisstropicals.com/Poret%20Filter%20Foam%20Pricelist.html

Just an idea from somebody who's never actually used a sump.  Am I missing something?

Dragon is correct, Some Sumps like the ones I used (And Shawn helped me install) (Mfg) were Floss, Bio, the Foam on the way out to the return pump. As long as the floss is doing the heavy lifting, your good.

Nuthman~

;D

Floss foam balls from top to bottom is what I do.

I am doing a DIY sump where the drain dumps into a 5 gallon bucket.  The bucket will empty from the bottom into a container that has a pump to shoot it back in the tank.  My question is about the order.  I have open cell foam (like you get with a aquaclear hob), bio balls and filter floss.  What order should I put them in?  I am thinking filter floss on top, then bio balls, then the open cell foam.