The Wet / Dry Filter System

The Wet/Dry Filter system was pioneered for salt-water aquarium use; In salt water aquariums it is difficult to maintain proper water quality. The Wet Dry system allows salt water Aquarist's to maintain good water quality for their sensitive and expensive fish. The Wet/Dry system works so well that it has been adopted by pond keepers for the same reasons.

The system has three chambers;

the settling chamber
the mechanical filter chamber
the Wet/Dry filter chamber

In the settling chamber the water enter and is allowed to slow down enough so that suspended solids can fall out. The water is drawn off and goes to a wet filter where finer particles are filtered through the use of a filter media. and finally the water is sprayed over a dry chamber which is filled with a porous material. Bacterial colonize the porous material and break down the nitrogen wastes and oxygenate the water.

Periodically the settlement chamber is emptied of sediment, and the Mechanical filters have to be cleaned. The chamber should be about 10% of the ponds volume, and the water pumped through at the rate of one pond full every two hours. Because of these guidelines I wound have had to get three chambers that held about 250 gallons each, and a 1250 gph pump. This setup just wasn't practical at my pond both because of its sheer size and expense.