Skimmer and Fluval 304?

[cky]

I had a Fluval 304 filter for my freshwater tank and now I'm getting into saltwater. I recently just purchases the coralife supper skimmer 125 for my 55 gal tank. Should I be running the skimmer and the fluval 304 for filtration? I've heard before that running my old filter may cause problems.

 

[jet fixer]

The first four months that I ran my tank I used a 304 and a skimmer my nitrates were always high. From what I understand if you change all the filter media you can use the 304 on a SW tank. I recently added a wet/dry filter to my 50G and noticed a HUGE reduction of detrious (SP?) on my live rock plus the nitrates have fallen quite a bit.
Disclaimer: I'm still very new at this

 

[airforceb2]

CKY,
If you ever used copper in your fresh water tank you can't use the filter. If you are certain you never treated the tank with anything containing copper, you should be fine.
I'm running a Cascade 1500 and it works great for me.

 

[cky]

But do I absolutely have to run it with my skimmer, or will it just end upo being more work for me? Also if I do run won't I have to change the filter media in it quite frequently?

 

[cky]

bump

 

[airforceb2]

No, you don't have to run it at all. I don't have any media in my filter. I have some LR rubble and floss. Every now and then you can run carbon to polish the water but it isn't needed. The main thing I use mine for is water circulation. Plus it adds another 5 gallons to my water volume.

 

[cowfishrule]

im running a 304 successfully on my tank.

 

[danedodger]

I run a crappy skimmer (which we plan to replace

), double biowheel powerfilter, and Fluval 404. So far so good for us. We change out all our filter media except where the biological is kept once a month and at the same time dump out, rinse the inside of the cannister and powerfilter. You just can't have detrious and stuff building up in there is all.