can you run a salt water tank with just a canister filter?

[kelly0707]

I have a 55 galon tank with a rena filstar canister filter. Haven't had the best of luck with fish on my second batch and only 2 left. Tank has been running for 3 months. I have a few corals they are all doing good.

My question is can I run the tank ith just a canister filter. Should I be cleaning filter out weekly when I do my 4 gallon water changes?

Nitrate 20
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Ph 8.0
Temp 78

 

[crister13]

Yes you should be cleaning it out. As long as params are good you can run any filter.

 

[Reefpete]

yup clean it once a week or so ....i did it for 5 months before moving to sump

 

[kelly0707]

What about a protein skimmer? And uv sterilizer? Trying to figure out why my fish are dying?

What do I need to do to clean the filter?

Why did you move to a sump?

 

[Reefpete]

What about a protein skimmer? And uv sterilizer? Trying to figure out why my fish are dying?

What do I need to do to clean the filter?

Why did you move to a sump?

Yup I run a skimmer as well and check your water ..are you using rodi water ?? And what are your parameters ....I moved to sump bc it's better and gives you many benefits

 

[Reefpete]

What about a protein skimmer? And uv sterilizer? Trying to figure out why my fish are dying?

What do I need to do to clean the filter?

Why did you move to a sump?

A sump adds more water so when your parameters moves it makes the changes less to your whole system

 

[kelly0707]

Yup I run a skimmer as well and check your water ..are you using rodi water ?? And what are your parameters ....I moved to sump bc it's better and gives you many benefits

Yes , I used premixed salt rodi water from lfs and use the rodi water for top off.

Any inexpensive skimmer you can reccommend?

 

[Reefpete]

How bigs your tank

 

[kelly0707]

How bigs your tank

55 but want it to be able to work on a 75 or 90 as I would like to upgrade in the future

 

[Reefpete]

55 but want it to be able to work on a 75 or 90 as I would like to upgrade in the future

You can go with an eshopps or other skimmers check out bulkreefsupply.com or just google skimmer and read the reviews very helpful

 

[Animal-Chin]

What kind of fish died? A lot cant deal with 55 gallons like tangs and stuff, could be the fish...

 

[kelly0707]

What kind of fish died? A lot cant deal with 55 gallons like tangs and stuff, could be the fish...

My 2 clowns, and firefish died.

I have a six line and a yellow watchman left

 

[kelly0707]

Just trying to figure out what is wrong with my tank before I spend anymore money on fish.

 

[kelly0707]

yup clean it once a week or so ....i did it for 5 months before moving to sump

Thanks for your help! When cleanin the filter I rinse the pads, i lso have those small white media things do I rinse those also?

 

[Reefpete]

Thanks for your help! When cleanin the filter I rinse the pads, i lso have those small white media things do I rinse those also?

Yes rinse them with tank water that you changed out so do it all at once do a water change and wash the pads and bio clay I'm assuming you have in there as well a quick rinse

 

[Saratj1]

I have a similar setup and haven't had many issues, I have a 47g column tank and a Rena xp4 canister, and I've only lost 2 fish, one jumped out (diamond goby) and another was kinda sickly after acclimation and was harrassed by other tank mates(domino damsels) and died it was 1 of 2 fire gobys, the other larger healthier goby is still fine, I did give the damsels to a friend after that though. This is my first salt tank, it's about 6 months old. I do have a skimmer now but didnt always have one, and I'm on my second, my first was a pos sea clone, that I fully modded and made it tolerable, but not good, I now have a eshopps ps 75, and it's much better than the sea clone but not perfect.
With the Rena I have switched out the biological media ( I had bioballs and stony type bio media) with live rock rubble. I also have filter floss and some DIY carbon and filter pads. I feed flakes once a day. And frozen cubes or shrimp 1-2 times a week. I have a pair of snowflake clowns, a fire goby, a purple fire goby, a 6 line wrasse, and a mandarin (just got purple goby and mandarin + 1000 pods). I have acropora, montipora, goniopora, Xenia, zoas, Kenya tree, maxima clam, frog spawn, a condy nem, a feather duster worm, mushrooms, a few other small things, I have 2 pom pom crabs, a porcelain crab, a sea urchin, 3 turbo snails, 7 hermit crabs, misc worms and pods, 40-50lbs of live rock and 40lbs of sand.
I've lost a couple coral frags mostly because of the turbo snails knocking them around and me not being able to get them easily or quickly.
I clean my canister once or twice a month, It usually starts losing flow after a couple weeks the filter floss gets clogged up and restricts the water a little. I use instant ocean salt and keep my salinity between 1.024-1.025, temp 78-79, ph 8.2-8.3, nitrites 0, nitrates less than 10, calcium is at 380 ( I've just started dosing a little calcium) my alk is 7, I've also started increasing it slowly. I started with an odyssea 250w metal halide + T5, recently went to a DIY led fixture.

I will post some pics, I have to delete some before I can post more.
Since we have similar sized tanks with similar inhabitants and filtration maybe we can help each other out. Sorry long post, I'm just bored this am.

 

[kelly0707]

I have a similar setup and haven't had many issues, I have a 47g column tank and a Rena xp4 canister, and I've only lost 2 fish, one jumped out (diamond goby) and another was kinda sickly after acclimation and was harrassed by other tank mates(domino damsels) and died it was 1 of 2 fire gobys, the other larger healthier goby is still fine, I did give the damsels to a friend after that though. This is my first salt tank, it's about 6 months old. I do have a skimmer now but didnt always have one, and I'm on my second, my first was a pos sea clone, that I fully modded and made it tolerable, but not good, I now have a eshopps ps 75, and it's much better than the sea clone but not perfect.
With the Rena I have switched out the biological media ( I had bioballs and stony type bio media) with live rock rubble. I also have filter floss and some DIY carbon and filter pads. I feed flakes once a day. And frozen cubes or shrimp 1-2 times a week. I have a pair of snowflake clowns, a fire goby, a purple fire goby, a 6 line wrasse, and a mandarin (just got purple goby and mandarin + 1000 pods). I have acropora, montipora, goniopora, Xenia, zoas, Kenya tree, maxima clam, frog spawn, a condy nem, a feather duster worm, mushrooms, a few other small things, I have 2 pom pom crabs, a porcelain crab, a sea urchin, 3 turbo snails, 7 hermit crabs, misc worms and pods, 40-50lbs of live rock and 40lbs of sand.
I've lost a couple coral frags mostly because of the turbo snails knocking them around and me not being able to get them easily or quickly.

Thanks so much!! It's good to know someone isent having issues! Do you clean your filter out once a week?

Should I take my white media out and put some live rock rubble in? Do you think it helped?

Do ou think the protein skimmer helps a lot?

Did you ever have any problem with diseases in your tank? Do you dip orqt your fish before putting them in?

Sorry for all the questions!

 

[kelly0707]

Thanks so much!! It's good to know someone isent having issues! Do you clean your filter out once a week?

Should I take my white media out and put some live rock rubble in? Do you think it helped?

Do ou think the protein skimmer helps a lot?

Did you ever have any problem with diseases in your tank? Do you dip orqt your fish before putting them in?

Sorry for all the questions!

I have a glass top on mine so they dont jump out. Do you think thats a problem? I have a 4 bulb aquatic life t5ho light.

 

[Saratj1]

Thanks so much!! It's good to know someone isent having issues! Do you clean your filter out once a week?

Should I take my white media out and put some live rock rubble in? Do you think it helped?

Do ou think the protein skimmer helps a lot?

Did you ever have any problem with diseases in your tank? Do you dip orqt your fish before putting them in?

Sorry for all the questions!

No problem, hope I can help.

I don't clean it once a week really once every 2-4 weeks, I check my nitrates about once or twice a week to see if they start showing up, if they do then I do a water change, and I use the spray bar output on my rena and I can hear the difference in the sound when the flow starts slowing, so I clean it then also. So it works out to about twice a month.

I was just reccomended by several members here to replace the bioballs with live rock rubble. I dont know if it has made any difference, I can't tell, but I think adding the filter floss helped, it seems to polish the water and make it a little clearer ( maybe a little less "reef snow" floating around). I also installed a RO/DI filter and started using that water it may be giving me some help also, but I started with just plain tap water with some chlorine remover drops.

I do think the skimmer helps, Seeing the stuff it pulls out of the water is very satistfying. It may just prolong the time between water changes Im not sure, but it accumulates some nasty dark green junk.

I do not quarantine my fish yet, I plan on doining it sometime, When I have the cash and a good place for a QT tank I plan to set one up.

I have had two issues: 1. Red slime algae (cyanobacteria). I had a pretty good case of it not long after my tank finished cycling. I believe it was brought on by a few things that were my fault, Leaving new fancy powerful light on too long, feeding frozen cubes too often, and not draining the juice, and using tap water. I cut back on the light and food for a week didnt really help so I bought a red slime remover called Boyds ChemiClean. It worked great didnt hurt anything and I'm still red slime free.

2. I have some parasitic pods, I've heard them refered to as sea lice. They are like little potato bugs that drink the blood of fish, like a tick. I still have a few but I'm getting over it. There isnt much you can do, you can just catch them and kill them, or if you see one on your fish, catch the fish and pull it off. The good thing is they are easy to catch, but they only come out at night. So I kill them one at a time usually I see them on the glass, sometimes they get on a fish and If i can I catch the fish and pull it off. I dont know where I got them from probably live rock. They only seem to mess with certain fish ( the expensive ones) I had damsels at first and they never bothered them) I gave the damsels away and got 2 snowflake clowns and thats when I first new they were a pest. I had seen them in the tank before and just thought they were desireable pods.

 

[kelly0707]

No problem, hope I can help.

I don't clean it once a week really once every 2-4 weeks, I check my nitrates about once or twice a week to see if they start showing up, if they do then I do a water change, and I use the spray bar output on my rena and I can hear the difference in the sound when the flow starts slowing, so I clean it then also. So it works out to about twice a month.

I was just reccomended by several members here to replace the bioballs with live rock rubble. I dont know if it has made any difference, I can't tell, but I think adding the filter floss helped, it seems to polish the water and make it a little clearer ( maybe a little less "reef snow" floating around). I also installed a RO/DI filter and started using that water it may be giving me some help also, but I started with just plain tap water with some chlorine remover drops.

I do think the skimmer helps, Seeing the stuff it pulls out of the water is very satistfying. It may just prolong the time between water changes Im not sure, but it accumulates some nasty dark green junk.

I do not quarantine my fish yet, I plan on doining it sometime, When I have the cash and a good place for a QT tank I plan to set one up.

I have had two issues: 1. Red slime algae (cyanobacteria). I had a pretty good case of it not long after my tank finished cycling. I believe it was brought on by a few things that were my fault, Leaving new fancy powerful light on too long, feeding frozen cubes too often, and not draining the juice, and using tap water. I cut back on the light and food for a week didnt really help so I bought a red slime remover called Boyds ChemiClean. It worked great didnt hurt anything and I'm still red slime free.

2. I have some parasitic pods, I've heard them refered to as sea lice. They are like little potato bugs that drink the blood of fish, like a tick. I still have a few but I'm getting over it. There isnt much you can do, you can just catch them and kill them, or if you see one on your fish, catch the fish and pull it off. The good thing is they are easy to catch, but they only come out at night. So I kill them one at a time usually I see them on the glass, sometimes they get on a fish and If i can I catch the fish and pull it off. I dont know where I got them from probably live rock. They only seem to mess with certain fish ( the expensive ones) I had damsels at first and they never bothered them) I gave the damsels away and got 2 snowflake clowns and thats when I first new they were a pest. I had seen them in the tank before and just thought they were desireable pods.

What is filter floss? Have ton of the "reef snow"