Drip Tray Only Providing Water To 1/2 Of Biofilter

[Kevin_AK]

Hello,

I just recently bought a 100-gallon acrylic Uniaquarium and I am excited about returning to this great hobby after a ~15 year break.

I have an interesting challenge that I have not found a solution for yet. The Uniquarium has a ~36 inch drip tray over 4 sections of bio-balls. When I first setup the aquarium the drip tray provided water to the entire drip tray length so the bio-balls in all 4 sections recieved dripping water. However, now that I have had the aquarium running for about 2 months, only the first half of the 36 inch drip tray is filled with enough water to thereafter provide dripping water to the bio-balls underneath; the last two sections of bio-balls aren't getting water at all anymore.

I tried to remedy this with bending the drip tray to change the slope/angle to improve flow, with using a tank divider screen over the top of the drip tray in an attempt to distribute the water better, and with reversing the drip tray orientation (I turned it around so that the left end is now the right end).

Any recommendations? I think this is greatly affecting my bio-filter population.

Kevin

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Hmm i dont know a lot about these systems but, could you not attavh some sort of tubing the length of the tray, with holes every so often

 

[Kevin_AK]

I think I found a solution at a locally owned pet shop: a mini-jet 404 submersible pump (variable 20 to 106 gallons per hour) that provides just enough flow to fill the drip dray (from the end that was deficient in water). I did check the nation-wide pet chains (we have two of them) but they only had complete submersible filters that were way too large, and they did not have one that could attach to a simple tube to direct the output flow.

I still am not sure why the ~36 inch drip tray was only recieving enough water to fill it 1/2 way, but now there is plenty of water to give a constant drip for the entire length.

I'll give this solution a test run for a few days and reply back.