External Filter Maintenance

[razorkai]

When doing your regular filter maintenance, do you empty the water inside the filter cannister away or leave it alone? I want to empty mine as the water is not a nice colour, but I don't want to affect the bacteria in the media.

TIA

 

[rabbut]

Whenever I open my exturnals, on the very rare occasion, I use the canister's water content for media cleaning, so yes, you can empty the filter completely Mine only need cleaning arround 1-2 times a year. Cleaned out my Rena last week for the first time in 8 months, and my 6month old Tetratec's haven't yet been touched since the week after set-up. When I used to run a fluval on my main tank though, it needed doing monthly....
Is the water dirty due to dirt from the media, or is the whole tank looking murky?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[razorkai]

Whenever I open my exturnals, on the very rare occasion, I use the canister's water content for media cleaning, so yes, you can empty the filter completely Mine only need cleaning arround 1-2 times a year. Cleaned out my Rena last week for the first time in 8 months, and my 6month old Tetratec's haven't yet been touched since the week after set-up. When I used to run a fluval on my main tank though, it needed doing monthly....
Is the water dirty due to dirt from the media, or is the whole tank looking murky?

All the best
Rabbut

Hi again

The whole tank is murky, and I'm getting sick of trying to clear it! First it was green water, now its hard to tell if it is green or white. The only thing that ever worked was Interpet Green Away, but that was only temporary. That's why I bought Purigen, as described by the other thread that you contributed to (I think)! I have rinsed the media in tank water before but it didn't seem to do much

 

[rabbut]

Have you got any water stats? Also, what size tank is it and what is it stocked with?

There is something going on if you have green water. A healthy tank shouldn't have it, and this type of issue can make a milky appreance to the tank also.... Other members in the other thread said they had used it for greenwater, but that it needed time to work.
your taking a kind of resoning a soultion, rather than reasoning a cure type of aproach. This isn't always bad, but it can lead to some important issues being missed. Try and work out the caurse before you try to make it go away, and you may well find that you don't need to use the purigen, and improve conditions further for your fish

All the best
Rabbut

 

[razorkai]

OMG! I just emptied the cannister and the blackest water ever came out! The tank has only been going two and a bit months, and only cycled for about 4 weeks. I never imagined it had got so bad in there! This must be what was causing the issue, or at least a major contributor to it. I'm going to see what happens in the next few hours, but I have a feeling things are going to get a lot better

 

[rabbut]

Dirt in the filters isn't likely to be a major factor unless the media is clogged to a point where flow is reduced. I'd still look for other caurses Just think what happens in my Discus tank that gets 4 heavy feeds a day, and the filter only gets cleaned once every 8 or so months...imagin whats in my media Not pleasant to clean I can tell you, but it doesn't upset the tank hence why it is left. If the filter is realy bad after 8 weeks, you are either underfiltered or overstocked, both of which have been linked to green water

What size tank is it?

What fish are stocked?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[razorkai]

If the filter is realy bad after 8 weeks, you are either underfiltered or overstocked, both of which have been linked to green water

What size tank is it?

What fish are stocked?

Here are the details

Juwel Rio 180 with internal filter removed
Tetratec EX700 external filter
Hydor external heater running at about 26 degrees C
Substrate is plain old Argos playsand washed several times
I changed the standard Juwel Tubes to two 30w Arcadia Classica Daylight (apparently these are the same as the Freshwater ones)
Both the tubes have arcadia reflectors on them.
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10 ish

Stocked with

A fair few plants
2 bristlenose plecs
2 Bosemani Rainbowfish
5 gold tetra
6 zebra loach
2 siamese algae eaters
12 Neon Tetras

IMHO there is no way am I over stocked or underfiltered unless someone tells me otherwise...

 

[rabbut]

4 times filter turn-over and good waterstats, so that shouldn't be the issue

Stocking is 78 inches of fish, and you have about 36 gals. Stocking is quite heavy, at bout 2 and a bit inches per gallon, but the filter should handel it. Do you have any other tanks to allow you to run an experiment?

If so, try moving out the plecos for a couple of weeks and see if that makes a difference. Most things in there are low waste producers, hence why I'm not quite saying strait away that it's stocking, but IME bristlenoses are very messy, and may well be pushing too much waste into the system for it to handel. It is a long shot, but is a possibility... Not likely to be the caurse though

I don't suppose you have a phosphate test kit, or an LFS that will test phosphate content do you?

Also, are you using liquid drop tests or strips?

What's your water change regime like?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[razorkai]

4 times filter turn-over and good waterstats, so that shouldn't be the issue

Stocking is 78 inches of fish, and you have about 36 gals. Stocking is quite heavy, at bout 2 and a bit inches per gallon, but the filter should handel it. Do you have any other tanks to allow you to run an experiment?

If so, try moving out the plecos for a couple of weeks and see if that makes a difference. Most things in there are low waste producers, hence why I'm not quite saying strait away that it's stocking, but IME bristlenoses are very messy, and may well be pushing too much waste into the system for it to handel. It is a long shot, but is a possibility... Not likely to be the caurse though

I don't suppose you have a phosphate test kit, or an LFS that will test phosphate content do you?

Also, are you using liquid drop tests or strips?

What's your water change regime like?

All the best
Rabbut

I have got a phosphate test kit, I'll check it out tonight. Using the community creator on thinkfish.co.uk it says I should be able to stock up to 138 inches in a tank of my size with an external filter, so I'm surprised you think it is heavily stocked. It also makes my current load 53 inches. I don't know how good this tool is though...

I'm using new API liquid tests. I am doing quite a lot of water changes at the moment to try and beat this green water thing. About 25 % every other day. I can't believe it is the plecos, they are tiny! Where do you get the 36 gallons from? It is a 47 gallon tank.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

these community creators are the bane of my life (and yours so it seems) the stocking they propose is preposterous and I'm sorry but you are overstocked for the filtration and size of the tank, this is why you're having problems.

if you cut your stocking by about one third the water would clear up, i'd put money on it.

 

[rabbut]

Well, I gave an approximate gallonage, by dividing the capasity in liters by 5, mainly because I can never remember the exact number you divide by to get US gallons (or UK gallons for that matter). As Miss Wiggle says, that stocking calculator is way out with what the tank can take, 138 inches is way too much, even the 53 inches it recons you have is a heavy load, about twice that of what is recomended for a tank of the age of yours. For the first 6 months you want to stock to arround one inch per gallon, so thats 47 inches of fish at the momet. You have 78 inches of fish, so over the recomended for an imature tank.
Mature tanks can go as high as 2 inches per gallon safely with the correct care After that and even an experienced keeper will be pushing their luck I diden't go out-and-out as far as saying you're overstocked, as that would be hippocritical of me. About 18 months ago I was running a tank which was stocked to 3 inches per gallon. I gave that tank up, because although things were going fine, it was realy hard work to maintain

Like Miss Wiggle, I'd recon that removing some fish would sort the issue better than the Sechem product I'm gonna predict that phosphates are quite high when you test them, but even if they aren't I don't see things getting much better with that stocking load

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i think litres to us gallons is divide by 3.7 which gives a rough idea.

so the tanks roughly 48gals, so 73" of fish is a relativley heavy stocking. not unmanageable but would need better than average filtration and maintenance.

 

[rabbut]

If removing fish isn't an option, mebe adding another exturnal is?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes a better filter and upping the maintenance routine would certainly help cope with a high level of fish

 

[razorkai]

Sigh! You'd think after all the time I've been doing this (about 7 years I reckon) that I would know not to trust tools like that. I guess I just liked what it was telling me and wanted to believe it. The things is that I kept all these fish (except it was 6 Bosemani not 2) bar the neons in a 96 litre tank without any problems. The neons are tiny too, as I only just got them. Google is great for converting things just type "180 litre to us gallons" and it tells you the answer! Taking fish out is not an option and to be honest neither is changing the filter as I only just bought it! The filter is rated up to 250 litres anyway, so you could argue that I am overfiltered already. I'm off to test the phosphates and will report back later.