cannister filter & sump

[guitarded]

i am setting up my 75gal tank. i have a sump (actually its a wet/dry without the bio-balls) that houses my ev-180 skimmer and a heater.

i placed sand in my tank and, as expected, i got a sand storm. a buddy of mine gave me a fluval 404 cannister filter some time ago. so i decided to hook it up to help clear the cloudiness.

anyway, i am thinking that after i deal with the sand storm, i should just keep the fluval hooked up to run carbon every so often. does this sound like a good idea or would you folks recommend removing all together? if the consensus is to leave it hooked up, how often should i run the carbon and how long should i run? btw, i notice that most members of this forum do not run the carbon filter all the time... why is that?

 

[MarkLehr]

Is this a reef tank with Live rock? I am assuming this is the case for my answer...

Carbon will remove trace elements from your system which are beneficial for coral growth and development.

The bioballs are also a bad idea, as they are competing against your live sand and live rock. Any biofiltration media will break down Ammonia into Nitrite into Nitrate. It does not make sence to intentionally introduce Nitrate into your tank. Your live rock and live sand will also process your Ammonia, however the end result is a Nitrogen gas which naturally leaves the system. Your protein skimmer removes organic waste before it has the opportunity to become Ammonia, assisting your live rock and live sand in the processing of waste removal. Toss your biomedia!

Another consideration is your particulate filter. I am assuming the canister filter has a filter pad. This filter pad will catch particulate matter. As water flows across this pad, a biological process occurs in which the end result if Phosphate. You are also trying to keep Phosphates at a minimum to avoid algae blooms. Obviuosly, we have another "filter" which is not doing what we want in a marine aquairum.

Hobbyists who complain of red slime algae typicall are not cleaning their particulate filter often enough. This means daily! My suggestion is do not use the canister at all. Use a filter pad on your sump, if you use one at all. And clean the filter every day!

Good luck!

 

[guitarded]

i would like to do a reef sometime down the road... maybe next year. for now i will be doing FOWLR (i still have to get my LR - i have just put sand in the tank). i don't use the bio-balls in my sump. i am not married to the cannister. for now i am just using it to help clear the sand storm. however, a lot of people on this board say they use carbon for one week a month. would this carbon filtration interval be harmful for a reef?

ok, so if i use a filter pad in my sump, where should i place the pad within the sump? what will channel the water through the pad?

 

[seaham358]

Carbon can be used on a reef or Fo tank.
The use of activated carbon in marine tanks is considered to be a form of chemical filtration. Working through absorbtion, GAC removes gelbstoff (the compounds that give water in an aquarium the yellow tint), some large organic molecules, medications, chlorine, pollutants and toxins, as well as many other types of chemical elements and compounds from the water that a protein skimmer or another means of filtration may not remove. This is from a web site..... Too much for me to type....

I use it every few months to clean the water if it looks dull. Other guys in my reef club run it every month. They have great success with corals so I see no harm in running it. It all depends on your tank when to change it, there is no set answer on how long to run it. I would not run it longer then a month so there is no leach back into the tank.
Is the canister needed no, will it hurt the system no. You can use it to run carbon when you want to or just us it for added water flow. You can use a filter pad in there from time to time to really clean the water also.
Clean the filter pads on a regular basis.

 

[guitarded]

excellent... thanks seaham358