Recommended equipment for coldwater predator (Esox Lucius)

[phyrebrat]

Hi all,

I've recently joined, and in my welcome post I mentioned that after ~20 years I'm ready to get back into fishkeeping.

Nowadays the tech and knowledge is so much more robust and comprehensive, I wondered if anyone had particular recommendations for filtration equipment and so on that is particularly geared to predators.

I was planning on one of Eheim or Fluval's cannister filters, with a bias towards ammonia removal, but I also wondered if there is a preference for the water-cycling/quality in terms of substrate. The pH a pike requires is pretty neutral but I wondered if any substrate might assist in helping maintain water quality.

Here is a picture of my old tank set up from 20 years ago (sorry, this is a duplicate of the pic I posted in the welcome forum, I hope that's not contravening forum rules.) for anyone who is interested.

pH

 

[evanb]

Do you need to keep the water at a low temp for native species?

 

[phyrebrat]

I've never had to battle that - I found my carp and tench grew much quicker in warm water although that might be an imprecise assumption - although funnily enough I have been looking at cooling methods.