Am I Underfiltered?

[eaglesaquarium]

Yeah, I've read that... that's why I got a sponge filter. It can be a spare filter for a fry, quarantine or hospital tank, as well as providing some extra circulation for my plants.


My thinking was: If I need to pull it from my main tank for some reason, my plants will have to just get on without it. This way I always have a seeded filter available to put into my emergency tank whenever I need it. That should greatly help my with a sick fish, or with getting new stock. I can just cycle up the sponge filter a bit before hand and be go to go in a few days for more fish, meanwhile the drop off shouldn't be much in my main filter in terms of mini-cycling that tank in the process.

Does that make sense?

 

[raptorrex]

Chlorine is less likely to affect a mature colony as they can build up resistances to it, which begs the question: If chlorine supposedly kills filter bacteria then why is it still present in tap water? The answer being either: They've become resistant too it, or there is only enough Chlorine present to kill some of the bacteria present. The same applies to other compounds/elements which may affect the bacteria.

Over filtration is only good for one thing in my eyes, and that is what you stated, additional circulation for plants etc.

bacteria build up resistance by mutating, not getting stronger. to put an end to this

How do you mature a new filter?

We recommend the more modern ‘fishless cycling technique’

taken from PFK frankly, that's good enough for me. the tank itself has a part in the nitrogen cycle, though quite apart form that in the filter. this is the build up of 'biofilm' it is when this stage is complete, a tank is mature. incidentally higher flow rates help avoid this mass building up too much in inaccessible places.

it may be with looking into how the use of different mechanical and bio medea affect the required flow and it use in external filters. if you run higher flows you can scavenge the tank, allowing, much of the, breakdown to occur in the filter. to ensure the water spends as much time as possible in contact with the media. cannisters have vastly increased bio area. its also possible higher flow rate would benefit fish. river fish in particular would be used to much higher flow rates than you would get from 2x turnover tank. sure it wont suit all fish, but big swimmers like the BALA and many more would be well suited.
ultimately is just as valid as any other option. when i have time i will dig up some older threads on the subject, this whole area is covered in far more detail time and time again. very interesting they are too.

 

[Tizer]

Over filtration is also useful to removal of meds and polishing. In a sense that it can do it quicker. That is of course if you choose to put the pads into the filter.

 

[raptorrex]

Over filtration is also useful to removal of meds and polishing. In a sense that it can do it quicker. That is of course if you choose to put the pads into the filter.

good point. but with my setup, i find i don't need floss or pads, the floaters a caught because they go through the filter so many times an hour. 4-5x actual flow, on my tank. this gives a second advantage, it simply does not clog up as much as sponge and pads do. 3-9 months(stocking dependent) between cleans.

 

[waterdrop]

Chlorine is less likely to affect a mature colony as they can build up resistances to it, which begs the question: If chlorine supposedly kills filter bacteria then why is it still present in tap water? The answer being either: They've become resistant too it, or there is only enough Chlorine present to kill some of the bacteria present. The same applies to other compounds/elements which may affect the bacteria.

Over filtration is only good for one thing in my eyes, and that is what you stated, additional circulation for plants etc.

bacteria build up resistance by mutating, not getting stronger. to put an end to this

How do you mature a new filter?

We recommend the more modern ‘fishless cycling technique’

taken from PFK frankly, that's good enough for me. the tank itself has a part in the nitrogen cycle, though quite apart form that in the filter. this is the build up of 'biofilm' it is when this stage is complete, a tank is mature. incidentally higher flow rates help avoid this mass building up too much in inaccessible places.

it may be with looking into how the use of different mechanical and bio medea affect the required flow and it use in external filters. if you run higher flows you can scavenge the tank, allowing, much of the, breakdown to occur in the filter. to ensure the water spends as much time as possible in contact with the media. cannisters have vastly increased bio area. its also possible higher flow rate would benefit fish. river fish in particular would be used to much higher flow rates than you would get from 2x turnover tank. sure it wont suit all fish, but big swimmers like the BALA and many more would be well suited.
ultimately is just as valid as any other option. when i have time i will dig up some older threads on the subject, this whole area is covered in far more detail time and time again. very interesting they are too.

Nice post Rap, some thoughtful ideas in there, always enjoy learning things from you! WD

 

[OldMan47]

A mature tank / filter is one that no longer requires close monitoring. If you have a tank and filter combination that has settled down and is predictable when you add a fish or do a water change, it is mature enough for my way of thinking to add fish that are reputed to need a mature tank.
As several people here have noted, we do get a large influx of new people here and do our best to serve them. Each new person's post also gets a quick review by the MODs, at least I try in my own sections, so that any misinformation can be corrected. That does not mean that I post in all threads because I often find the new people learn quite quickly and give fairly good advice. I do not try to substitute my own fish preferences for those of even the newest members because not everyone would want a tank like mine. I maintain single species rare livebearer tanks, which is far from everyone's cup of tea.
The arguments over filter flows and similar topics are endless and pointless. Almost any filter can be made to serve a tank if it has enough media volume, regardless of flow rates, if all you want is a bio-filter. Anything less than 10x probably will not satisfy a typical plant person because that person is oriented toward very high flow rates, frequent fertilizer dosing and no need to ever do a gravel vac because the fish food and wastes never settle to the bottom. Most real world fish keepers fall somewhere in between those extremes and as long as their choice of maintenance recognizes the limitations of their filter arrangement, things will be fine.
Strong opinions about fish keeping are almost always based on half truths. That applies to stocking levels, filter needs, feeding regimes and many other subjects. The range of "right" answers to filtration I have already discussed but other topics are equally subject to partial statements by some of the most experienced fish keepers among us. As an example. I will always tell people that common mollies do not require salt but many fish keepers find that adding some sea salt helps them keep their mollies healthy. Others in the hobby actually use common pet shop mollies to cycle salt water tanks, because mollies are euryhaline and can readily adapt to full salt water. OK so who is right? Am I right because I never add so much as a pinch of salt to any molly tank or are the salt water keepers right because they cycle a tank with mollies at full salt strength? Unless you understand the rest of the water picture for a common molly, you will choose to follow the wrong path for your tank. In this case you must understand that mollies do require water fairly high in mineral content, which is what I get from my tap water. For me, no salt is needed. WD, who posts here quite often, has very soft water that is almost devoid of any minerals from his tap. If he wanted to keep mollies, a pinch of sea salt would help him.
Black and white answers are almost always wrong because they do not consider all of the facts, we are seldom given all of the facts by the people asking the questions. Someone asking if they can increase a neon school in a tank of XYZ size may simply leave out the list of other fish in the tank or might mention one or two of the six species they have. They were really not worried about compatibility of the rest so they left them out. That means that you and I cannot possibly know how many other fish there are in that tank.