RoninBoxers Posted January 17, 2005 Report Share Posted January 17, 2005 Hi All! I'm trying to do quite a bit of reading before deciding on a filter for my new tank (around 100L) I want to have a lot of plants and a pack small fish. Presently I'm thinking about a cannister (had thought about a UGF but read they aren't great with plants) now I've read about a Fluidized bed filter. Reviews rate them highly and say they are good in planted tanks. I've read a lot about them but haven't seen a diagram and can't quite figure how they work?? :oops: Anyone used one or have thoughts on them? Thanks! Helene Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suphew Posted January 17, 2005 Report Share Posted January 17, 2005 As I understand it FBF work by pushing water through a media (like sand) with enough pressure to make all the media move (i.e. fluidized) the advantage of this is you get a very high surface area and no dead spots in the filter. But there are disadvantages, you need a BIG pump to make them work, very good plumbing so they dont leak, they are difficult to set up (I have visions of blowing all that sand out of the filter into the tank!), expensive (althrough I have never seen them for sale in NZ). I could be wrong about all these problems and I don't see why a well designed unit shouldn't be able fix them (other than the price maybe!). UGF are bad for plants and I have read that they can crash, they are only really good if your looking for a really cheap solution and don't mind the noise and lack of plants. But to answer your question a FBF would be a huge overkill in a 100l tank, if you could even get/build one. IMHO go with a Fluval 204, which seem to have the best price point, the smaller ones aren't that much cheaper and are half the size, the biggers ones cost a lot more and arn't that much bigger. Didn't forget that your plants are adding to the filtration so the more you have the less filtration you need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoninBoxers Posted January 17, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2005 Thanks for that! I had somehow imagined them sucking sand through the substrate :oops: which I thought crazy! I'm now decided on a filter! I think I better calculate the exact volume of the tank Thanks! Helene Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted January 17, 2005 Report Share Posted January 17, 2005 I have never had trouble growing plants over an UGF. As long as the substrate is at least 5cm deep you will have no problems. I have never had one crash either. I recommend them for all small tanks. Bigger tanks I feel need something more (perhaps a combination of UGF and canister filter) and I find the fatter uplift tubes ugly and hard to hide. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suphew Posted January 17, 2005 Report Share Posted January 17, 2005 I wouldn't bother working out the volume to pick the filter, if it is around 100L most cannister filters will be heaps. Plus the tank volume ratings on the filters can be very misleading, they base the rating on turning over the tanks volume a number of times per hour, say 3 times the volume per hour which means a filter rated at 300lph would be ok for a 100l tank, but this turn over rate changes depending on what you are keeping in the tank, some fish are messy eaters so need a higher turn over some don't like the high current in the tank so need a slower turn over. To add further confusion the flow rate of the filter (i.e. 300LPH) is questionable, did they allow for the holes, bends, media, these things can half the flow rate plus as the media starts to get crap in it the flow rate number goes out the window anyway. As i see it there are two ways to choose, 1) buy a filter rated at minimum twice the size of your tank to give you a safty margin, it is easy to turn down the flow rate on most newer filters (but impossible to turn it up if its too low) and I don't think anyone actually turns them (FYI it is not really possible to over filter your tank) 2) shop around and find the best filter for your money (as I said before at the moment I recon fluval 204 are on the money) and if you need to, buy two of them. This is what I have done, it gives me so many advantanges, redundancy if a filter fails, I can clean 1 at a time so don't risk affecting the biofilter too much, when I set up a new tank I have a cycled filter all ready to go, I got mine on sale at Animates and it was cheaper to buy 2 than 1 of the next size up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiverJohn Posted January 18, 2005 Report Share Posted January 18, 2005 HI Ronin, In addition to Surphews advise... When I added the plants to my setup after a while i noticed that I was getting alot of "reasonable sized" plant material actually going all the way down the siphon into the filter. (mainly cambomba) Although the filter was doing what it should, it was getting dirty very quickly. I added a Pre-filter that sits in the bottom of the tank and i can lift it out with tongs and clean that once a week. Much easier than cleaning the canister filter so frequently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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