filtration on planted tanks

penguinpimp1990 · Jul 29, 2005

is it better to over filtrate your planted tank or under filtrate it? also what are the best types of filters for a planted tank? ( i.e. canister,internal, etc.)

qwikimpss · Jul 29, 2005

I don't have any experience with planted tanks YET (in the process of planting my 29) but i have heard that canister filters work really well in a planted tank due to the flexibility and lack of surface agitation. Little surface agitation helps keep the dissolved Co2 in your water longer.

penguinpimp1990 · Jul 31, 2005

anyone else?

Cossack1977 · Jul 31, 2005

i have a heavily planted tank with a high fish load. Currently running 2 x 2128 eheims. Both of these are rated for a 600L tank so theorecticaly 1200l of filtration. I can tell you thats not the case.

i am currently building a custom settup with should triple that filtration rate. The reason for this is that i have a lot of floating paritcles in the water making it look messy.

With a planted tank as long as you dont have any surface agiatation you can have as much filtration s you want

@ombomb · Jul 31, 2005

In theory you can have LESS filtration in a heavily planted tank as the plants abosrb some of the Amonia / Nitrites in the water. The amount of detritus in the water depends on the plants you use however, some plants create little / no waste like amazon sword, but my vallis always has small bits breaking off it. I wouldn't increase my filtration for a planted tank, just make sure you keep it blockage free.

IMCL85 · Jul 31, 2005

eheim deffinately

but they r for big tank. For tank under 30 g I would go for aquaclear. They r alot easier to clean up compare to eheim.

Bignose · Jul 31, 2005

As @ombomb said, if you relaly heavily plant, you can actually use very little flitration. Aquatic plants for the most part, grow best with ammonia, and with enough plants they will take up all the fish waste just like the nitrifying bacteria do. If you want to read up on this, Diana Walstad's Ecology of the Planted Aquarium details a lot of the evidence. She used filters sparingly, and in no way undertocks -- the pictures in the book show large schools of rainbowfish and livebearers in 40 to 55 gal tanks.