Filter Advice

[sarah40011]

i have a 90L to set up once the sideboard for it arrives this week. It will be home to albino cory, serpae tetra, glowlight tetra (may rehome) and 1 snowball pleco (after its cycled ) i need to get an external filter for it and wondered what people recommend. no price limit really and tank will be planted. also should i move the pleco over with the others? i read somewhere they should only go in at least 3 month old tanks...

 

[Rickzayne]

They say for planted tanks you should get a filter that can do your tank x10 an hour

But my filter is working perfectly and only does x6.5

 

[PCambo86]

do you already have the fish?? If so you can use half the filter media and half the water from your old tank to start off cycling on the new 1! I use 2 fluvial external filters and never had any problems.

 

[Jinty McGinty]

i have a 90L to set up once the sideboard for it arrives this week. It will be home to albino cory, serpae tetra, glowlight tetra (may rehome) and 1 snowball pleco (after its cycled ) i need to get an external filter for it and wondered what people recommend. no price limit really and tank will be planted. also should i move the pleco over with the others? i read somewhere they should only go in at least 3 month old tanks...

How many tetra's do you have? If only one of each as your comment suggests then you need to up their numbers to 6+

 

[sarah40011]

lol no not one of each! but yes it does read that way. there are 6 serpae in the 90L, i would prefer 10 or so and rehome the 4 glowlights that are in my 50L (other half brought them home unasked for still wondering whether to make them 6 or take them back) so any favourite makes of filter? good to know about the output per hour i'll look into that

 

[Jinty McGinty]

lol no not one of each! but yes it does read that way. there are 6 serpae in the 90L, i would prefer 10 or so and rehome the 4 glowlights that are in my 50L (other half brought them home unasked for still wondering whether to make them 6 or take them back) so any favourite makes of filter? good to know about the output per hour i'll look into that

Seem to see a lot of peeps with Fluval range of filters.

 

[sarah40011]

i have a fluval, and an aquis, also see people mentioning eheim or something a lot. guess its actually a personal thing.

 

[KittyKat]

An appropriately sized Fluval internal or Eheim external. I personally prefer externals because they don't take up space inside the tank and hold a lot more media.

 

[sarah40011]

externals all the way for me but my kitchen tank is only 50L and there is not so much cupboard space for an external. think im going to look at the eheims i dont really like my aquis. thanks all

 

[sarah40011]

just looking at all the different ehiems and yeah pice is limited actually! wow!

 

[mark1973]

do you already have the fish?? If so you can use half the filter media and half the water from your old tank to start off cycling on the new 1! I use 2 fluvial external filters and never had any problems.

i got a fluval u2 internal filter,and had nothing but problems with the propeller,everytime i turn it off to clean,it wont come back on without taking the whole filter out water until proppeller starts,when it works its really good

 

[sarah40011]

yep had the same thats why i bought the aquis. everytime i turned the filter back on it never did anything just was kind of jammed, in the end i had to just leave it and anywhere between 10 mins and an hour it would sputter back to life. it also took up too much space and caught loads of junk behind it i couldnt get to as it was glued in. cutting it out was a right struggle too!

 

[karawr]

I would go with an external canister filter... personally I own a Rena XP3 for a 90g and Eheim 2217 for 75g so I can only speak for those brands.

I'm not sure of price difference, since I got both mine used, but I'm pretty sure they are in the same price range.

I like both, but they have their pros and cons...

My eheim is completely silent... sometimes I think it's not even running!! But I find it to be more difficult to prime just because you have to suck on one end of the hose to get it going... or sometimes you have to pour water in the tubes. You also have to make sure you use the easy disconnect valves to block the pipes when you go to disconnect everything or you have water over the floor (been there, done that... now my carpet smells like fish ) But I like it's circulation, it produces a nice, strong current that my fish really enjoy.

I've heard Renas are very very silent but mine has a little hum that just won't go away. I wonder if something needs to be replaced, but I don't know enough about them to go and replace parts. Anyways, I think it's my favourite of the two. I like the easy latching handles on the top and the super easy priming. Just latch down the top and it fills up all on its own. You also don't have to worry about the tubes spurting out water when disconnecting 'cause it cuts off the water on its own. I just wish the flow was a little higher...

Anyways there's my 2 cents. I only use canister filters on my bigger aquariums so not sure which one you'll need for a smaller tank. Best of luck.

 

[KittyKat]

My eheim is completely silent... sometimes I think it's not even running!! But I find it to be more difficult to prime just because you have to suck on one end of the hose to get it going... or sometimes you have to pour water in the tubes. You also have to make sure you use the easy disconnect valves to block the pipes when you go to disconnect everything or you have water over the floor (been there, done that... now my carpet smells like fish ) But I like it's circulation, it produces a nice, strong current that my fish really enjoy.

The more expensive ranges have auto-priming

 

[sarah40011]

i can do about £200 on it which i thought was fine then i see all these all singing all dancing £400 eheims. my savings are supposed to be for my business start up but i look at my fish and think hmmmm maybe if i got a... etc im 7 months into this hobby and at least a grand down! lmao love it tho, who needs a deposit for a house when youve got corys hey?