canister filter question????
- Thread starter reefr23
- Start date
ilovemytank
Member
canisters are great filters as long as you clean them very well monthly or every three weeks. All the food gets trapped in the canister behind the final filter and the food will build up in there. If not cleaned out you can have your nitrites or worse nitrates shhot up. I'm of the personal belief and I think alot of people will agree with me that the skimmer is the most important part of a salt water tank. If you don't start with one, then get the best one you can afford as soon as you can get it. as far as the use of your three stages; If I'm hearing you right, you may have little to none live rock and or sand bed.
Live rock is an incredable filter because all the live bacteria and organisms that colonize it. The same with the sand bed. They can make a word of difference in a tank. If you don't have alot of them then use as much bio-stars ( bought precharged ) and/or ceramic cylenders in the chambers along with just filter pads. These have maximum surface space for beneficial bacteria. Don't waste space with other media.
Live rock is an incredable filter because all the live bacteria and organisms that colonize it. The same with the sand bed. They can make a word of difference in a tank. If you don't have alot of them then use as much bio-stars ( bought precharged ) and/or ceramic cylenders in the chambers along with just filter pads. These have maximum surface space for beneficial bacteria. Don't waste space with other media.
geoj
Active Member
Originally Posted by reefr23
http:///forum/post/2803969
i may have a little live rock but most will be decor. i dont know about live sand yet. i want to use the canister for all 3 stages mechanical, chemical,and biological filtration.
If you sized the canister per the manufactures recommendations it will be too small as a biological/mechanical filter. As Ilovemytank has said you may get waste build-up inside. The thing I would do is put a sponge on the intake of the filter so you don’t have to brake down the filter to clean the inside you just replace the sponge that you put over the intake. Use a siphon to remove all the waste from the sand bed when you do water changes and don’t over-feed or over-stock the tank until you can get more bio-filtration. FO tanks tend to have more waste build-up and need more bio-filtration then people think because of the lack of live rock in a reef a one-pound to one-gallon live rock ratio is typ. And you would limit the number of fish this keeps the waste down.
http:///forum/post/2803969
i may have a little live rock but most will be decor. i dont know about live sand yet. i want to use the canister for all 3 stages mechanical, chemical,and biological filtration.
If you sized the canister per the manufactures recommendations it will be too small as a biological/mechanical filter. As Ilovemytank has said you may get waste build-up inside. The thing I would do is put a sponge on the intake of the filter so you don’t have to brake down the filter to clean the inside you just replace the sponge that you put over the intake. Use a siphon to remove all the waste from the sand bed when you do water changes and don’t over-feed or over-stock the tank until you can get more bio-filtration. FO tanks tend to have more waste build-up and need more bio-filtration then people think because of the lack of live rock in a reef a one-pound to one-gallon live rock ratio is typ. And you would limit the number of fish this keeps the waste down.
natclanwy
Active Member
Wet dry filters are another option but they still need to be kept clean, the best way to handle waste is to control the source by not overstocking or overfeeding your tank. You can also setup a refugium to help export wastes though the growth of macro algae. I don't see the point of running a sponge on the intake of your filter its kind of redundant to filter your filter, a good canister is pretty easy to maintain, I use an Ehiem and the hoses disconnect with a quick release so I can carry the filter to the sink and then remove the top, rinse the three filter baskets and rinse the foam pads every two weeks. I replace the fine filter pad once a month and the coarse pad every other month. Takes me about 10 minutes to clean the filter.
geoj
Active Member
Originally Posted by natclanwy
http:///forum/post/2805119
Wet dry filters are another option but they still need to be kept clean, the best way to handle waste is to control the source by not overstocking or overfeeding your tank. You can also setup a refugium to help export wastes though the growth of macro algae. I don't see the point of running a sponge on the intake of your filter its kind of redundant to filter your filter, a good canister is pretty easy to maintain, I use an Ehiem and the hoses disconnect with a quick release so I can carry the filter to the sink and then remove the top, rinse the three filter baskets and rinse the foam pads every two weeks. I replace the fine filter pad once a month and the coarse pad every other month. Takes me about 10 minutes to clean the filter.
That is all well and good, but I am lazy
and only open the filter once a year. I use my filter more for bio, and as a chemical when needed. The sponge on the intake keeps any large waste from entering so it will be consumed by animals in the tank or removed when I get around to doing some cleaning. As a bio/chem. filter I only intend it to filter the water of anything like nitrate, silicate, or phosphate.
http:///forum/post/2805119
Wet dry filters are another option but they still need to be kept clean, the best way to handle waste is to control the source by not overstocking or overfeeding your tank. You can also setup a refugium to help export wastes though the growth of macro algae. I don't see the point of running a sponge on the intake of your filter its kind of redundant to filter your filter, a good canister is pretty easy to maintain, I use an Ehiem and the hoses disconnect with a quick release so I can carry the filter to the sink and then remove the top, rinse the three filter baskets and rinse the foam pads every two weeks. I replace the fine filter pad once a month and the coarse pad every other month. Takes me about 10 minutes to clean the filter.
That is all well and good, but I am lazy
olga21
Member
It should be ok with water changes and hardy fish. However, it may not be as pretty as you would like. One problem you will most likely run into is algae blooms. This can be real annoying so dont spend to much on decor. I run my 84 gallon on 3-canister filters but untill i got a protein skimmer the tank was covered with algae.
natclanwy
Active Member
Originally Posted by GeoJ
http:///forum/post/2805702
That is all well and good, but I am lazy
and only open the filter once a year. I use my filter more for bio, and as a chemical when needed. The sponge on the intake keeps any large waste from entering so it will be consumed by animals in the tank or removed when I get around to doing some cleaning. As a bio/chem. filter I only intend it to filter the water of anything like nitrate, silicate, or phosphate.
I'm sorry to say your canister will do nothing for nitrates the only things that remove nitrates are water changes, anerobic bacteria, and macro algae none of which are present in a canister filter. In fact with your maintence practices I would say it is probably producing nitrates, maybe not since you are keeping the large particles from entering the canister, but your canister really isn't doing anything if you are only servicing it once a year since the phosphate and silicate media need to be changed periodically.
http:///forum/post/2805702
That is all well and good, but I am lazy
I'm sorry to say your canister will do nothing for nitrates the only things that remove nitrates are water changes, anerobic bacteria, and macro algae none of which are present in a canister filter. In fact with your maintence practices I would say it is probably producing nitrates, maybe not since you are keeping the large particles from entering the canister, but your canister really isn't doing anything if you are only servicing it once a year since the phosphate and silicate media need to be changed periodically.
geoj
Active Member
Originally Posted by natclanwy
http:///forum/post/2806977
I'm sorry to say your canister will do nothing for nitrates the only things that remove nitrates are water changes, anerobic bacteria, and macro algae none of which are present in a canister filter. In fact with your maintence practices I would say it is probably producing nitrates, maybe not since you are keeping the large particles from entering the canister, but your canister really isn't doing anything if you are only servicing it once a year since the phosphate and silicate media need to be changed periodically.
Anaerobic environment, an aquatic environment with little available oxygen
Now just because the water goes into the canister with normal amounts of available oxygen does not mean it stays available and prevents anaerobic conditions (Exp. anaerobic digester)
Nitrate, Silicate, and Phosphate in my set-up are not detectable this is because my bio-filter and animals use all of it up so the media does not need to be changed periodically only when a change makes a need for chemical filtration.
The longer my filter goes without a cleaning the more Anaerobic Ammonium Oxidation or Denitrification I get. Yet You would need a huge canister to rely on it alone or slow the flow down and make it a anaerobic digester, this is what I have tried say from the start most canisters are to small to remove much nitrates biologically.
http:///forum/post/2806977
I'm sorry to say your canister will do nothing for nitrates the only things that remove nitrates are water changes, anerobic bacteria, and macro algae none of which are present in a canister filter. In fact with your maintence practices I would say it is probably producing nitrates, maybe not since you are keeping the large particles from entering the canister, but your canister really isn't doing anything if you are only servicing it once a year since the phosphate and silicate media need to be changed periodically.
Anaerobic environment, an aquatic environment with little available oxygen
Now just because the water goes into the canister with normal amounts of available oxygen does not mean it stays available and prevents anaerobic conditions (Exp. anaerobic digester)
Nitrate, Silicate, and Phosphate in my set-up are not detectable this is because my bio-filter and animals use all of it up so the media does not need to be changed periodically only when a change makes a need for chemical filtration.
The longer my filter goes without a cleaning the more Anaerobic Ammonium Oxidation or Denitrification I get. Yet You would need a huge canister to rely on it alone or slow the flow down and make it a anaerobic digester, this is what I have tried say from the start most canisters are to small to remove much nitrates biologically.
natclanwy
Active Member
The flow rate on most canisters is way too much to support large quantities of anerobic bacteria. Nitrate reductors have flow rates of less than 20gph through several feet of tubing to achieve anerobic conditions. Some will exist in a canister because the flow is not even across the media allowing for some dead spots. The longer you leave the media in your canister the larger the bacteria populations will be but you will also have large quantities of waste. Rinsing your media though will not cause significant losses of bacteria and will clean most of the waste out.
You obviously have very good feeding habits to keep waste from building up in your system and your methods work for you so there is no reason for you to change, but my large canister would never make it a year, the bacteria alone would plug off the filter pads long before the year was up. My smaller canister that is running carbon in my sump doesn't get any large debri and can't even make it two weeks with a coarse pad before the flow rate is significantly reduced.
You obviously have very good feeding habits to keep waste from building up in your system and your methods work for you so there is no reason for you to change, but my large canister would never make it a year, the bacteria alone would plug off the filter pads long before the year was up. My smaller canister that is running carbon in my sump doesn't get any large debri and can't even make it two weeks with a coarse pad before the flow rate is significantly reduced.
geoj
Active Member
Originally Posted by natclanwy
http:///forum/post/2809221
The flow rate on most canisters is way too much to support large quantities of anerobic bacteria. Nitrate reductors have flow rates of less than 20gph through several feet of tubing to achieve anerobic conditions. Some will exist in a canister because the flow is not even across the media allowing for some dead spots. The longer you leave the media in your canister the larger the bacteria populations will be but you will also have large quantities of waste. Rinsing your media though will not cause significant losses of bacteria and will clean most of the waste out.
You obviously have very good feeding habits to keep waste from building up in your system and your methods work for you so there is no reason for you to change, but my large canister would never make it a year, the bacteria alone would plug off the filter pads long before the year was up. My smaller canister that is running carbon in my sump doesn't get any large debri and can't even make it two weeks with a coarse pad before the flow rate is significantly reduced.
I am not suggesting you change because it must work for you, or you would change something, but as the canister flow slows you would get more flirtation form the bio side as oxygen in the water is depleted. The clog may not create the nitrate problem you might think. The only way to know is to test it. In some systems this would work others not like you said flow rate is key. Now that I have thought about it there is no reason you could not put a valve on the return line. There goes my lazy mind again.
I put the sponge on the intake because of “out of sight out of mind” if I don’t see the waste I am not likely to clean the waste.
http:///forum/post/2809221
The flow rate on most canisters is way too much to support large quantities of anerobic bacteria. Nitrate reductors have flow rates of less than 20gph through several feet of tubing to achieve anerobic conditions. Some will exist in a canister because the flow is not even across the media allowing for some dead spots. The longer you leave the media in your canister the larger the bacteria populations will be but you will also have large quantities of waste. Rinsing your media though will not cause significant losses of bacteria and will clean most of the waste out.
You obviously have very good feeding habits to keep waste from building up in your system and your methods work for you so there is no reason for you to change, but my large canister would never make it a year, the bacteria alone would plug off the filter pads long before the year was up. My smaller canister that is running carbon in my sump doesn't get any large debri and can't even make it two weeks with a coarse pad before the flow rate is significantly reduced.
I am not suggesting you change because it must work for you, or you would change something, but as the canister flow slows you would get more flirtation form the bio side as oxygen in the water is depleted. The clog may not create the nitrate problem you might think. The only way to know is to test it. In some systems this would work others not like you said flow rate is key. Now that I have thought about it there is no reason you could not put a valve on the return line. There goes my lazy mind again.
I put the sponge on the intake because of “out of sight out of mind” if I don’t see the waste I am not likely to clean the waste.