Filtration To Stock

[ripil]

hello
im having a bit of trouble keeping my 240litre tank clean for morrow than a few days.
its an malawi mbuna set up. so loads of rock which means their is no where near 240 litres of water in the tank and im running a fluval 305 which claims its for 300 litre tanks. there are 35 juve mixed between yellow labs, acei, white top afra hara and zebra afra hara. im thinking of adding the juwel jumbo internal filter back in and swapping the air wall for some sponge filters. do you think this will make much of a difference or am i just way overstocked? I've got other tanks that can be used but im not sure how many to keep in the main tank? really just looking for advice on the filtration to stock as although i don't mind cleaning them out i don't like having to disturb them so much. thanks

 

[doresy]

I have same tank set up and have no problems whatsoever.....?


When you say you are having trouble keeping your tank clean for more than a couple of days, how do you mean clean. Remember your filter is primarily a biological filter with only a degree of mechanical filtration.

If it's growth on the rocks you are refering to then adding more filtration will make little difference. Light plays a big part, too much and they go green too little and they get brown. Bad water also adds black.

Over feeding , over stocking, lack of water changes all add to the mix.

The 305 was developed to handle and 240 ltr........

 

[ripil]

just the front of the glass is green after a few days. the back after 3 days then by day 5 it looks like i ain't cleaned it out in ages. i added the juwel jumbo internal filter and it ain't made a difference. the lights are two 54watt t5 their on from about 9am to about 6-7pm. so too long really. the fluval 305 runs 2 ceramic bag, 2 carbon bags and then the top level is 2 carbon sponges. going to take out the juwel jumbo as it don't look right. the two sponge filters have been ordered so hoping they help when they arrive. i feed spirulina in the am n 2 frozen malawi mix in the evening.

 

[ripil]

love the tank layout ya got mate. puts mine to shame lol

 

[Aquascaper]

Try running your lights for 6 - 7 hours max.
Remove the 2 carbon bags and replace with more ceramics and a coarse sponge.
Remove the 2 carbon pads and replace with 1 coarse sponge and one fine sponge.

You should only be running carbon in your filter if you have tannins or medications to remove as that is the only benefits really, replacing with extra sponges will increase your filtration capacity and quality.

If you do change them over do it gradually to allow the bacteria to colonised the new media in stages otherwise you will cause a mini-cycle.

 

[ripil]

i got loads of different bits so will start swapping a bit out at a time. the sponge filters arrived today so i'll add them later too. was getting annoyed at the air wall anyway. so its the lights n the wrong filter set up. was thinking i must be doing something wrong as the tank probably only has 180 litres in it. thanks mate

 

[ripil]

spot on advice mate. changing over the sponge has helped no end, still got a few more to swap out but its been two days and its still clear. thanks