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Enough Filtration?

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Steffyboy

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Hi guys
 
Just a bit concerned whether i have enough filtration in my tank.
I've a 4ft tropical (349 litres) and have a Aqua 1000 external canister filter which is up too 200 litres and a Aqua one Moray filter which does 100 litres.
Have i got enough filtration?
Both togather is 300 litres p/h but still don't feel it's quite enough?
The canister is fantastic and a great output but the Moray one doesn't have that much of an output flow and seems very weak.
I do a 20% weekly water change religiously and try my best to keep it tip top as much as possible.
I have a good selection of fish in there (tiger barbs, clown loach, congo tetras, albino corys, golden panchax, black ghost knife fish, syno catfish, german rams, albino african frog and 2 fire eels) so i want the filtration to be superb but am i doing enough?
I've just got a niggling feeling that i'm not?!!
Any help would be great thanks.
 
Simple answer is no. Due to being overstocked you do not have the filter power for the stock you have.

Fire eels, knife fish, clown fish are a few that grow too large for your tank. Maybe worth looking at a restock of your tank. I love congo tetras and you could have quite a large shoal of them.
 
OK, let's clear up a bit of confusion first. THe Moray is suitable for an aquarium of 100l. It does NOT turnover 100 litres per hour, it turns over 320 litres per hour, according to Aqua One's website.
 
I'll assume the same is true of the first filter.
 
You have filters which the manufacturers say is suitable for a 300l aquarium on a 349 litre aquarium.
 
So the answer to your question is no, you need more.
 
What do you recommend, filter wise for it?
Forgot to say, i have two wave maker power heads either end of the tank to help with the circulation.
 
That's fair enough with the circulation, but you still need to get the water through the bacteria enough.
 
I am a big fan of the Aquamanta range from Maidenhead Aquatics, the EFX1500 would be perfect for your tank. That said, I don't know where you're from (this forum has members from the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, the Philippines all active at the moment) so if you're not from the UK, you may not be able to get them.
 
I'm in Liverpool and have been to Maidenhead Aquatics a few times, only about 20 odd minutes away.
The problem is at the moment is cash.
I haven't got that type of money spare to buy it.
I think i may be a little overstocked so I'm going to get shut of a few fish today but still need to make do with what I've got or better it for as little cash as possible for the time being.
I've just shelled out £50 last week for a 4ft lighting system with T5 blue and white bulbs which was an absolute steal brand new from E-bay.
I just want to get the tank to maximum filtration now as i think it's where i need it to be at this moment.
So for a 349 litre tank, how much filtration do i need for it to be super clean and safe?
I thought you shouldn't over filter it, that's why i stayed with what i have but I'm still learning so any help would be great!

Forgot to say...I'm a little bit confused of litres per hour and such like.
Could do with a little refreshing please for my tank size!!
 
The rule of thumb is that all the water in your tank should pass through the filter at least four times each hour.
 
I have a 220 and a 110 ltr tank all filtered through the same canister filters.
330ltr total,  and I have CF-1000 (1000lph MAX so about 600lph) and a Aqua One 2450 (1500lph MAX so about 1000lph)
I always use 2/3 of the MAX filtration when working it out.
 
So all in all I have about 1600lph filtration on my 330ltr Tank, well over my 4 x LPH rule.
 
The way I see it, you can never filter the tank too much. Obviously disturbing the water too much can have adverse affects on fish, don't want to make your tank into a washing machine, but the more the water passes through the bacteria the more chance it has of killing the ammonia within the tank.
 
I personally have a 4ft 240L tank, in which I run an efx400. Manufacturer states: Suitable for aquariums up to 400 litres (max. flow rate- 1400 lph)
 
I also run a pump-head to help disturb the water at the other end of the tank.
 
Just something to think about :)
 
The above two are quite correct.
 
If you can't afford brand new, then check out Ebay, Gumtree, Preloved, you could try the local Freeads papers, Aquarist Classifieds, the Classifieds section on here, for something suitable.
 
You could continue to run two filters, just upgrade the internal to a better external, something that's suitable for a 200l tank should be fine.
 
All of the above is correct.
 
Personally, I stick to the 10x the volume an hour rating per manfucaturer specs +10% of the tank volume in filter volume.
 
Which means for your size tank of 349 litres, you need your filters combined to to have 3490 L/H flow rate and the filter volumes combined to be around 34.9 litres size wise.
 
If you can't afford large cannister filters to up the filtration, get sponge filters/powerhead combos which will help with more filtration and shouldn't cost much.
 
Thanks guys for the valuable info.
Just got rid of my Congo's, lined barbs and scissor tales so i'm happy with what i have now.
Got my eye on the Aqua One 1250 external in my local shop which does a 250-400 litre tank which i was advised would be suffice for my tank without the need for the internal.
Fingers crossed i'll get there in the end and thanks again
yes.gif
 
I often wonder if you can have too much filtration too, currently I have Fluval Roma 200 with a Fluval U3 and U4 in there.
 
The reason for two is that I migrated from a smaller tank to the Roma and the U3 was from the old tank and U4 was the new one, have them running side by side.
 
Is that overkill?
 
Cheers,
Indy
 
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