Particles

[Lokemer]

I have been having a small problem with getting rid of any of these small partcles flying around my tank. i have some filter floss around the out put into the sump but the particles flying around are much to small to get caught in it. what should i do?

 

[jameshughes1989]

Are they micro bubbles or actually particles?

 

[spadge]

sorry to hear but glad im not the only one!! mine are definately particles, sorry to jump on your thread but would an external filter help remove these as im only running a sump at present

 

[Lokemer]

they are actually particles.

 

[Donya]

When you say floss, I assume you mean the loose, fluffy stuff rather than denser sheets that you can cut to shape? If you have intakes to something with a strong pump that you can wrap some pretty dense foam or filter pads around, it should help with sudden abundances of fine particulates. It's always worked for me with the annoying dust storms that result from new sand and sudden hermit crab digging parties. If you have any powerheads with a small, wrappable intake, those work great to stick a small bunch of filter pad onto with a rubberband for a while. I find that covering the intakes tends to work better than putting the same material just about anywhere else like in a HOTB or canister chamber, although I don't have a sump to test whether a gravity-based flow would work as well.

 

[Lokemer]

im sorry maybe i used the wrong term. i mean a filter bag that is attached by rubberband to the output from my overflow box into my sump. its a 200 micron dense but there is still a load of crud flying around the tank

 

[Donya]

Huh...does it look like the bag has collected any at all? If not, maybe try bagging the bag for extra thickness?. I would still also try bagging over an intake rather than an output, since having the bag over the output seems like it would actually act to loosen the fibers rather than squeeze them together against something as would happen on an intake (unless I'm visualizing how you have it incorrectly - if it's being pushed up against something, the effect should be the same in that regard). When I put filter pads and sponges around my powerheads, they're usually around 3/4-1" thick before the suction starts to compress them - which can sometimes make them pancake thin once they get good and full of debris.