Filter Recommendation Please!

[kadella]

:happyfish Hi All- love the boards! I'm about to take the plunge into my 1st SW tank! I'm a lifelong lover of marine life and after reading books & boards for months, it seems doable! My tank will be a 55 gal FOWLR to start with. Will start with about 45-50 LBS of cured LR & a playsand substrate with about 1+ " of LS on top to seed. I have decided on my skimmer & 2 powerheads, heater etc but cannot for the life of me understand what filter I should choose. This is an undrilled tank and want a newbie filter to maintain, no complex sumps, fuges, etc. I understand the LR & LS will play a huge part in biological filration, but confused about what other filtration I would need in addition to the protein skimmer. Help!!! My only undecided piece left! Thanks, Jill

 

[pallan]

I run an eheim canister filter on mine and love it.
i also just started running a HOT magnum canister for carbon but i dont like the air bubble its been putting out tweaking it a little here and there.
but if had to do it all over agian the amount of money i have into my filtration i could have built or almost bought a sump/fuge which is what i want eventually anyway. and im sure youll get to that point as well.

 

[kadella]

Thanks! The Eheim canister was one of ones I was considering... I'm still a bit confused - aren't you able to run a carbon filter using the Eheim itself? Or maybe that's just in newer models? Most sites aren't telling me what kind of media their filters can use.. Thanks for your help!

 

[pallan]

you can run carbon in an ehiem i just dont like to get into it very often and i dont want to run carbon all the time. so ive always had a Hang on filter to run carbon on occasion. now with my new tank the old Hang on filter was to small did not sit correctly on the lip of tank so i got the HOT magnum to run carbon in instead.

 

[pallan]

Originally Posted by kadella
Thanks! The Eheim canister was one of ones I was considering... I'm still a bit confused - aren't you able to run a carbon filter using the Eheim itself? Or maybe that's just in newer models? Most sites aren't telling me what kind of media their filters can use.. Thanks for your help!
Ehiem i run the efimech, in one container, efisubstrate in the other continer then there is a course filter pad and a fine filter pad.

 

[kadella]

Hey, thanks so much for your help... One more question - for good water clarity/quality, how often would you run carbon when you're running a reg. canister filter 24/7 - Maybe 2 days a week or month? Thanks!

 

[pallan]

Originally Posted by kadella
Hey, thanks so much for your help... One more question - for good water clarity/quality, how often would you run carbon when you're running a reg. canister filter 24/7 - Maybe 2 days a week or month? Thanks!
Some run it 24/7 some a couple of days a month some do not run it at all. Play around with it find your personal prefrence i quess. i run about two weeks on two weeks off run micron filter in between