audreydelia21

OKAY......I have a question for all the fish people who are better at fish keeping than I am.

I have a 40 gal bowed tank with three 10 inch fish and a 4 inch algea eater. Can anyone tell me which filter system is best??
I now have a under gravel filter and also a boi-wheel filter, all in the same tank. However, I have also heard about the canister type filters........soooo

Which would you use on a 40 gal with three large fish.........UGF
Bio-wheel
Canister

Thank you for your time and help. I love Firelore...it makes a newbie like me feel like I know what I'm doing. :

sgould

I personally do not care for UGFs, but there are others who swear by them. I think most would agree, however, that a bio-wheel is a fine filter system. Do you know what the flow rating is on yours? How many gallons per hour it filters? Assuming your bio-wheel is a large enough model for your size tank, that would be fine. I do not know much about canisters, having never used one yet.

audreydelia21

I think the flow on my bio-wheel is 200 gal per min. It also stated less splashing noise...however...i can still hear the water flow when i try to sleep. but that's OK...my fish are happy.

Trpimp147

i think the splashing noise is kinda relazing to me

Gunnie

Many feel the ugf system is old technology, but many folks still use them and simply reverse the process so the water flows up into the tank instead of down underneath. This allows the other filter to suck up the waste and debris. However, since your tank is already established with fish in it, I don't know if I would try this on your tank. All that toxicity already collected and held under your gravel would probably overwhelm your fish once the current was reversed. This would be something you would do from the beginning so you didn't have that buildup. If you wanted to start over on this tank, and had another tank to temporarily house your fish, you could do this. You will have to pretty much completely take down the tank, and do a lot of rinsing of your gravel and ornaments when starting over on this tank to get rid of as much of the nasties as possible before adding the fish back in.