Filter Upgrade

[mike126]

I'm a newbie just getting into tropical fish since I was a kid (40 years later ).

I bought my kids a 10 gallon starter tank recently and have been thinking seriously about moving to a 30 gallon sometime in the spring. This time with the 30 gallon I will by the components indivudually and not in a kit.

I preparation for moving up, I was thinking about purchasing a larger filter for my 10 gallon tank. I've been looking at the external canister filters (Eheim 2213) and it seems to have a good review. I'm not sure how they compare to other filter types in terms of ease of use and efficiency.

Is it feasible to run larger filters in a smaller tank? What are the better filter types for tropicals? Should I decide to eventually move into a marine tank are there any considerations I shoul dmake now in buying a filter?

Thanks, Mike

 

[Corleone]

You can run big filters in small tanks. You can't overfilter, but you can get too much flow rate from filters. Really big filters in small tanks can make water splash around (instead of the gentle surface movement you want) and blow fish around the tank (especially long finned fish like guppies). Particularly with hanging filters, I always get a filter recommended for a bigger tank.

Eheim is one of the most respected filter brands, though I have no direct experience with it, as it's not sold in the US. Fluval is my personal go-to brand for canisters, and Aquaclear for hanging filters.

There's a few considerations with filters. The main ones are media capacity and filter rate. Internal filters generally have less media capacity than hanging filters, and canisters have the most. Higher capacity gives more room for bacteria growth and filter media. Canisters generally don't need to be cleaned as often as smaller capacity filters.

As for filtration rate, look on the box for a rating in gallons or liters per hour. For tropical fish, at least 5 times the volume of your tank is recommended. I usually shoot for the 10x range. Both 5x and 10x will often mean getting a filter that says on the box it's for a bigger tank, those numbers are often stretched quite a bit. Higher filtration makes maintaining higher stocking levels possible, to an extent.

For my 10 gallon tank, I use a hanging filter in the 100gph area. For a 30 gallon tank like you're considering, I used to use a 330gph hanging filter. Canisters are an option at that size, but IMO they're generally overkill until about 55 gallons.

If you do upgrade the filter, be sure to save all the media from the existing filter. This will keep all of your beneficial bacteria and ensure you won't have to cycle the tank over again.

 

[tenohfive]

And shop around when you do get the filter - don't just buy the first one you see. Theres always alot of variation in price - to give an example in the UK zooplus is a very cheap website, and they sell filters for 60% or so prices I've seen in my LFS (local fish shop.)

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

[waterdrop]

After a lot of research here on TFF I ended up getting an Eheim 2222 here in the US. They are indeed available but it can take some effort to search them out. Your research into this and other individual equipment will be well worth the effort. Incidently, I researched the eheim's that have internal heaters too but decided the external Hydor inline heaters were a better option with these filters. The Pro line that my 2222 is a member of is much harder to find than the Pro 2 line and the smallest couple of Pro 2 units would be great choices for a 30g. This is not to say that one of the larger classic models, such as you are looking in to, wouldn't be a good choice, you just have to study up on it. The eheim web sites are good and there are good threads to be found by searches specific to our hardware section.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[mike126]

Given the choice between the canisters and power filters, which do you think woud be a better setup in terms of filter efficiency and maintenance? What I like about the canisters is you can hide the filter unit and the tank is not as cluttered looking. Although the power filters seem pretty easy to maintain.

 

[waterdrop]

Oh, the canisters are clearly better in terms of filtration because they are the largest volume of media per water passing through of any of the designs. Probably the only argument you could make for a power/HOB being easier would be to say that perhaps on one of those you could lift the intake tube off faster and there might be no top to lift off when you go to clean but that is so insignificant and in fact I find it nice to have the sealed box that can't spill to carry down the hall to the bathtub. Its so easy, just flip the cutoff lever and both hoses are turned off, lift the box out from under the tank and carry it, then the trays of media lift out for dunking in tank water bucket.. amazingly easy.

Another potential advantage and the total silence. You can adjust the spraybar down just under the surface for no noise, whereas in my experience there will always be a little waterfall noise on even the best HOB units. I have to examine the spraybar output to even figure out if my eheim is running, can't even feel vibration with my hand.

~~waterdrop~~