When is it over filtering?

[ShubunkinLover]

One thing I pride in my tanks is clear, clean water with perfect levels....this tank is bascially perfect now with the occasional ammonia spike here and there.

I do have a question as to when filtering is too much... In my 20 gallon not only do I have live plants but I also have a Penguin 125 as well as a Whisper 10. The water has been clear for a long time, i've cut back on my carbon use a lot, limiting it to one pad in the Penguin 125...even with the live plant's im kind of hesitant to remove all of my carbon. Input?

The bio-wheel is really blooming, the colony is really effective....

The whisper I just swapped, put the bio-pad from it on another filter to get the tank established...feeling a little experimental I put ceramic rings in it...is there any thing wrong with this that I may be missing? It was in a very pourous nylon bag, barely keeping it together, so I just put it in the filter.

[loganj]

I think it would be hard to "overfilter" a tank. If you have so much filtration running that the fish can't swim around then I'd say you'd need to cut back a bit. It really depends on what you have in the tank. If you have fish that come from river environments, then you could probably have quite a bit of flow in the tank. If you have a Betta, then you'd want a minimum of flow. In your case, if the fish and plants are doing well, I'd leave things as they are.

[XxTitleisTxX]

When your fish cant swim

[TankGirl]

Most of my tanks are overfiltered, if you go by the ratings listed by the manufacturer, and the recommendations of most aquarists. I probably have double filtration on two of my larger tanks, but it works for me. As above, if the fish don't have trouble swimming, then you are good to go!

Rock on!

[oscarbreeder]

IMO you cant over filter a tank, well yeah, if the fish cant swim because of to much current.
I over filter all my tanks.

[wynn]

I've always read that you should not go by the manufacturer's recomendations for filtering. Instead, you should filter your tank approximately 10 times per hour. (example: 20 gallon tank = 200 gph).

[TankGirl]

That's true, Wynn - I'll add that the manufacturers apparently rate their filters without media, so you need to factor that in when making a selection.