Filtration Method Debate

[Floyd R Turbo]

It seems like it is difficult to find an apples-to-apples comparison of each type, brand, model, etc of filtration method! I'm starting this thread so that anyone wanting comparison information has a place to look.

I would like to hear from as many of you as possible on this subject.

I've started a thread on a couple other boards relating to this topic, but this board seems to have a lot more activity that the others. I found a rather heated thread from about 5 years ago related to this subject ('KILL YOUR UGF'), but it got personal and got closed. Read it if you want a good laugh. But the information debated was interesting. I wasn't able to find another discussion (and haven't really found one anywhere for that matter) involving real-life experience and details for one to look at and decide what's right for them.

Let hear details about your filtration system(s) what you have to do to maintain them in your aquarium(s).

Then I would like to hear details about your maintenance schedule, again for each setup - if you have multiple filtration, probably should talk about each system separately. As applicable, list what do you do to maintain the filtration system, including water changes, especially if they coincide with maintenance. Also go into a little detail regarding the initial periodic costs of your system.

If you know of a website with useful comparison information, provide that as well. I'm trying to create a thread that has the MOST information on filtration methods, both theoretical and real life, and all information is WELCOME.

Additionally, I would like to hear from anyone who has PERSONALLY had a system crash on them to elaborate on what happened, if you even know. I realize that sometimes you have no way of explaining it, but just tell us your experience. Those stories are hard to come by, but we can all learn from them.

So that should cover the apples-to-apples portion. The next part is the OPINION section. This is where it can get dangerous, so let's keep it CIVIL folks. I want to hear what your preferred filtration method is (if you have one) and why. I would suggest that if you spot an something in a post that you feel is factually incorrect, try and correct their error without making it personal. And if you get corrected, DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY. That's how the other thread went. Let's not go there.

So to start your story, cut and paste the following into your reply or hit the QUOTE button and delete out all the above text and keep the numeric and alpha lists so that others don't have to scroll up and down looking for the question you're answering.

Break it down for each individual setup.

Tell us your experience level, years, etc so we get an idea of what perspective you're coming from.

Here's some basic info to tell us about:

1. Setup type (FW, SW, brackish, etc) & Size
2. Filter type(s)
3. Substrate
4. Bio load (fish, plants, etc)
5. Anything else you feel is pertinent (how long up and running, lighting, decor, etc)

Here's a maintenance info list:

A. Daily
B. Weekly
C. Monthly
D. Yearly
E. Other periodic maintenance/major overhauls
F. Initial cost, cost of replacement media/how often
G. What are the advantages
H. What are the drawbacks

I'll go first on a new post...

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Experience level:

I have been on and off for 20 years, had a 10g at some point, then got a 37 tall, a 55, then went to college. After that, started up the 55 until the center beam snapped and I didn't trust it, switched back to the 37, kept that for a number of years, moved, got a new 55, then lost all the fish due to being an idiot. I just set it up again. In the past I've mainly kept Cichlids. Now I keep community.

1. Setup type (FW, SW, brackish, etc) & Size
2. Filter type(s)
3. Substrate
4. Bio load (fish, plants, etc)
5. Anything else you feel is pertinent (how long up and running, lighting, decor, etc)

I have a 55g tropical freshwater. I use a Penn-plax undergravel filter (the white one with the 1" peaks and valleys) with 3" of medium gravel and 1 power head on the end of each plate. It's the 2 plate system, each is half the length of the tank. It's currently been up and running since 1/1/09. I jump started the cycle with a bag of nasty dirty water from an LFS (squeezed from a sponge) and I currently have 29 community fish:

5 Platies
3 Mollies (one is preggers)
3 Swordtails
3 Guppies (one is a fry, the female is again expecting)
2 Barbs
2 Gouramis
2 Danios
5 Neons
1 Black skirt tetra
1 Red eye tetra
1 Rainbow shark
1 Scissortail rasbora

The tank has been stable ammonia/nitrite since the second week, just the nitrates go up slowly as expected and pH is a different issue, level around 6.8-7.2 but still trying to understand the pH/hardness relationship. Plus our municipal water is insane, hard and 8.8+ fresh out of the tap.

I have live plants:

1 Amazon Sword
1 Echinodorus Bleheri
1 Echinodorus Rose
2 Vallisneria nana (1 with a runner, really 3 all together)
2 Wisteria
bunch of Anacharis
few Cabomba

I have a few plastic plants, a large orange/white shaley type rock, and a medium chuck of driftwood screwed to a piece of slate (6"x6")

I have the original all-glass hoods & fixtures from when I bought my first setup 20 years ago, 2 strips each with 18" 15W Tropic Sun bulbs, so 30W for 50g effective water (I'm working on increasing that)

Here's a maintenance info list:

A. Daily
B. Weekly
C. Monthly
D. Yearly
E. Other periodic maintenance/major overhauls
F. Initial cost, cost of replacement media/how often
G. What are the advantages
H. What are the drawbacks

I do a water change of about 10% every other day. Working on this schedule, we have very hard, high pH water in Des Moines, so I'm trying to find 'the balance point'. Tap pH is off the high end straight out of the tap - over 8.8. I tend to feed very small feedings several times a day, and though all the food is eaten in 30 seconds flat, I vacuum the gravel a little more than what I feel most do to keep the waste factor down, usually at least 20% with each water change. That's about all I do so far. Occasionally, I will do a 20-30% change depending on Nitrate levels, I try to keep them under 20ppm and don't seem to have a problem so far.

Other maintenance: When I was in High School running another 55, we had very hard well water, which had something in it that caused major water-borne algae blooms, so I run a Magnum 330 diatom filter w/diatomacious earth after each change, and that solved the problem. I continue to do this about once a month for about 4 hours.

Overhauls. Also in HS, 20 years ago, I used to tear down the whole tank and wash it out. I never had to re-cycle the tank as long as I didn't over-wash the gravel and didn't let it dry out in this process, but I remember it being a pain. Then I basically figured out that the more often you vacuum the gravel bed, the less often you have to tear down. As far as the sludge under the filter plates, I came up with a pretty good way of solving this using my Magnum. I can see the underside of my tank, so when I can no longer see the filter plate, I clear off half the gravel from one side, unplug the power head and plug the outflow into one end and the intake in the other using a home-made conversion, and essentially blow everything out through the cannister, then I switch the in/out and blow it back the other way to get as much as possible out. I vacuum the exposed deeper part of the gravel, then cover the plate back up and do the same to the other side a week or so later. This eliminates the need for tear down and doesn't seem to bother the fish, and it's a lot easier than it sounds. I would never do a UGF without the power heads though, not enough flow IMO. If you can't see the underside, I'd do this every 6-8 months and no longer than every year. See how much comes out and then use your judgement.

Cost: My technique does require the Magnum which runs $100-$150 plus the DIY conversion to plug into the filter plate. The plate itself is 20 year old I have no idea what I paid for it, but I've never had to replace it, just the stand tubes when they got gunky. Essentially after the initial cost, there is no maintenance cost besides occasionally replacing the diatom filter in the Magnum, which lasts a long time.

Advantages: No filter media to replace, no worries about tubes coming loose or pump leaks, it's quiet, and if I need to add air I just hook up the vent tube to the power head. The bio filter is huge, essentially the whole gravel bed, as long as you don't neglect it. My substrate is 3" deep and I feel that does add mechanical filtration, others may disagree. No chemical filtration, but do you really need it if you do adequate water changes, which are generally a good idea anyways. Unless you use AmQuel+, which I don't. I've also messed around with putting carbon in the stand tube with a little screening to keep it from dumping under the plate or being sucked into the power head, but it's tricky. Best left to an engineer like me. I think someone actually has a patent pending on a stand-tube cartridge carbon filter, I can across it via google. This of course decreases flow also.

Disadvantages: You do have to stick to a vacuuming schedule to keep the gravel bed loose. You can't really use fine gravel IMO because it is prone to compaction and clogs easier. You also can't cover a significant portion of the gravel bed with decor as it blocks the water flow and decreases your potential bio load. I can't see using it in a marine tank with lots of live rock for both of these reasons, but I know close to nothing about marine. I've heard that anaerobic pockets in marine tanks break down Nitrate and complete the cycle, and a UGF can provide this, so maybe that's ok but what do I know. Also have heard rooted plants will tie into the plate. But as far as I know, they still do fine. Is stagnant gravel better for plants and why?

So that's my 2c. PS I like to type. Can you tell?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Oh yeah - tank crashes. Like I said in my 'experience' section, I was an idiot. I had my current 55 set up with cichlids that were at least 4 years old back around 2000. That was in my single bar hopping days. I came home one night to find all my fish sick, had fungus on them, etc. I have no idea what the initial cause of the infection was, but I'm assuming it was lack of maintenance and possibly a stalled cycle due to high nitrates. Lost all the fish except my Synodontis which lived for many more years being passed from tank to tank. He was awesome.

 

[jsoong]

I'll play ...

Experience level
Approx 8 yrs. with tank running. Read lots of books before that.

1. Setup type (FW, SW, brackish, etc) & Size
FW - 80 gal tank
2. Filter type(s)
DIY wet/dry & sump (30 gal), Hydor return pump (750 gph nominal).
3. Substrate
Schultz Aquasoil - and river rocks.
4. Bio load (fish, plants, etc)
9 fancy goldfish, 3 SAE, 1 rubberlip pleco, 1 Hillstream loach, planning to add a school of white cloud.
Anubias bartari nana, Crypt. wendti, Crypt. balanesae, Java ferns, Val - cockscrew & italian, Hygrophilia polyspermia - green & sunset, hornwort.
5. Anything else you feel is pertinent (how long up and running, lighting, decor, etc)
4x34W t8 - natural decor - driftwood & rocks.

A. Daily
feed fish, general inspection
B. Weekly
10-20% pwc, trim plants, clean alagae, gravel vac, clean prefilters
C. Monthly
clean impeller in return pump
D. Yearly
nil
E. Other periodic maintenance/major overhauls
clean out sump & all pipes as needed - every few months
F. Initial cost, cost of replacement media/how often
tank $100, DIY stand/canopy/sump $300 material cost, DIY light/timer $50, light bulbs $20 every year, substrate $20, pump, heater & sundry connectors $100, media (bioballs & sponge prefilters) $30.
G. What are the advantages
Great efficient filtration system, lots of area for biofiltration, flexible, increased water volume, great air exchange, all equipment can be hidden in sump so tank is uncluttered, debrie & MULM tend to collect in sump rather than in tank.
H. What are the drawbacks
Nosier than canister, complicated plumbling & setup, risk of flood if set up improperly.

 

[Nyquil Junkie]

I'd probably get flamed.... lol
I keep several tanks going, some with goldfish, I use large bio-filters and cheapo HOB filters modified with nylon pantyhose filters to serve only as super fine particle filters.

I rarely change my water at all. The only reason I do is if
1. a problem pops up requiring it
2. When my repeatedly topping off for evaporation over months and months with my hard water demands I dilute it.

Otherwise, I feed sparingly, keep the water moving freely through the bio filters and keep any visible poop removed off the sand.

I rarely, if ever have any problems.
The last problem I had was with a greenwater bloom I couldn't get rid of until I used a UV filter, and right before that I started changing my water and wrecked my bio-filter and tank bacteria.

I just got it all back to "normal and crystal clear".... and I really don't wanna change out my water ever again.


I seriously question the wisdom of rabidly changing water %'s wisdom but, maybe I just have a lucky water chemistry in my well.

I dunno.... the less I fiddle with the water the better it stays in good condition.