Filtration

Hi

Please give me some advice about filtration. I have a internal and external filter but which will be best.
I am using it with my African Chiclids.

E&C_Aquariums

 

The answer depends on the size of your tank and livestock.

 

@E&C_Aquariums: If you have the cash go canister you cannot go wrong with one. And if you are willing to drill your tank get a sump. Chiclids are messy fish.

 

Gotta agree, althoug for me personally no such thing as too much filteration, I like external filters because the tank just looks neater.

 

@Swagasaurus. Thank you for the advice. I love external filters. Will it be okay if I run both in my tank? Internal and external. Sorry for all the questions but one of my friends told me to take out the insert fitting of both filters and fill it with filter floss that covers over some hair curlers. Sounds unreal but he told me that it will work the best. Inside the curlers I must put some aqua charcoal. Any advice on that?

 

I run two as both are vastly underpowered. I am however, building a a sorta semi canister filter. It uses a pond pump rated for roughly 700 liters an hour, so it will clean up my 70 liter nicely

 

Sounds like a good idea. I've just finished with the fitted external filter. I must say both is much better and the curlers with aqua charcoal works. Lol. Even tough it is only a 150L, chiclids can get messy like Swagasaurus said. Thank you for the advice everyone. Best forum ever.

 

The more filter media you can into your filtration the better. Haircurlers is an old trick but if it works it works haha. If you have the funds you cant go wrong with seachem matrix for filter media. Canister filters and sumps hold the most media. Sumps is easier to clean so would be the better form of filtration for a tank with big fish and a sump also gives more water volume so it helps to keep water parameters stable. Also filtersocks for the sumo helps to keep the sump and filtermedia clean. Hope this helps. Its just what I prefer. Im not a big fan of internal filters. They dont hold alot of media and imo the water circulates to quickly through the little internal chaimbers. They are good for carbon, purigen and filterfloss

 

Thank you for the advice. Sorry for being off-topic but I have recently discovered that my tank is not 100% mounted on the foam. The tank is standing on a stand (as seen in the picture) but I am still worried. The tank is level tough. Stupid question but I would not like a bursted tank.

 

@E&C_Aquariums, on the topic of filtration, it is important to understand WHY you are doing things otherwise when things go wrong you don't know where to start looking for the problem. There are plenty of usefudescriptions on the Net on how filters work, but here is a short version.

Aquarium filtration generally consists of four sections, some of which is optional.

1. Physical filtration
This is the filter floss that you referred to. Its job is purely (or mostly) to catch all the big particles and fish poop before it goes through to the rest of your filter media. This filter floss you clean out or replace as often as is necessary, typically once a week or three. Personally, mine I rinse out with scalding warm water. NEVER DO THIS WITH ANY OF THE OTHER FILTER MEDIA.

2. Biological filtration
This is stuff that you put in your tank that allows the bacteria to grow on. The bacteria we want converts ammonia to nitrites, and again nitrites to nitrates. Ammonia and nitrites are very toxic, nitrates not so much. Google the Nitrate Cycle for more info on this. These bacteria grow on the surface of everything in the tank, but by providing an area with lots and lots of surface area inside the filter, we can concentrate them in one place and provide them with the optimal conditions.

Bacteria are killed by anti-bacterial agents like cholrine in the tap water, warm water, bright light and various other things. For this reason, you never replace your bio-media in your filter, wash it with tap-water or warm water. Simply rinse it out with water from your tank.

In your example, the haircurlers would be the bio-media. AS Ryno mentioned, Matrix is much better, and so are those ceramic rings you can buy at most LFS. Matrix is designed to have a massive surface area for bacteria to grow on, so for the space available in the filter, you get more bang for your buck compared to curlers.

3. Chemical filtration
Chemical filtration removes all the other harmful chemicals, like medicines, from the water. The main chemical filtration used in aquariums is activated carbon, which is not the same as normal carbon. Also note that activated carbon only works for about a month after which it is no good for removing chemicals anymore. Many people don't run carbon in their filters, unless you put medicine in there that you now need to remove.

An (very good) alternative is Seachem Purigen. It does everything carbon does and more. It can also be recharged and reused. The stuff is expensive, but worth every cent.

4. Plants
Most people do not consider this technically part of the filtration, but do not underestimate the positive effect plants have on your tank. For one, plants directly absorb ammonia, where as your biological filtration has to break it down over two steps to nitrates. Plants also absorb nitrates. In general it is my belief that plants are the ultimate in filtration, especially if you can somehow have emergent plants (plants that only grow with their roots in the water, leaves in the air).

Unfortunately some fish are not compatible with plants. I keep silver dollars in my main tank, so I ran an external sump to keep plants.

Lastly, to decide how much filtration you need, the rule of thumb is to have a filtration system that can pump 5x the volume of your tank every hour. So for 150l you need at least 750l/h. When you have messy fish like cichlids, more is better. In fact, more is always better.

Also, one important advantage of having external filters are that they add to the total volume of the water. If your tank holds 150l, adding a canister filter with an additional 20l capacity will bring the total water volume to 170l. More water = less chance of stuff going wrong. For this reason, a sump is even better.

Sorry for the long-winded reply, but hopefully this helps you in deciding on the right filtration for your tank.

 

@JJFury. Thank you for the advice. I just think that a sump would not be that wow for a 150L tank. I have only seen sump filtration for bigger tanks. The external and internal seems to work best together ( my opinion )

 

@JJFury: Nice advice, you can never over filter a tank. I am doing almost 2000 lph in my 80 litre tank.

 

If you are going to keep cichlids, my recommendation is go for a sump. Honestly, if you get a external and internal filter, that will cost you atleast R1500+ . you could build yourself a 3ft sump for that price.

for cichlids, a general rule of thumb is a turnover rate of at least 6 to 10 times the tank volumn. And as I have mentioned, a sump with a powerful return pump can achieve that easily, and as all the other guys have mentioned, sumps hold much more filter material, and water and is much more efficient.

I only have a 210lt cichlid tank, bit have a 100lt sump with 6000lt return pumps, and taking head height intp consideration, I have a turn over of more than 10x. Water parameters are so stable that I only do water changes once every two months. Check out my cichlid setup to see full specs.

 

I already have the setup. ( see my picture above)