CANISTRER FILTERS: What's in your basket?!

[somoney]

CANISTRER FILTERS: What's in your basket?!

Hi everyone, I want to set up my biological/chemical filter and I've read to NOT use the ceramic rings that come with them. With such a large filter I dont antisipate cleaning for another 3months! I'm thinking of filling the thing with nothing but Seachem Matrix but wanted to post the question here before I commit.

 

I'm setting up a 35g Hex tank.

 

I have purchased a Fluval 405 to filter it.

340GPH / 35gallons = Approximately 9x Filtration per hour.

They come with 4 baskets w/8 total filtration chambers.

4xCarbon and 4xCeramic

 

Not wanting to drill a hole, I cut three pieces of Plexiglas, glued them together into a corner, and built a ghetto hex surface skimmer. Left Chamber skims, water hits the second chamber making sure any bubbles are heading up and not into the third intake area. I'm using the canister filter to power the whole thing.

 

IT'S ALIVE! Runs great, no bubbles, now help me filter it!

[bagoegg]

Modify it into a fuge! hahaha I know on my 404's, even with nothing in the baskets, they still accumulate alot of crap so you might want to rinse them out every week to make sure it doesn't turn into a nitrate trap.

[somoney]

Handling nitrites/nitrates is the goal here. I'm keeping the stock sponge as for most sediment I'm hoping the bubble trap keeps that down too. I'll be curing some additional LR in this tank for about 30days before I transplant the contents of my 12g nano to it. Thats the plan anyway, it all depends on levels.

[bagoegg]

All im saying is that if your goal is 0 nitrates; IMHO, this will not be the best solution. Especially if you keep the stock sponges in. I clean out my 404's I use on FW once every 3-4 weeks and there is some much crap in them that it almost makes me gag everytime. Your live rock should be your biological filtration.

[Pickle010]

Your live rock should be your biological filtration.

 

+ a kajillion

[somoney]

Shouldn't a properly configured filter keep most of the solids confined to the sponge? To turn the thing into a fuge with that kind of flow is just going to kick the smaller waste particles right back into the tank. While I agree that LR is more than adequate Bio Filtration, we gotta have some basic filtering to trap the solids.

 

Unless you do weekly water changes, and then whats the point of a canister filter in the first place.

[bagoegg]

Yes properly configured filter will keep the solids in the sponge. But canisters are nitrate factories. If you were doing a FOWLR tank then its ok to have a canister. All the crap being trapped in the sponge will create a shiz load of nitrates. The goal for a reef tank is to have a very minimal amount of nitrates. My suggestion would be to get a hob filter like a aquaclear and get some filter floss that you change every couple days to fitler out the particulate mattter. You can also mod it to grow some chaeto. I was joking about turning the canister into a fuge btw.

 

If you goal for getting a canister for a reef tank was to reduce the amount of water changes, I think you made the wrong investment because it will create the need for alot more water changes. If you were doing FW or a FOWLR tank, then it would be fine.

[masterbuilder]

Right...canister filters are not recommended for REEF tanks. I wouldnt do it.....just do what everyone else does here if you want to increase your chances for success.

[somoney]

Damage done and since I need it for my particular overflow design I'll keep it until I can afford a sump.

I'll just load it up with Seachems de*nitrate & MatrixCarbon for now and report when I start seeing nitrate in the tank.