Question about filters

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

katiekelsey

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Apr 18, 2013
Messages
296
Location
Northern Illinois
My 45 gal tank has an undergravel filter with two power jets. I vacuum the tank regularly to get all the crud out of the gravel.

My 75 gal tank has a cannister filter. Every time I check the media it isn't very dirty. I attempt to vacuum the gravel but there isn't much crud. The filter doesn't need much cleaning, just an occasional rinsing of the media.
Where does all the crud go in the 75 gal tank?

Both tanks have crystal clear water and the fish are in great shape.
 
Perhaps you just don't have many fish or you stock the kinds of fish that don't put out much visible waste. I have a 27 gallon planted tank that houses small fish and the water params are always perfect and the 2 filters (Marineland 220 Canister and Aquaclear 30) hardly need cleaning. I do vacuum some waste (mostly from the bristlenose plecos) but it's minimal. However, my 120 is heavily stocked with bigger fish and runs 3 filters. One of them is an Aquaclear 110 that I clean with every water change weekly. I think it varies with every system.
 
My canister in my 92g is an eheim 2217, an i clean it every 2 weeks or every 2nd or 3rd water change, i do that because mine gets completetly filthy and fill of junk.. I also have to replace the polishing pads each time i clean it because they become brown and slimey and full of debris..


But then I have like 20 neons, 6 gold barbs, 3 Siamese Algae eaters, 9 discus and 4 cory fish and a few others in the tank.. I feed 2-3 times a day at the very least.. So my filters get clogged fast.


So it depends on how many fish you have in the 75g and how often you feed them.. Also canisters from my experience anyway dont have as much suction power through the intake like hang on back filters do.. So you want to put the spray bar or power heads pushing water in the direction of your intake tube for the canister.. this way it can actually clean up debris in the tank better. So like if you have your intake on the right side of your 75.. put the power heads and spray bar on the left side of the tank pushing water towards the other side of your tank where the intake is.. You always want you intake and outgoing water on oposite sides of the tank


Also gravel will be dirtier in a tank with a undergravel filter then a tank without, thats because the undergravel filter litterally pulls poo and food to the substrate
 
Back
Top Bottom