Are External Filters As Scarey As They Look ?

Haha, I've found a thread to answer my questions without needing to ask one! But now I've thought of one to ask.

I've recently inherited a large (about 300l, depending on how I measure!) tank with an under-gravel filter. I've not used one of those before, and I've found that my nitrates are massively high and various water tests seem to vary from week to week, the water tends to be quite cloudy and gets messy quite quickly and I'm generally not too sure that it's either working or very effective. I also don't really like the lack of carbon filter, but I'm not sure how much of a problem that really is.

I've had a quick look at external filters, and I do like the look of the tetratec one, but, and here's the whole point of this, do I need to remove the undergravel filter when I use an external filter? It seems like it might be quite a hassle to dig up the gravel and remove the white plasticky thing, plus, will the resulting clouds of dead fish-parts and years (possibly as much as 19 years) of accumulated stuff under the gravel harm the fish in the time it takes the new filter to do its job and clean the water? I do hoover the gravel once a week but there's still a lot of gunk in there.

Also, when you say that external filters take less maintenance, what are we talking? Do I still need a weekly water change (or is that a by-product of my existing filter not being much good?)? How about replacing the filters inside the canister? For my internal filter on my previous tank I washed or replaced the little white wooly bit roughly once a week or once a fortnight.

Any thoughts or help appreciated, as ever!
 
thanks to everyone, i went for a fluval 305,ended up selling it on as the pipes didnt fit the tanks
on my 4ft the tank has a rim so no good
on my 3ft the hood would have needed modyfying( and i would have messed it up no problem)
and just to big for the other tanks

so a tip to anyone looking for one, check out the fittings first,but then you are quite possibly more diy capable than me anyway lol :/
 
No they are easy, if you take the pump and hose bit out that you put together with instructions, then you are left with just like a water container with filter media in basically.
 
Haha, I've found a thread to answer my questions without needing to ask one! But now I've thought of one to ask.

I've recently inherited a large (about 300l, depending on how I measure!) tank with an under-gravel filter. I've not used one of those before, and I've found that my nitrates are massively high and various water tests seem to vary from week to week, the water tends to be quite cloudy and gets messy quite quickly and I'm generally not too sure that it's either working or very effective. I also don't really like the lack of carbon filter, but I'm not sure how much of a problem that really is.

I've had a quick look at external filters, and I do like the look of the tetratec one, but, and here's the whole point of this, do I need to remove the undergravel filter when I use an external filter? It seems like it might be quite a hassle to dig up the gravel and remove the white plasticky thing, plus, will the resulting clouds of dead fish-parts and years (possibly as much as 19 years) of accumulated stuff under the gravel harm the fish in the time it takes the new filter to do its job and clean the water? I do hoover the gravel once a week but there's still a lot of gunk in there.

Also, when you say that external filters take less maintenance, what are we talking? Do I still need a weekly water change (or is that a by-product of my existing filter not being much good?)? How about replacing the filters inside the canister? For my internal filter on my previous tank I washed or replaced the little white wooly bit roughly once a week or once a fortnight.

Any thoughts or help appreciated, as ever!
I would think of water changes as a separate topic from filter choice. Water changes have so many other wonderful benefits. IMO they are one of the secrets that separate out good aquarists. So many other trace metals and other things we can't measure will never get a chance to build up if water changes are done, its not just about Nitrates. Maybe extremely good aquarists with huge tanks can reach stable periods where very few water changes are necessary but most of us normal folks should probably embrace water changes as one of the very top maintenance items to never miss. Just like filters cannot remove nitrates, there are many other bad things they can not remove.

When people say external filters take less maintenance I think they mean that for a given size tank one will typically install an external filter that has much more media surface area than the typical HOB or internal filter, thus the external can collect more debris before it needs to be rinsed out. You can just go a little longer. Also, modern cannisters often allow you to quickly unclip the hoses so you can carry the box (without being wet since its already outside and dry) to the tub or backyard, open it up and give the trays a quick rinse in buckets of tank water. Another detail is that the trays often allow more generic media choices, where HOB models sometimes have peculiar model-specific media details designed to keep you buying from only one company.

Re the undergravel filters, hopefully the experienced people will have some clever ideas for you, I would rather not guess what your best move should be re the transition... I will say however that IMO undergravels are a technology from a time long past and if I were you I would be trying to figure out how to get rid of them completely and go to externals. I had them years ago and consider them a mess. There may be other viewpoints on this.

~~waterdrop~~
 
Thank you thank you! Will go over to the other side in a bit and have a look at the water changes, but you've all convinced me to go for a nice external filter as soon as my husband gets paid next...
 
Thank you thank you! Will go over to the other side in a bit and have a look at the water changes, but you've all convinced me to go for a nice external filter as soon as my husband gets paid next...
Well, don't not feed the baby :rolleyes: ...
Are you an experienced aquarist or is this all new to you may I ask?
 
Well, don't not feed the baby :rolleyes: ...
Are you an experienced aquarist or is this all new to you may I ask?

Nah, the baby's fine, she likes 'Fishy William' as she calls the giant plec in the tank. She eats whatever scraps the dog leaves behind... :rolleyes:

I'd consider myself a beginner, despite having a small (Juwel 120) tank for about 6 years. It didn't need much in the way of work, has been to three houses with me and by and large I've not had many problems or fish dying. In January I adopted a friend of a friend's 4ft tank (I think it's about 300l depending on whether I include the gravel layer in my calculations, otherwise it might not be much more than about 160l!) and her 19-year old plec. Spent two hours in the car and then set it up at home with the intention of moving my smaller plec and few fish into their new bigger home. It has undergravel filters and I'm not convinced by the setup as I mentioned before, especially as some of the heaters and light wires are taped together and plugged into sockets with phone wire... hehe

The 19-year old plec died two months after he moved into my house and I'm trying to tell myself that it's ony because he was old. I've put my smaller (14-inch) plec in there now and other than a bit of wear on his fins he seems OK.

So I'm new and inexperienced but seem to have been doing it for ages! Just need the proper filters now.
 
Well, don't not feed the baby :rolleyes: ...
Are you an experienced aquarist or is this all new to you may I ask?

Nah, the baby's fine, she likes 'Fishy William' as she calls the giant plec in the tank. She eats whatever scraps the dog leaves behind... :rolleyes:

I'd consider myself a beginner, despite having a small (Juwel 120) tank for about 6 years. It didn't need much in the way of work, has been to three houses with me and by and large I've not had many problems or fish dying. In January I adopted a friend of a friend's 4ft tank (I think it's about 300l depending on whether I include the gravel layer in my calculations, otherwise it might not be much more than about 160l!) and her 19-year old plec. Spent two hours in the car and then set it up at home with the intention of moving my smaller plec and few fish into their new bigger home. It has undergravel filters and I'm not convinced by the setup as I mentioned before, especially as some of the heaters and light wires are taped together and plugged into sockets with phone wire... hehe

The 19-year old plec died two months after he moved into my house and I'm trying to tell myself that it's ony because he was old. I've put my smaller (14-inch) plec in there now and other than a bit of wear on his fins he seems OK.

So I'm new and inexperienced but seem to have been doing it for ages! Just need the proper filters now.
OK Spider, so you are a mix: You've been successfully running your Juwel 120 (does that mean 120 liters?) for 6 years which definately means you've got practical experience and can stick to it. And now you've gone to a fair amount of trouble to get a much larger setup, and you've bothered to create an idea and ask this first question in TFF.. bit of a serious streak going on here, eh? Am I getting the correct drift that you lowered the water level and drove the big tank in the car with fish and everything still set up?

So during your six years had you ever had the opportunity to learn the nitrogen cycle, the fishless cycling methods, that kind of stuff?

~~waterdrop~~
 
hey there waterdrop, nice to talk to you. I can do this by PM if other people don't want all the gory details!

The Juwel 120 was 120 litres. This new tank is 4ft by 2ft tall by 18 inches deep. Various calculations have told me that's around 300 litres, but it doesn't take into account the gravel and the rocks and things like that.

bit of a serious streak going on here, eh?
Well, no more serious than it is now - got a baby and a puppy, another baby on the way and I'm trying to convince my husband that rats are a good idea too... :rolleyes: Serious enough to stick with it for now, not serious enough to start with anything more technical than a few tetra and some friendly little guys who aren't any trouble! I have half a dozen neons, some minnow things (white cloud) a male and female siamese fighting fish, a red-tailed black shark and a clown loach to keep snails down. And Slurper, my own large plec.

Am I getting the correct drift that you lowered the water level and drove the big tank in the car with fish and everything still set up?
Put all the water into buckets and rain barrels, put the original fish (a bristle-nose catfish and a 19-year old plec) into bags wrapped in blankets in buckets and then put the mostly-empty tank into the car. Took four men, the baby, and two cars and then fed everyone when we got back. The I replaced the water, set the filter up to clear it a bit and added the fish. Poor old Simon, the catfish, lasted about a week, and William the old plec lived for a couple of months. Not sure what I did wrong, but I think with the old one, it might well have been age.

So during your six years had you ever had the opportunity to learn the nitrogen cycle, the fishless cycling methods, that kind of stuff?
I have a degree in biochemistry, so I know the nitrogen cycle, and I've certainly come across fishless cycling, but not had a need to use it as the new tank was already set up. As an aside, the nitrate levels in my tank are off the scale, but everything else seems fine. The nitrate-reducing compunds haven't really made a difference to the water, and jsut this week my plants have begun to die. I'm going to be working on that soon...
 
Oh heck spidergravy, why would people log on to a webforum except hoping for some gory details! This is a soap opera - we've already hijacked the thread from the valentine girl and now we've all been entertained (highly in my case) by the story of your tank move. Modern life is mostly too antiseptic. Kids see cars drive into garages and the electric garage doors close and the kids have no idea that there are just normal people living a sometimes interesting life in that house! Anyway, great image of your entourage moving the tank!

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"I have a degree in biochemistry, so I know the nitrogen cycle, and I've certainly come across fishless cycling, but not had a need to use it as the new tank was already set up. As an aside, the nitrate levels in my tank are off the scale, but everything else seems fine. The nitrate-reducing compunds haven't really made a difference to the water, and jsut this week my plants have begun to die. I'm going to be working on that soon... "
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OK I'm going to take a stab at this. I would guess that degree could mean you will have better insights into the processes that these hobbiests use. But that background knowledge (or maybe more likely being a busy mom) may leave you will little interest in reading all the detailed little stuff that these forum people write to each other in the "New to the Hobby" section and the various articles they've pinned at the top of forums to be a sort of reference material. But IMO I think they are really on to a great bunch of practical principles here and are pretty good at getting people up to speed. I recommend you read rdd's fishless cycling article and a bunch of the other things and really review all the water chem stuff if you haven't already. All the stuff, even if you're not doing it at the moment is just great for baseline knowledge. It is so easy to fall into the thinking that the right filter or the right meds or other objects will solve the problem of the moment when really its the freely given info on this site that is so very valuable to keeping a good tank in the long run. Anyway that's my little speech.

BTW, since none of the experienced people answered, I will say that I don't see any problem with a transition period where you would hang the input/output tubes of a new external filter over the tank edge and just leave the undergravel parts where they are. Of course that could be totally wrong (I wonder if the debris in the undergravel is contributing to periodic bacterial blooms, thus creating periodic cloudiness and the experts would recommend doing away with it right away...) What are your daily ammonia and nitrite levels and your current water change schedule (I forgot.)?
 
So during your six years had you ever had the opportunity to learn the nitrogen cycle, the fishless cycling methods, that kind of stuff?
I have a degree in biochemistry, so I know the nitrogen cycle, and I've certainly come across fishless cycling, but not had a need to use it as the new tank was already set up. As an aside, the nitrate levels in my tank are off the scale, but everything else seems fine. The nitrate-reducing compunds haven't really made a difference to the water, and jsut this week my plants have begun to die. I'm going to be working on that soon...
Are you doing a 20% or 10% water change a week? If not you may need to do a 50% change to bring down the nitrates and then switch to doing 10 or 20% water change a week. Internet consensus seems to be 20ppm nitrates is bearable.

If you have been doing water changes the issue might be with you tap water.
 
waterdrop said:
just normal people
Ha! Think I might be offended by that. hehe

Bastables said:
Are you doing a 20% or 10% water change a week?
I've done a three or four 50% changes since I've had the tank, and mostly a 10-20% change once a week, but it's not making any difference. It could be a problem with the tap water, but I'm not sure what I can do about that. I'm not really up to anything more complicated than adding a few buckets of tap water every week or so...

As for my ammonia and other measurements, can't rememer off the top of my head, will check again this weekend when I'm back home and let you know. I have a couple of different test kits, a tetra one with little strips that you dunk in, and a big liquid one with drops of test solution and test-tubes, but they both give different results.

I agree that the more background knowledge I can gain from these fora the better, but so far with my small tank, I've had no real need to read up because my fish didn't die, the water quality was always great and it was like a well-balanced ecosystem in the tank. This new tank is a whole different can of worms and it's when you encounter problems that it makes you learn more. So this a new experience, but one in which I hope to learn loads of useful things.
 
They all say toss the strips and go with the liquid test kits - much (well, its relative) more accurate.

(its a good thing I don't try to earn money as a writer, eh? ha)
 
As Waterdrop pointed out the liquid ones are more accurate.

Tangential but may be of intrest old tank syndrome http://www.bestfish.com/oldtank.html

If the Nitrate's are in the tap water you may need to put some seachem matrix in your canister filter. Matrix processes much less ammonia or nitrite than other sinctred glass but will home the bactria that eats nitrate. It won't get rid of it all but will be better than nothing. If you don't mine the need to recharge the resins using somthing like a 500g bag of seachem's purigen will rip out all the Nitrogen waste products. http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/Purigen.html
 
Hi i run 7 External Filters for my 4x2x2 discus tank i just gang them up 1 to another they are so easy to use
 

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