Sump Or Fx5? For 7Ft Tropical Tank?

[waterdrop]

Hi ramis, I may have missed it in your posts but I don't remember you ever saying what sort of goal you have for your tank. Are you thinking of a heavily planted tank, a cichlid tank, a general community tank with a few plants or what in particular?

Often, filtration capacity and flow rate are refinements among a set of functions one lays out to reach the goal of a particular style of tank. Do you have a lot of experience with previous tanks or are you also interested in getting beginner experience? Answers to things like that can help the members taylor their advice.

On the flow rate topic we were discussing, my own tank is 5x from the filtration with a small powerhead supplementing the flow. In my mind the jury is still out on how much I like this flow, at times it seems a bit high for the liking of my fish. I think my actions were influenced by my desire to learn about high-tech planted tanks but the reality of my tank is that it is low-light technique and only planted to a medium level. I do enjoy the extra help with debris removal that I think this flow gives me though, as my busy family life sometimes leaves me missing a gravel-clean-water-change I would have wanted ideally to do.

For your situation, I wonder if there are possibly some differences between extra-large tanks such as you have and other categories of smaller tanks? Perhaps higher flow rates might have extra benefits in an extra large tank, I don't have the experience to know!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[ramis]

hi waterdrop, i dont have any in my tank but my flowerhorn i have 3 of them and they are all have divider but at the moment i only have 2 external filter so the other half doesnt have any so thats why im thinking of getting another external or a sump for a change well here are pics of my fish

http/img844.imageshack.us/img844/7953/301341.jpg

http/img842.imageshack.us/img842/9592/img000962010090118361.jpg

 

[waterdrop]

Wow, beautiful fish ramis! WD

 

[ramis]

thanks for the help guys but i went for FX5 and eheim 2080 for bio,

 

[waterdrop]

You could charge for tickets at the front door...

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Glad to see you got a pretty powerful filter combo for that 7-footer of yours, ramis.

Do you remember me talking about a Magnum 8 powerhead for extra circulation? Well right now I'm a real dilemma about my one, as it may have contributed to the death of two of my Humphead Glassfish and a baby Leopard Bushfish in the last 8 days, as its turnover was perhaps just too much for ~500l of water (540l not filled to top).

As a precaution, I'm not using the powerhead for now, to monitor my fishes' well-being. No fish that died showed any visual signs of illness besides hyper-ventilating, which has been suggested to me as being stress to the daytime water current, as much as it could be a gill infection (but I'm holding off doing a 10-day Sterazin course for now). As much as I hope they did not die of an infection, I will be mortified if the product I bought to reproduce their natural environment actually killed them.

So potentially, I have a Magnum8 going spare, perhaps to be replaced with a Hydor Evolution 5200 when funds allow.

Given your 7-foot tank must have a greater volume than my 540l, I wondered if you would be interested in buying the Magnum8 for £60 plus postage? This is where I bought it from less than two weeks ago, for £106.21 ...
http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-HYDOR-KORALIA-MAGNUM-8-CIRCULATION-PUMP-12500LPH-/150455452490?pt=UK_Pet_Supplies_Fish&hash=item2307d8034a

Given its age, I could possibly get more for it, but I'm more concerned right now in having the funds to buy a smaller turnover powerhead to replace it with.

Give me a shout if interested.