125 gallon filters?

[katar76]

I'm planning on buying a 125 gallon tank. I want some live plants and some community fish with 4-6 Angelfish eventually when conditions permit. I am familiar with the Emperor 400 line as I had them on a 75 gallon tank. Noise level does not bother me as the house is always noisy anyways, plus I never thought they were loud unless the water was too low. Will two emperor 400s be enough filtration for a 125 gallon tank in the beginning? I will eventually buy some kind of better canister filter.

 

[kdogg85]

Those should be enough period. That's what I use on my 75g SA cichlid tank and don't have any problems. Now, I don't even have the filter pads in at all, I just use them for water turnover. Btw, I have 18 fish in there and no problems to speak of. It took about 3 months to go padless.

 

[katar76]

So will I even need a canister filter later on?

 

[tyspot1000]

You can do the Emperors in the beginning, but make to run 4 of them, that will give the right filtration (1600 Gallons per hour).

If you want a 'cleaner' look (As in less equipment showing), you could add a canister later on and get rid of the HOB's

Once the tank is cycled and you have an investment for one, go ahead and get one.< Make sure to run the emperors til the Canister has gathered enough beneficial bacteria so that the emperors can go off.>

 

[toddnbecka]

Personally I'm not an emperor fan. I run aquaclear hob's on most of my tanks, eheim canisters on a few others. Two aquaclear 110's would give you 1000 gph, and 2 sponge blocks in each would be quite enough biofiltration capacity.

 

[katar76]

What are sponge blocks?

 

[katar76]

I looked at the aquaclear 110's on amazon and they received 5 stars 22 times out of 24. 1 review gave 1 star and the other a 2 because they arrived broken. I might go with those, they're supposedly very quiet.

 

[tyspot1000]

In sponge blocks, they were meaning like sponge filters.

 

[toddnbecka]

Aquaclear filters use blocks of sponge (open cell foam) for media to collect debris and provide massive surface area for nitrifying bacteria to colonize. There's enough space in the 110 filter for 2 of those, IMO it's the best option for filtration. Carbon is only necessary for removing meds (or tannins if you have new wood in the tank), not for normal maintenance.

 

[katar76]

Aquaclear filters use blocks of sponge (open cell foam) for media to collect debris and provide massive surface area for nitrifying bacteria to colonize. There's enough space in the 110 filter for 2 of those, IMO it's the best option for filtration. Carbon is only necessary for removing meds (or tannins if you have new wood in the tank), not for normal maintenance.

Thanks for the extra info I can buy extra sponge blocks for this filter?

 

[katar76]

Oh and would you recommend the AquaClear Powerheads? Is something like that needed at all in a freshwater tank? I'm planning on Angel fish and what ever is compatible with them. Thanks for any suggestion in advance.

 

[toddnbecka]

Ya, Big Al's sells their own brand of sponge blocks made to fit them. You can also get a different brand pretty cheap on e-bay, but those don't hold up as long as the regular aquaclear blocks IME. I haven't tried Big Al's yet, but they are dirt cheap. You simply rinse them out in a bucket full of tank water when you do partial water changes, and even the cheap ones last several years before they fall apart.