Hi, I just purchased a 210g tank and I have a few questions. Well, I pick up the tank this coming saturday and I want to be ready to start the cycle, the guy at the petstore that is selling it to me swears by just using the round foam type filters with power-heads 3filters on each end stacked and 2 in the middle each stack with its own power-head, without using any other type of filtration. This is how all of his tanks are in his shop and they are all crystal clear. I havent read of anyone else doing this and wanted to know if this can work. Btw I plan on putting in cichlids, mainly oscars. I know they are a pretty dirty fish as I used to have them about 10 years ago in a 55g. I always used an over the back filter system and vaccumed once a week. Just wondering anyone's thoughts on using this filtration setup as he is including the foam filters and powerheads in the price.
Congrats on the 210 gal omg... Id give anything for one of those... lol.
I have no experience with that type of filter but, I think that the best would be canister filters. Those "foam" filter things might be too weak for such a big tank and the oscars. I agree on a couple powerjeads, and again... I hope a fishmaster will be here soon to further help you out with this one.
Thanks for the reply, I'm thinking the same thing. I guess after the tank is cycled and I start adding fish I'll find out for sure. Any suggestions on a canister brand or size I should look for? I was looking at the Fluval FX5 as a possibility. And yeah the tank is like 108 inches long it's a monster, but we couldn't think of anything else to put on a huge bare wall we had in our house lol.
Last edited by Wade; August 1st, 2008 at 01:24 AM.
I am putting lace rock in with crushed coral, I know they wiegh alot and was wondering if i should put some sort of under gravel filter plastic in to try to even out the wieght, I've heard of people using eggcrate as well. Any thoughts?
I don't know about the second question, but as far as the first question, eight powerheads with sponge filters would provide excellent biological filtration for that tank (presuming the powerheads had a large enough output).
What they wouldn't provide is a lot of mechanical filtration, or any chemical filtration. Neither of these is necessary. In fact, I'm moving away from using either in some of my tanks.
Thanks for the reply, so in the tanks that you are just using sponge filters what are you doing to maintain them? Are you just vacuuming the rock and testing the water adding chemicals when needed? Thanks again for the help.
omg... Id give anything for one of those... lol.
