What do you guys use?

AY????

LIVE ROCK SKIMMER

big wet dry filter with lots of bio balls.

canister filter is also good filled with sponge and filter wool.

Like canister filters ect. Not skimmers.

Cause i dont think many people have them?

a few use them to run carbon and stuff

big wet dry filter with lots of bio balls.

canister filter is also good filled with sponge and filter wool.

:lol:

Undergravel

i think rossco is the only one i have seen with a filter

out of the five tanks youve seen thats quite a high percentage

I use a fluval for Phos-sorb and ziolite

About 55 kilos of liverock, a deltec MCE600 and two Oceanwerx FR1-304s, one with antiphos and the other with carbon.

special filters but none on rollies.. oops forgot i gave up. 8)

My main filter system (as I see it) is rock, bacteria, and water movement.

All cannisters really do is create a more efficient way of moving the water over a greater surface area of man made rock.

I've added skimmer/s mainly cause the missus has added more protein factories and I couldn't sleep at night waiting for the tank to 'crash'.

Now I'm going for the natural turbid high bacteria marine environment look (lots of fishies and not so many SPSs at this stage)

Hope we will still be able to see the fish and things...

If you use a cannister filter with filter wool and or sponge Make sure you clean reqularly and wash in your tank water not tap (Or you will kill the good bacteria that will be growing in the sponge). Good when your starting a tank But cos the inside is out of site, its out of mind. If you leave it dirty it will break down and start to pollute your tank. How bigs the Tank and how many fish? What corals are you looking at getting? Do you test ? What are your readings? Sorry to sound like a cop with all the questions but want to get the full picture.I used to have bio balls and canister filter but have slowly changed to a berlin style tank which sounds like thats they way you want to go? But if the tank is young I think its a good idea to have the canister on there to get the bacteria levels up untill your rock can devalope. But there are so many options when it comes to filtration it really comes down to what you want to acheive tank size and fish load.

Sharky - You are aware that filter wool and sponges in saltwater will create excess nitrates after approximatly 5 days of submersion? This is why no-one uses them. If you MUST use filter wool certainly don't try and preserve the bacterria, replace the wool before it goes biological.

Pie

so true. and filter wool is still GREAT to use every now and then to take out solid (larger than skimmable) matter from the water column. i wrapped a stocking fill of carbon in a piece of filter wool and my water is the clearest it's been in ages.

If you do use filter wool and sponges I'd say it would be better to clean them in tap water if yours is heavily chlorinated. Keeps them from becoming biological instead of just straight mechnaical filtration.

Just to clarify my understanding...wouldn't the nitrate production aided by the wool/fibre be the end product of the normal tank nitrogen cycle anyway ie the wool etc just hastens the conversion of nitrite to nitrate?

Or is it 'additional' nitrate (from where?) that the cycle wouldn't normally have produced anyway.

Rinsing filters would be a good way to export waste as long as the negatives don't outweigh the postive... :-?

A guy with a 200g cuttlefish tank on Tonmo uses a bioball tower and hasn't cleaned it out for 3 years - flows still good and never has a problem with nitrates(undetectable).

A guy jumped off the Aucland harbour bridge & lived

Was that in the last couple of days steve?

A dude jumped off the taupo bungy!!! That would be somewhat scary.

rossco in response to your question(and nothing to do with bridges )

basicly the foam/filter wool is so effective at breaking down to nitrate that it will spike and rise it too fast and your rock will not be able to cope with the elevated levels. high nitrates=bad for corals and fish

A guy with a 200g cuttlefish tank on Tonmo uses a bioball tower and hasn't cleaned it out for 3 years - flows still good and never has a problem with nitrates(undetectable).

I too have a bioball tower, in my case it's a big heap of bioballs in my overflow. This is because my nitrates were so close to absolute zero that stuff including corals couldn't grow, the bioball tower is to try to get some nitrates, although they are still undetectable, salifert.

However this cuttlefish guy must have something else in his tank or management that is removing the nitrate, it would not be possible for him to still have zero nitrate with a bioball tower and nothing else, unless the bioball tower was running anaerobically.