Filtering And Maintaining Plec Tanks.

[Aqua Andy]

Hi All,

I have a Juwel Lido 32G aquarium with 3 plecs in it and I need some filtration and maintenance advice.

I have two issues:

floating debris

and debris on top of the gravel.

I have changed the power head on the Juwel filter to a 1000 lph, I replace the wool filter pad daily, and I perform 1/4 water changes weekly syphoning of the debris from the bottom of the tank.

Are these just one of those things keeping plecs, or would the addition of an external filter eliminate these issues? If so what filter media would be best? The Juwel filter is providing adequate biological filtration, the water parameters are checked regularly and are perfect.

I don't want to spend money on an external filter if it won't improve things, and if these issues are just one of those things when keeping plecs, I am happy to live with them as I love the plecs.


Andy

 

[dane261]

is the debris left over food?


cheers dane

 

[Aqua Andy]

The floating debris is mostly pieces of courgette. I have a piece of courgette in the tank all the time and change it every 24 hours, before it gets soggy. I thankfully have no algae, so I feel the need to make sure that food is always available for the plecs. I only feed other food once a day in moderation, and I don't feed other food once a week.

The debris on the floor is plec poop.


Andy

 

[smithrc]

I'll be blunt.... Jewul filters suck.

we have a rio 240 and a trigon 350... both are running Tetratech 1200s now - the water is crystal clear in both tanks... the gravel issue will be a matter of directing flow to make sure it moves towards the intake (or gathers in one place for easy removal)

 

[Aqua Andy]

The flow from the power head got so low that I decided to clean all of the filter sponges this evening. Man there was some gunk in there. Juwel recommends to clean or replace the course and fine filter sponges every 3-6 months! I replace the wool daily and the carbon and nitrate sponges every month. I'll clean the filter sponges every couple of weeks and see how it performs. If that isn't successful an external filter will be top of the list in my letter to Santa.


Andy