Diatom Filters

[diastiss]

Anyone have any experience with running a diatom filter full time for filtration on a freshwater tank? I am setting up a 200gallon freshwater and I have a Diatom XL running filtration now with undergravel filteration also. It seems to work really well just wondering if someone else here is familiar with them

 

[OldMan47]

A diatom filter makes a great water polisher, to remove the last scrap of cloudiness from your water. It has the disadvantage of being too fine a filter. By that I mean that because it is so efficient, it will plug up very quickly and will require frequent cleaning. It is also not going to make a very good biological filter because it will never have the same media, in this case diatomaceous earth, for long enough to establish a decent bacterial colony for processing ammonia and nitrites.