your filter pref ?
- Thread starter Skinr1
- Start date
geridoc
Well-Known Member
As folks on this site will tell you, I am old school and am running my 220 gallon system with a wet-dry filter. They work fine for FO tanks since they are highly aerobic and as a consequence can produce some nitrate. Generally, if you keep up with water changes this isn't a problem for fish. The advent of live rock filtration brings anaerobic/low flow zones in the pores of the rock. Under such conditions nitrates are converted to nitrogen gas, which is vented off, keeping nitrates very low. This is necessary for keeping many invertebrates, which are very nitrate sensitive. The only maintenance necessary for a w/d filter is to periodically rinse off 1/2 of the filter balls (or whatever is the substrate) just to minimize the level of entrapped materials. Otherwise, these are easy to maintain and work fine for fish systems.
Skinr1
Member
I am very old school as well , please excuse some of my questions I have always done what worked best for me . im just trying to check out some of the latest ideas out there so bare with me . there is some stuff on this forum I read I never even heard of how old school is that lol .
flower
Well-Known Member
Hi,
I have a 90g tank. Over the last 14 years I have used:
2 canister filters (one to clean alternately, the other to leave for the good bacteria... for about 10 yrs, (problem free) Reef tank with lots of corals
.
Sump/refugium with a lifter pump... for about 3 yrs...I hate the lifter pump, it constantly clogged up, even with a pre-filter (if I ever go sump again, I will have the tank pre-drilled). Eventually the sump leaked and made quite the mess, so I had to remove it altogether. Reef tank at first and changed over to Potbelly seahorses.
2 HOB C4 Fluval filters... So far I love them, pain free cleaning, easy access, but it does create salt-creep, which is an easy wipe down. I keep decorative macroalgae (FOWLR) so a skimmer or other equipment isn't needed. Just a chiller since I keep seahorses, for regular fish, a heater would be needed. So far this is the cheapest and easiest way to keep a tank, which is why, since I'm disabled, I opted to try a HOB.
In the end I have concluded that any filter will do the job, it all depends on what equipment you want to run, how much work you are willing to do, and what you are keeping. Every one of us has to find our own "what works best for me". You aren't doing anything wrong as long as your tank critters are thriving.
I have a 90g tank. Over the last 14 years I have used:
2 canister filters (one to clean alternately, the other to leave for the good bacteria... for about 10 yrs, (problem free) Reef tank with lots of corals
.
Sump/refugium with a lifter pump... for about 3 yrs...I hate the lifter pump, it constantly clogged up, even with a pre-filter (if I ever go sump again, I will have the tank pre-drilled). Eventually the sump leaked and made quite the mess, so I had to remove it altogether. Reef tank at first and changed over to Potbelly seahorses.
2 HOB C4 Fluval filters... So far I love them, pain free cleaning, easy access, but it does create salt-creep, which is an easy wipe down. I keep decorative macroalgae (FOWLR) so a skimmer or other equipment isn't needed. Just a chiller since I keep seahorses, for regular fish, a heater would be needed. So far this is the cheapest and easiest way to keep a tank, which is why, since I'm disabled, I opted to try a HOB.
In the end I have concluded that any filter will do the job, it all depends on what equipment you want to run, how much work you are willing to do, and what you are keeping. Every one of us has to find our own "what works best for me". You aren't doing anything wrong as long as your tank critters are thriving.
jay0705
Well-Known Member
Agreed honestly the stuff in your tank will tell you all you need to know. If its not good your critters will tell. My big tank is fowlr, nothing special, hob filter , heater, ect. Then I notice a new hitch hiker(mantis shrimp) do some research. They need high quality water to survive. To me that means reef like, skimmers, sump, ect. 5 months later the little sucker is growing and doing good lol so I guess I have decent water quality lol
geridoc
Well-Known Member
I think the most impactful advance in the past several years has been the use of macroalgae in FO and reef tanks. You can just put some into a sump or an isolated part of the display tank or, as I do, use an algae scrubber. Macroalgae really do a great job of cleaning up the water, and your herbivores love it!
jay0705
Well-Known Member
Whats your prefered type of macro?
bang guy
Moderator
Wet Dry are great as long as you have a venue for exporting the nitrates.
Personally I have not found anything better than a remote sand bed combined with an oversized foam fractionator but the algae scrubbers are a really really close second. If space is limited then the algae scrubber wins hands down as the best filtration device.
Personally I have not found anything better than a remote sand bed combined with an oversized foam fractionator but the algae scrubbers are a really really close second. If space is limited then the algae scrubber wins hands down as the best filtration device.
Skinr1
Member
next week im upgrading my filtration ,replacing my small wet/dry with a big wet/dry 4 times the size of the 1 I have now ,this thing is so big I can literally fit 4 of the ones the size I have now in it side by side end to end and a protein skimmer & phosphate reactor being installed as well .
so im hoping to see some great , crystal clear water quality after this big upgrade ,,, hey trading is good ..... traded a jeep bumper for this filtration system ,
I figure I got the hole system for free .no out of pocket $$ & everything works fine to . so why not . .
so im hoping to see some great , crystal clear water quality after this big upgrade ,,, hey trading is good ..... traded a jeep bumper for this filtration system ,
I figure I got the hole system for free .no out of pocket $$ & everything works fine to . so why not . .