charcoal for reef tant?

[aileron98]

I have a 26 gal reek tank with 30 lbs lr, argonite sand, I have a cpr bak pak with a 204 fluval filter? My dad thought he was buying a wet/dry when he showed me it was a fluval canister filter, this is already hooked up and someone told me that this is wrong for a reef tank that it would take the good bacteria out of the water and also has charcoal in the canister and that its not good for a reef, in some of the books it says charcoal is good. If you could suggest a good filter I would much appreciate.

 

[thomas712]

First a little carbon education.
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/...%20carbon.html
http://www.hallman.org/filter/gac.html
I don't recall any information that a canister filter takes out any good bacteria, thats just not true.
Most people just find that the maintenance on a canister is a pain in the rear. They are not the best filters for a reef tank. I do think that they are ok for using carbon, phosphate removers, and such. Problem is when you have to clean them (like the fluval) you have to clean the sponges inside that help house the benifical bacteria and therefor you remove some or all of that bacteria when cleaning, they do come with some type of....what is it bio max? hard stone type things that can house some of this bacteria as well? that you do not have to clean, then the whole canister can have debris traped in them that can lead to a nitrate buildup.
There are many makes and models of wet/drys and sumps from building it yourself out of rubbermaid tubs and plastic trash cans for bio towers to top of the line acrylic or glass ones. I take it your going to have an external overflow?
Plug wet/dry filter into your web browser and you should come up with a good deal of information on them.
Thomas