Fluval 407 for 350 litre tank?

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st3f

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Would people recommend a Fluval 407 as sufficient for a 350 litre?

It's a planted aquarium with small fish, lightly stocked I would say. A couple of gouramis, cardinal tetras, red and black phantoms, guppies, corys and a couple of BN plecs.

Thanks!
 
A 407 does 245 gallons an hour which gives you 3x turn over where as an FX4 would give you 6x turn over - I'd go for the FX4 personally. The FX range is a bit more reliable than the 407 to be fair as well - though I think the 07 range is better than past generations.

Wills
 
Thanks @Wills That option had completely passed me by. Didn't realise the FX6 (out of my budget) had a smaller brother... I was also looking at the Eheim Classic 600 and the Eheim Pro4+ 350 as comparable options price-wise, though I was a bit concerned about not having sufficient water turnover with all of these.

The FX4 is a bit dearer, but seems to be a lot more filter for the money. Seems like that should cope with a fairly well-stocked 350 litre tank?
 
According to Fluval the 407 does 383 gph. Not used one but I ran a 406 (the same one :)) for 15 years in a 450l tank and it performed admirably (less powerful than the 407).
 
Would people recommend a Fluval 407 as sufficient for a 350 litre?

It's a planted aquarium with small fish, lightly stocked I would say. A couple of gouramis, cardinal tetras, red and black phantoms, guppies, corys and a couple of BN plecs.

Thanks!
Hello. If you're willing to remove and replace half the tank water every week, your filter will be more than enough to keep the water moving and provide a good oxygen level. A 90 gallon tank is a good size.

10 Tanks (Now 11)
 
Hello. If you're willing to remove and replace half the tank water every week, your filter will be more than enough to keep the water moving and provide a good oxygen level. A 90 gallon tank is a good size.

10 Tanks (Now 11)
I would rather not have to do a 50% water change weekly if a more powerful filter alleviated this. The FX4 has more than a third the flowrate (theoretically); do you think this would be a better option then?
According to Fluval the 407 does 383 gph. Not used one but I ran a 406 (the same one :)) for 15 years in a 450l tank and it performed admirably (less powerful than the 407).
Just wondering what your water change regime was on your 450l tank and how stocked it was?
 
Hello. You can't replace a water change with more mechanical filtration. The filter can't remove nearly as much dissolved waste material as the water change. A filter simply takes in toxic tank water and returns it to the tank a little less toxic. If you change enough water and do it often enough, you don't need mechanical filters. For example, I have a 300 gallon tank that has no mechanical filters. I just change most of the tank water every week.

10 Tanks (Now 11)
 
I use a 407 on 75 gallon, I think it would handle another 15 gallons, I cannot use it fully because it generates too much current. I am curious about the thought of the filter affecting the water change cycle, I don't think the filters will do anything to help the oxygen saturation, other than by surface turbulence, or the nitrate levels. I find with a pre filter that I don't have to service the filter itself more than 1 a month and I suspect I can go longer.
 
Just wondering what your water change regime was on your 450l tank and how stocked it was?
It was lightly stocked and heavily planted. I did change water infrequently. As I have learnt more about fish keeping I now suggest changing at least 50% per week regardless of filter size. Filters do not remove nitrates and the reasons for changing water are far more than just nitrate removal. Personally I change 75% per week in each of my 4 tanks now, but that's a choice - not because I have to.
 
Thanks for the above responses. I was thinking a higher flow rate would equate to more ammonia-nitrite and nitrite-nitrate conversion, but wasn't taking into account the end product... I'm still learning!! I've also seen posts on these forums with people talking about having two filters, as opposed to one, on their aquariums, so reinforcing my impression that more was better in terms of flow.

That's really interesting to know that some are running big tanks without a filter, just with water changes... My wife is rather keen on that now as she doesn't like the noise so much!
 
Flow rate doesn't affect the ammonia -nitrite or nitrite-nitrate conversion, all it does is affect the speed with which water moves around the tank. The fish need to be taken into consideration with flow rate - some fish like slow moving water while others need fast moving water.

Two filters in large tanks means fewer 'dead' spots if the flow from a single filter doesn't reach places in the tank.



As an aside, having more media doesn't mean more bacteria. The bacteria will be in the numbers needed to 'eat' the available ammonia and nitrite. All more media means is the bacteria are more spread out.
 
agree. Another myth so abundant in this hobby concerns filters/filtration, the larger or the more there are the better. With a very few exceptions, nothing is more inaccurate.

All you want in this tank is a filter to move the water and perform mechanical filtration, which of course is removing suspended microscopic (usually) particulate matter as the water slowly or moderately passes through fine filter media like sponge/floss/foam. With plants--and I admit we don't know which or how many here--no bacterial filtration is needed, and it should not be encouraged as it can be detrimental to the plants if not the fish.

Plants take up ammonia/ammonium as their preferred nitrogen source, and you would be surprised at how much they can take up, day and night continuously. The benefit of the plants using all the ammonia these fish could ever produce and as rapidly as they produce it is that nitrite and then nitrate are absent.

Water flow is the most obvious aspect of the filter, and this can affect fish. Those mentioned do not live in rapids, they want fairly quiet water. On my larger tanks (a 70g, 90g and 115g) I used a canister specified for the tank volume, and I used a spray bar directed into and down one end wall so as to further reduce the current. No one in the tank complained! Quite the opposite--and yes, you can tell.
 
Thanks so much for this valuable help! As I said, I guess I'm still learning :)

So, my aquarium is moderately (?) planted - see photo attached... However, I've still managed to lose a few fish over time to sickness, which on reflection will have been down to insufficient water changes and/or cleaning out filters. So presumably the plants are not enough to 'eat' all the ammonia that's produced. So one is still relying on a mix of plants and other filtration material, plus water changes to deal with the nitrates being produced as a result of the bacteria's work. Is this correct?
 

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I've still managed to lose a few fish over time to sickness, which on reflection will have been down to insufficient water changes and/or cleaning out filters

This would take a lot of info to possibly sort out, and I am not much on disease issues having had so very few in my 30 years keeping fish. There is a lot involved. We can move on.

So presumably the plants are not enough to 'eat' all the ammonia that's produced.

Possibly, but you do have some faster growing plants (the stem plants), and these are your better consumers of ammonia/ammonium than say ferns, mosses, and Anubias. There is some pennywort on the upper fight in the photo, I would develop this into a floating plant. Untangle the stems and lay them across the surface. This stem plant makes a very attractive floater. The leaves will all turn to lie flat, and the roots will dangle into the water. I had good results with this plant. Some other good floaters are Water Sprite, Frogbit and Water Lettuce. Water Sprite is my overall favourite, in my view every tank should have this floating, it is an incredible water purifier--often called an ammonia sink because it can assimilate so much ammonia/ammonium.

So one is still relying on a mix of plants and other filtration material, plus water changes to deal with the nitrates being produced as a result of the bacteria's work. Is this correct?

Yes and no. The plants' capabilities (as I just discussed above) can result in most of the ammonia being immediately taken up. And this is non-stop, day or night. Some ammonia will (so they say) still feed ammonia-oxidator nitrifying bacteria/archaea, and what does will naturally cause nitrite and then other bacteria resulting in nitrate. But I have never been able to measure ammonia or nitrite in any fish tank--and some of them were quite heavily stocked I thought. Nitrates always measured in the 0 to 5 ppm range using the API liquid test, which may have been 0 or 1 or 2 or...5 ppm for all I know. But it never went above that first colour range, except once in the 90g and that is another story. You want to see zero ammonia and nitrite obviously, but you also want nitrate at zero or as close as possible, permanently.

You do not have a heavy stocking here, so I would never expect to see these three if all is well. Assuming nitrate is zero in your source water, the plants plus significant water changes should keep nitrate as low as possible.

Water changes should be regular (once a week) and substantial (50%, or more--I did 60-70% for years. Provided the parameters--which here refers to GH, pH and temperature--of tap water and tank water are basically the same, you cannot do harm with water changes. No fish in its habitat lives in exactly the same water from one respiration to the next; we cannot hope to match that, but it does exemplify the aim.
 
This would take a lot of info to possibly sort out, and I am not much on disease issues having had so very few in my 30 years keeping fish. There is a lot involved. We can move on.
Water changes should be regular (once a week) and substantial (50%, or more--I did 60-70% for years.
I remain convinced the reason @Byron, and many others, have little experience with disease is the regular water changes.
 

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