DryWet vs Canister

[CoKen]

hi Guys

i have been considerring to replace my canister with a DryWet filter, but i try to figure out the differences, i know it is easier to clean and better bio-filterring, but what is the ultimate benefit and advantage??? will it help discus grow faster? do i need to have water change daily? what media do i need to put in the dry wet compartment apart from bio-ball, ceramic noodle, active carbon, sponge, etc....

pls excuse my series of questions.

thanks.

rgds
Ken

[lhforbes12]

hi Guys

i have been considerring to replace my canister with a DryWet filter, but i try to figure out the differences, i know it is easier to clean and better bio-filterring, but what is the ultimate benefit and advantage???

The ones you already stated are the advantage. You can put heater(s) etc in your sump with a wet/dry though.


will it help discus grow faster?
No


do i need to have water change daily?
Yes


what media do i need to put in the dry wet compartment apart from bio-ball, ceramic noodle, active carbon, sponge, etc....
That's it


pls excuse my series of questions.

thanks.

rgds
Ken

[CoKen]

hi there,

so, what is the point to replace the canister then?

actually? how much oxygen (PPM) will it increase in the water if using DryWet filter?

[pcsb23]

Ken,

When you say DryWet do you mean a sump filter or do you mean one of the newer type of eheim wet/dry cannister filters?

In effect they both do a similar job.

Traditional cannister filters are closed systems, as in theere is no exposure to the air during the filtration process, as a consequence the water that comes from the cannister has less O2 in than before it enterd. Reasonis the nitrifying bacteria need O2 to function and they must then get it from the water.

With a sump or wet/dry filter system some or all of the biomedia is exposed to the air, thus providing more O2 availability for th bacteria. they are consequently more efficient in both my opinion and experience. Also as the nitrifying abcteria get their O2 from the air the O2 in the water is not depleted. Indeed the water is often (not always) at O2 saturation when leaving a sump or wet/dry system.

As for media, you will need mechanical, ie something to take the lumps out, then biological, ie something to take the ammonia/nitrite out. You could if you wanted use chemical (carbon etc) to remove other stuff, but its more effective by w/c. I have recently started using the eheim substrat pro as my biological media in my sump (and cannisters too!) initial opinion is that this is a superior media to most others, its expensive though :(.

As noted you can hide all the other bits and pieces in the sump too, heaters, dosers, redox etc..

I consider sump or wet/dry filters to be the rolls royce of filtration.

[TRAKURT]

In a wetdry setup I like this stuff for the bio

http://www.cpraquatic.com/products/biobale.html

[Graham]

I use ''trickle towers'', basically the dry side of things on all my aquariums, holding tanks and ponds. It is by far the most efficient way for nitrification. Nitrification is an oxidization process, therefore as Paul mentioned the more O2 that the nitrifiers have the better.

There are tons of different bio-media's out there from the PVC strapping/bio-bale that trakurt mentioned to the sintered glass and quartz products, that paul mentioned. There are bio-balls of every discription and then ceramic products like Bakki House with it's outragous claims or natural prodcuts like lava rock. Then there all the different mattings from American made Matala to Japanese made Blue matting..........then there all the DIY products like scrubbies, hair curlers, PVC strapping, shot gun wadding,army men etc etc............ The one thing to watch for is how much sq ft of surface area each has and the void space. If it clogs and starts to channel then you loose bio surface...defeats the purpose

Here's some sq footage numbers for some of the products

The Kaldnes K1 media in a Nexus filter has 259 square FEET of surface area per cubic foot which equates to 37,296 square inches of surface area per cubic foot.

Matala

Black 62 sq.ft. per cu.ft.
Green 96 sq.ft. per cu.ft.
Blue 124 sq.ft. per cu.ft.
White 171 sq.ft. per cu.ft

Alfagrog (1 liter) surface area is rated between 40 and 100 sq. meters for the bacteria to grow on, depending on the Alfagrog particle size.


Flocor - 160 m 2 /m 3

Polyethylene beads are rated between 400-500 square feet of surface area per cubic foot of packed media.


Blue Japanese area 418.4m sq per meter cubed void 96.1%."

[CoKen]

hi guys,

thanks for all your response and opinion.

i mean DryWet as those trickle filters. the reason i wanna replace my canister is that all my discuses are not growing at all, 8 months discus is still at 1.5 inch in size, i feed them 4 times a day with brine shrimp, beef heart, blood worm, and dry food, de-worm once a week, 25% water change twice a week, but i adopt a daily 25% water change and siphon through the gravel for clean those feces for the last 4 weeks after Paul's advice that i posted a thread 4 weeks ago. but after 4 weeks now, i dont see much improving.

i have been thinking and thinking what went wrong, the only thing now i can think of is that the filter system might not be strong enough to supply their wants, even though i already double up the canister to 2 canisters for 44 gallon water tank. i only have 7 discuses in it, i dont think it is over stocking either.

i gave 2 smallest discus to my brother in law less than 3 months ago, now, these discus grow from 1 inch to 3 inches with brilliant colour on it. he has 66 gallon water with a DryWet filter, he only does a 10% water change twice a week, sometime only once, his tank's thick gravels have been cleaned. he has more than 10 fish in the tank, and only feed twice a day with only dry food.

i try to compare his resources and mine, i dont think he does more than i do in terms of feeding quality, and water treatment. but, the only disadvantage i have is he has a DryWet filter whereas i use canister. so, i will upgrade to a DryWet sump filter, and see if there is any improvement (hopefully).

by the way, my water parameter is always consistant, ie, 6.9-7.0 PH. 0 ammonia. 0 nitrite. 29-30 degree temperature.

well, i think i have done correctly enough in keeping the discuses, but the result is not good at all, 8 months discuses only grow to 1.5 inch. quiet disappointing. :angry: :confused:

pls let me know if i missed out any important thing in keeping discus?

thanks.


rgds
Ken

[brewmaster15]

Hi ken,
We definetly need to talk!:) The growth you are seeing, or I guess lack of growth is not from filtration.. Theres something biologically wrong with those fish.... and I am afraid to say that at this point they probably wont grow much .:(

may I ask why you are deworming them weekly.. That should never be necessary.. many dewormers cause a loss in appetite....additionally prolonged use is probably harming their internal organs.....
what Dewormer are you using and why have you felt that it was needed weekly? Am I misunderstanding this?

-al

[Cosmo]

Al's points are right on the money :)

To add to Paul's point, I'd lose the carbon and I also love the ehfisubstrat pro, although the std ehfisubstrat will give you just as good of bio filtrations for fewer $$. Use your cannisters for bio primarily and mechanical secondarily. WC's replace the need for chemical

You mentioned gravel... even though you vacuum it daily you're still leaving a lot of detritus in the tank, you should give some serious thought to BB cause they are easier to clean and can still be made attractive.

You didn't mention your nitrate reading :confused: With the gravel it's probably pretty high which doesn't help growth or overall health.

Jim

[Graham]

i gave 2 smallest discus to my brother in law less than 3 months ago, now, these discus grow from 1 inch to 3 inches with brilliant colour on it. he has 66 gallon water with a DryWet filter, he only does a 10% water change twice a week, sometime only once, his tank's thick gravels have been cleaned. he has more than 10 fish in the tank, and only feed twice a day with only dry food.

Hmmmmmm I'm thinking out loud here......

there is something obivously different in the two tanks, since the fish that you gave your BIL are growing and yours are not...If the systems are bascially the same other than the TT then it has to have something to do with it.:confused: :bandana:

Since you have no ammonia and nitrite showing it's not nitrification, the only other two possibilities are high Nitrate or low O2. Nitrate is easily tested for..........Large Good TT's have the ability to gas off nitrogen before it becomes nitrate,but I don't think it works well in small aquarium sized ones.

The other is O2...TT's add tons of O2 to a system, have you checked O2 levels in the tank, how sealed is the top of your tank, any airstones running, any agaitation from filter returns ???????????????

Like I said thinking out loud

G


Edit de-worming the crap out of them might do it also

[Cosmo]

Graham,

You beat me to the airstones... came back on to add a comment on that. While the trickle wet/dry is probably the better course for oxygenation, since you already have two cannisters you might consider adding a few large airstones if you don't already have them. That will create surface turbulance and gas off the C02 and oxygenate the water...

What type of cannisters are we talking here?

Jim

[Bainbridge Mike]

Hi Ken:

Sorry to hear about your experience. Sounds like the best idea is to go for a do-over. If you answer the questions above, we can help you get things right the next time around. I did not have much success either with my first group of discus (I only had one grow to full size) so don't feel bad. Second time around I did much better!

Mike

[CoKen]

hi Guys

thanks for your opinions again.

i do not have nitrate test kit, i will buy one this weekend.

i have 2 air-stone in the tank.

i de-worm them based on the recommondation of the de-worm instruction bottle, this one is called "Discus Anti-Endoparsites", the company is called "Azoo", it is a Taiwan company. acording to its instruction and introduction, this de-wormer is treating/preventing the Camallanus, roundworms, cestode ascarid, and hexamita. because i have been feeding the discus raw food, ie, beef heart, blood worm, brine shrimp, these raw food can make the discus to have those internal worm or other diseases, so, i guess, prevention is always better cure. the apettite of my discuses are extreme good, whenever i feed them, food will disappear in less than 30 second. this is the most enjoyable time that i have from them.

i will take your advice to give another new start. i will arrange to have my tank modified (drilling a hole to suit DryWet filter hose), then cycling it for says.... 2 weeks, then put my discuses back to the modified tank.

like Brewmaster15 said, i m also concerned that the discuses wont grow any futher because they had passed the growing stage of their life, just like human, if the childhood is missing something to help them grow, then the child wont be able to grow as tall as those ordinary one.

i have been trying to pin point what i have missed out for my discuses, this is the ultimate question.

anyway, thanks your input and advise. i will let u know if there is any change or improvement.

rgds
Ken

[Timbo]

hi Ken!

sorry to hear of your fish not growing. as Al said, we can practically guarentee a new wet-dry will not correct this situation. i agree with mike when he says a "do-over" is called for...8 month old discus that are 1.5" inches are probably permanently stunted and will never recover. i think mike meant is you should start over with new fish. sorry, but i would agree

from what i've heard here, the cause of the stunting lies elsewhere than filtration. your diet sounds ok, but when you say "prevention is always better cure" i have to disagree. i would never treat fish with meds unless they are sick. actually it could be that the stunting was caused by the unnecessary weekly treatments or if they could have been exposed to low temps at one point, were really sick when they were young, etc...but spending money on wet/dry will not correct or prevent this from happening

[Cosmo]

Ken,

If you tank isn't already pre-drilled for wet/dry overflows, your best bet may be to purchase an overflow box that sits partially inside the tank and mostly outside the tank. Otherwise I think you'd need to drill holes either very near the top (which may be problematic), or lower down and then run tubing up to the surface area. You don't want a direct flow from a normal bulkhead for a wet/dry filter. Customaquatics.com has some neat clear PVC tubing if you want to go with the lower bulkhead and home-made overflow tubes, but buying a continuous flow overflow box would probably be safest.

If you use the media from your containers (assuming the containers are already established) in the wet/dry sump you should be good to go at startup instead of waiting a couple weeks. If you're using established media, waiting 2 weeks could be counterproductive, and if you're using all new media then 2 weeks isn't enough time.

Jim