Filter question

[Donavin]

I'm looking at my tank and I wanted to know if I doubled the size of my filter what affects would it have on my tank good and/or bad.

 

[JesseMessykinn]

Good, More will not hurt. Ijust put a Aquaclear 70 on my 29 and loving it!

 

[bruinsbro1997]

There's not bad to putting more filtration on your tank. More places for the <beneficial bacteria to grow. Good for the tank!

 

[Cornstar]

Only bad thing is that it may cause a bigger flow than necessary. I have a emperor 400 (for 90gallons) in my 55 gallon tank. No complaints

 

[BBradbury]

Your Filter Question

Hello Don...

If you're willing to replace at least half the water in your tank every 6 to 7 days, you only need a filter with a gph (gallons per hour) rating of roughly 6 times the volume of your tank.

I have several large, planted, heavily stocked tanks and due to budget, I have a tendency to underfilter my tanks, but am more than willing to compensate for the lack of filtration by changing a minimum of half the water in the tanks every 6 to 7 days.

Large and frequent water changes will take the place of heavy filtration, but the reverse isn't so. So, don't rely on your filter equipment to keep the water pure, only water changes will do that.

B

 

[Donavin]

Thanks everyone so other then more places for bob to grow are there an benefits to the additional filtration?

 

[DragonFish71]

As was mentioned above, more space for your beneficial bacteria to grow on. Also more movement of water to lessen chances of dead spots. More filtration mean your water can get cleaned better. You'd still have to do water changes, but that extra filtration will help.

I run twice as much filtration on all our tanks. For example
On our 29g I have a filter for 55/60g and a filter for 20g
On our 20g I have 2 20g mini-canisters
On our 120g I have a Fluval 405 and an Ocean Clear 340

 

[James_in_MN]

Your best bet is to never look at the tank size claim by the manufacturers. They consistently overestimate how big a tank the filter can be used for. I prefer to look at the gallons per hour a filter will move instead.

A good rule of thumb is to take your tank size, multiply by 10, and use that for a minimum gallons per hour for your filtration. For example, an Aquaclear 50 (claims to be good for 20-50 gallon tanks) filters 200 gph, which is good for a maximum tank size of 20 gallons.

I go even further with filtration on my tanks and put two filters in them. My 20g tank has an Aquaclear 50 (200 gph) and a Duetto 100 (100 gph).