[marciemp]

I have a 92 gallon bow front corner tank with fish, live rock, crabs, shrimp, and some zoanthid polyps. I hope to eventually add more corals. The tanks is second hand, we upgraded to it from a 72 gallon rectangle tank. The new tanks came with filters and power heads which we used. We moved all of the live rock, most of the sand and all of the critters over from our old tank. I also used quite a bit of the filter media from our crappy hang on power filter in the new filters.

The new filters are a Eheim proffesional wet dry filter and a fluval 404 or 405. Are these good filters for our tank. They seem to be working great and the tank never re cycled.

The Ehiem has one tray of ceramic tubes and one tray of rocks. How do I clean the filter? The fluval has 4 trays, 2 of them had the ceramic tubes, the other 2 were empty. We added some carbon in a bag and some phosphate remover in a bag in those 2 trays we added tubes from our existing tank too. I may have also added a bit of filter sponge from our old tank too, juts to keep the good bacteria from our old tank to this one.

What would normally be kept in the 4 trays of the fluval?

Our tank normally has some issues with nitrates, right now they are pretty good at 20, possibly due to the better filters?

Could the filter sponge have been keeping the nitrates up, this is something I read recently? Should we have any filter sponge or filter floss in these filter trays.


The tank was a salt water tank, which was then converted to a fresh water for a while to house some baby Cichilids (sp?). We rinsed all of the filter tubes, trays, canisters and media very well. I figures that any of the good bacteria that was in the filters from the fresh water wouldn't be any good to our saltwater tank, so we just wanted the filters to be clean, they were pretty gunky.

Thanks,
Marcie

[RyanG]

If at all possible get a sump with a refuge, if you don't want to get that right now. Make sure you completely clean out your filters and make sure you change them regularly. High nitrate levels will ensue which your fish will not like (ie die)

[mcintosh]

They are good filters when used correctly, Marcie (how is that for a lead-in! I love waffles!)
I have both and have used them to filter freshwater planted tanks. They work great in that application because they provide a large surface area for bacteria to work their magic in and they can be cleaned regularly (read every month). Of course you don't want to remove all of the bacteria so I rinsed the filter materials in tank water that had been removed for a partial water change. This is also a good time to change the carbon and phosphate remover in your filter.

That being said, in a reef tank, you are constantly battling Nitrate issues in the tank. Any excess Nitrogen in the tank will allow problem (undesirable) algae to take over and outcompete your (desired) corals. The theory behind live rock is that the bacteria within the rock convert nitrate to nitrogen gas through denitrification. The same can be said with deep sand beds. If you find that your nitrates are uncontrollable you may want to consider leaving the rings and the filter floss out of the canister filters. Unless you are religious about changing (rinsing in fresh RO/DI water would work) the filter material every week.

HTH

[marciemp]

Thanks for your help. That is what I was concerned about, high nitrates. The tank seems OK now, the nitrates are below 20. I would ideally like to have a sump but I am pretty new at this and am not really sure how to go about it. Are there all in one sump systems to buy? I have read so much about do it youself sumps but it gets a little too confusing. I understand the sump tank itself but all of the plumbing needed stumps me. I would need to do it with an overflow box...Then there is also the question of how you prevent the tank fro overflowing in the event that the power goes out and then on agaion restarting the pump but not the siphon from the overflow box.

If I could buy the whole thing alread assembled, that I just needed to hook to the tank I would.

Marcie

[Kimjo1]

HI, I have had both the fluvals and the ehiems. I liked the fluval for ease of maintenance but the ehiem comes with a cool spray bar attached..... Either one is OK as long as it is large enough (most GPH) . Just do your monthly maintenace and you'll be fine. I never understood how to set up a refugium or a sump, wish I did. Just My opinion.

Kim