BrendanH
Aquarium Advice Activist
Hi All,
Back when I first got into this hobby/obsession I took some advice from an uninformed LFS employee and got a canister filter (Fluval 404) and hooked it up to my shiny new 55g tank. I've since learned that most people do not use canisters and instead rely on LS/LR + lots of water movement to take care of bio filtration. I've got about 100lbs LR and a couple of inches LS in the tank with a low bioload - just a Maroon Clown and a Lawnmower Blenny right now, now counting the inverts. The tank has been running since January '04 without any problems except the algae outbreak in the past couple of months.
The canister is running one tray of Fluval Bio-Media and the usual mechanical filtration foam. I've recently been fighting a macro-algae outbreak and although the water tests fine I'm concerned that perhaps the canister is adding nutrients due to detritus build-up in the bio-media. The water tests would come out clear if the algae was sucking up the nutrients as they were created.
So - do you think I should just get rid of the canister entirely ?
If so - do you think that will have much impact on mechanical filtration ?
Alternatively, should I be rinsing out the bio-media with SW periodically to avoid detritus build-up ? (I have not been doing that as I somehow convinced myself some time ago that the bio-media was zero maintenance :? )
Thanks as always for your insight ...
Brendan.
Back when I first got into this hobby/obsession I took some advice from an uninformed LFS employee and got a canister filter (Fluval 404) and hooked it up to my shiny new 55g tank. I've since learned that most people do not use canisters and instead rely on LS/LR + lots of water movement to take care of bio filtration. I've got about 100lbs LR and a couple of inches LS in the tank with a low bioload - just a Maroon Clown and a Lawnmower Blenny right now, now counting the inverts. The tank has been running since January '04 without any problems except the algae outbreak in the past couple of months.
The canister is running one tray of Fluval Bio-Media and the usual mechanical filtration foam. I've recently been fighting a macro-algae outbreak and although the water tests fine I'm concerned that perhaps the canister is adding nutrients due to detritus build-up in the bio-media. The water tests would come out clear if the algae was sucking up the nutrients as they were created.
So - do you think I should just get rid of the canister entirely ?
If so - do you think that will have much impact on mechanical filtration ?
Alternatively, should I be rinsing out the bio-media with SW periodically to avoid detritus build-up ? (I have not been doing that as I somehow convinced myself some time ago that the bio-media was zero maintenance :? )
Thanks as always for your insight ...
Brendan.