Fluidized Bed filters?

[harlequin]

Hello, I am setting up a new tank for someone and decided to look at something different than my current setups. After reading a quick paragraph in a fishkeeping magazine about filtration I saw these as being highly recommended. Whose uses them and how effective are they? What is a good brand with ease of maintinance to get(going in my gf's tank)? Will it work good in combination with a powerfilter for mechanical filtration? thanks

 

[6stokes]

IMO these are exceptional for fish only tanks. Probably the best. Probably not the way you want to go for a reef, but I am using them on mine. I would like to switch to a sump/refug though. There are two drawbacks that I am aware of: The first is that if they are left off for too long a period of time, like in a power outage, they will become toxic. All the good stuff dies. Second, there is only one maybe two manufactures that make them and the ones I have are POS. I had to make repairs when I recieved mine, as they were leaking. E-mail me and I'll tell you the brand name. I have also purchased filtration systems from the same company and had problems with it too. I feel like they have a very poor quality control system.
Anyway, hope this helps, and if you do have fish only and not planning a reef, then IMO these are far superior than trickle systems.

 

[harlequin]

this is going to be a FOWLR with maybe some hardy soft corals fragged from my tank in the future. Mostly fish though(she has eyes on my filefish heheh).