hybrid filter

[manbeast]

I'm looking for some input on an idea I recently had involving the filters on my 90gal. fw , I had been running a sump designed for a 75 and a Rena xp3 cannister while my tank was fully stocked but cut back to just the cannister when I moved most of my stock to a recently aquired 150, but the stock in my 90 is now mostly guppies breeding quite successfully so it occured to me that instead of running the cannister and the sump with an external pump perhaps I could graft the two together by taking the outlet from the sump and connecting it to the intake of the cannister. my one concern is that I think the effectiveness of the cannister may rely heavily on the syphon action of its intake to help reduce the power needed for the return line, with gravity starting the water movement the pump only needs to be strong enough to keep the motion going where as with the hybrid setup it's basically pulling from a resevoir without the benefit of gravity. just thought I'd throw the idea out there and see what others might think

 

[Fishguy2727]

Keep them separate, and run both.

 

[mfdrookie516]

Most canister filters work off of gravity... in a sense. As you pump water up to the tank, it comes back through the intake in to the canister from the tank. If you hooked it in to a sump, you would get, at best, really low flow. Most likely, it would burn the pump up from being overworked. I'm not sure of any canisters that actually pump in, but I know the XP3 doesn't.