External And Internal Running On Same Tank?

[Spishkey]

i have a 180L tank with an internal filter/pump (juwel 180 with juwel filter) it is a rather overstocked tank but it has been fine for 8 months like this (daily sand vacuuming and weekly 30% water change/white filter wool change, twice monthly various sponge cleaning in old tank water) ive never had a death, water stats are brill (0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5 nitrate same as tap)


BUT at this point in time, my life is hectic and in all honesty my daily tank cleaning is slipping as im finding i have less time. now ive put some fish up for sale to lessen the load but until they sell would it be a good idea to add another filter onto the tank, to run alongside the juwel one?? i have a spare external here for tanks up to 200L and am wondering, if i add this on will it help at all?? or will it be virtually useless as it is not cycled?

 

[Behold]

Extra turn over will remove the ammonia ETC quicker so its not a waste. it will need to cycle but you can remove just one bit from your internal and put it in the external it will make it cycle much faster. it should be effective in just a week or 2 (not fully cycled but working on something)

 

[Spishkey]

thank you for that another quick question, will the extra 'flow' not disturb the fish, and should the externals tubes be placed on the other side of the tank (from the internal) or should they be sat side by side? does it matter?

 

[england]

yes this will help a great deal, get the exsisting filters you have and squeeze all the gunk out of the into the new filters sponges, try to also use all the water from the exsisting filters casing and put into the new filters cannister
this will help a great deal with seeding

also set the intake at the opporsite end to the jewul filter........
the flow should be ok if not wiggle the outtake pipe around until you get the desired flow rate

 

[petertr]

Certainly won't do any harm.


Mind, with those water stats, I don't see you having a problem lowering the maintenance schedule anyway.
I don't mean drop the weekly 30% change, but it sounds like you're doing daily 10% changes just to replace the water lost when you vac the sand - perhaps do this twice a week instead?

 

[Spishkey]

Certainly won't do any harm.


Mind, with those water stats, I don't see you having a problem lowering the maintenance schedule anyway.
I don't mean drop the weekly 30% change, but it sounds like you're doing daily 10% changes just to replace the water lost when you vac the sand - perhaps do this twice a week instead?

thats why i want to add another filter so i can drop the daily sand vac and go for maybe 2 x a week instead. i dont want to just drop doing the daily clean without 'back up' as it is very overstocked and can imagine the whole tank crashing i think it is a very finely balanced tank at the moment and dont want to upset it too much

 

[minxfishy]

Adding the external will certainly help, it will increase the oxygen levels and will after a while help with keeping the water stats as good as they are, as nelly said, squeeze out the internals gunk all over the media of the external it will help to seed it quicker, I see no problem even with an overstocked tank to drop it to 2x weekly water changes, maybe just increase them 30- 40% with a quick sand clean on each one.

 

[petertr]

There's no need to worry about seeding the new filter - sure it won't do any harm, but as you're running it in addition to the normal filter, it will simple catch up all by itself over a couple of weeks.

 

[minimat]

There's no need to worry about seeding the new filter - sure it won't do any harm, but as you're running it in addition to the normal filter, it will simple catch up all by itself over a couple of weeks.

Pretty much what he said. I recently set up a 350l malawi tank. Had one tetretec ex1200 fully matured then added a fluval 305 and a 4+ that wernt matured. Gave on of the sponges from the tetretec a squeeze out into the tank and 2 weeks later everything running fine with perfect stats

And the extra flow really shouldnt be an issue, especially if using a spray bar. Just the added oxygen will be a bonus

mat

 

[pippoodle]

i run 2 filters on my larger tanks and will be upgrading these very soon , i do this mainly cos the stocking is quite heavy and also as a back up if one breaks down i still have some filtration in the tank