How much filtration??

[wolrey]

My husband and I are trying to decide how much filtration our tank needs...we need some help resolving our dispute!!

Right now we use an Eheim 2026 and a Penguin 330 biowheel. My husband has an extra AC 110 that he's not using that he wonders if we should put on the tank. We think it might be too much movement with all 3 filters...

We do 50% tap water changes every other day (with plenty of Prime) and a 90% change once a week, with a wipedown. We have a 75gl with 3-4" and 5-3" discus, 28 cardinal tetras, 5 german blue rams, and 3-2.5" roseline sharks. We feed flake/tetra bit combo 5 times a day with an autofeeder and 2 cubes of frozen beefheart daily.

Any and all suggestions and opinions are welcome!!!

Jess

[Tropical Haven]

Jess,
You could never have too much filtration. Having a 75 gal the bio wheel and the Eheim should be fine but if it was me I would use a sponge filter or two instead of the bio wheel just to cut back on too much flow in the tank.

[jack396]

Scott,

Though I agree with your suggestion in principle, I find that in practice only sponge filters can lead to food impacted sponges in spite of frequent wc's. - unless, of course, the sponges are rinsed off each time,. which could be too time consuming and a p in the a. With a prefilter on an over the side filter, the prefilter takes most of the excess or missed food, and that is small and easy to change with each wc.

That is my observation; I'd like for you to convince me otherwise, as I have a 55 with two sponge filtes AND a biowheel. For a few reasons not worthy of getting into, this biowheel is particularly noisy, and I would love to just forget it. With it, however, each water change catches the bulk of the obvious filter waste when I rinse the prefilter. :bandana:

[Tropical Haven]

Jack,
I am not sure what results you may have had in the past with sponge filters but I have kept sponges in my tanks for the last 17 years without a problem. I clean them once every week or two and never had a problem with any pollution problems in my tanks.

As of food being stuck in the sponges, I have never had that problem but I do not know what type of food you may be referring to that would cause that.

When you state that it is too much work with sponges, I think sponges are one of the easiest of filtration methods. I noticed that you also said something about sponges being rinsed off. Sponges should never be rinsed off because you kill all the bacteria in the sponges this way, the best way of cleaning sponges is to partially fill a 5 gallon bucket up with water from your tank. Make sure there is enough in there to cover up the sponge then gently squeeze the sponge in the bucket until it is clean and place it back into your tank. You can use the same water in the bucket to jump start new sponges as well by squeezing them in the water from the bucket.

[jack396]

I feed a lot of flakes, and sometimes fish take it in their mouths and spit it back out in very small pieces. These get imbedded in the sponge filters unless a stronger force is pulling them toward a prefilter, I have found. However, I am willing to give this another try as the advantage, as you so cleary state, is increased simplicity and ease.

Yes, that is how I rinse the sponges too; it's what I meant when I used the word "rinse." BTW, I think another byproduct of successfully utilizing sponge filtration would be a quieter envioronment of tanks, though I kind of like the sound of water. ;)

Thanks for the quick response, Scott. I'm always in a quest for more efficiency with less toil. :)

[Tropical Haven]

I would give it another try, I would agree on the quieter the better comment as well. :D

[Cosmo]

You can never have too much bio filtration.

As you know you can have too much flow so it somewhat depends on where your outflows are.

I don't use HOBs so :confused: