Okay, I'm very new to the saltwater hobby. My wife bought me a tank for my birthday a couple of months ago and I've been slowly buying equipment as I've been studying up on the hobby. Here's what I hvave so far. 125G glass undrilled tank, Fluval,FX6 canister filter, 1 Vortech MP40WQD powerhead but I'm thinking of adding a MP10 as well, 2 Fluval E series 300W heaters, Reef Octopus HOB skimmer, 4 Aquaillumination Hydra Twentysix LEDs, 120lbs of live sand, 125lbs of dry rock and a CPR Aquafuge 2 HOB refugium with a light which I'm thinking of placing the heater in and if that doesn't work then some live sand, rock rubble and chaetomorpha. Any suggestion would be extremely helpful. This will be a FOWLR tank I will be producing my own RODI as well.
New to the hobby: My setup
- Thread starter BradWatts
- Start date
What will you be putting into your canister filter? I'm not a fan of canisters because they don't export nitrates. They tend to add to that problem unless you are frequently cleaning media...which defeats part of the purpose of using a canister (biological filtration).
Sorry, Brad, but I deleted my initial post when I noticed that you answered it. See the revised post above.
Honestly, I would shy away from a canister for the reasons I mentioned, except for situations where you want a short-term cleanup of the water. Your tank will quickly start to accumulate high levels of nitrates and no amt of water changes will resolve it. The more natural you can establish your tank, the better off. Sump, refugium, live rock, live sand. Also, what you want to consider is setting up a quarantine tank as well. New fish bring diseases with them and those diseases will be introduced to your system. You can't treat fish diseases effectively in a display tank, especially one with live rock, live sand, corals., etc. You can use a canister in a quarantine tank.
Now, if you are going to clean the canister every 3 weeks, then you may well be ok. That will make your canister a strictly mechanical filter (not biological). This means that the canister will act as a filter to collect debris, but, because you will be cleaning frequently, there is little change to establish a biological filter within the media.
Now, if you are going to clean the canister every 3 weeks, then you may well be ok. That will make your canister a strictly mechanical filter (not biological). This means that the canister will act as a filter to collect debris, but, because you will be cleaning frequently, there is little change to establish a biological filter within the media.
I have a 20 gallon tank for a QT. My plan is to rinse the media from the filter and the filter pads in the water from the canister before I dispose of it. That way I preserve the bacteria. I will have a refugium but it will be a HOB. I hope I'm going about this the right way.
Glad to hear you have a QT. That puts you way ahead of most new hobbyists. I'm not sure what the gain is with rinsing the filters in canister water? That will just add debris back into your display tank. You need to just throw out the pads. Did you read that somewhere?
I found a a LFS and that's what they suggested. So of course I started researching it and found a few videos on it.
That's exactly what I meant lol. Thanks for straightening me out.