peddidle
Member
New to fish keeping.
I have tap water with nitrates running about 20 to 30. I have two tanks going through the nitrogen cycle right now--a 10-gallon and a 20-gallon. They are planted tanks. My 20-gallon is too early into the cycle to focus on its nitrates, but the 10-gallon is at the point of converting dosed ammonia 4 to 0 and nitrites 0 within 24 hours. The nitrates run high (of course), and I don't expect them to come down enough without providing assistance because of the tap water.
I have very limited media space in my filters (Aqueon QuietFlow LED Pro 10), so I'm trying to decide whether I should buy filters with larger media space to house both ceramic rings and Matrix, or if I can remove the ceramic rings and replace them with Matrix alone. (I have floss in addition to the ceramic rings, as well as a sponge on the intake tube.)
The only reason I'm hesitant to buy new filters is that despite the very limited media space, the QuietFlow filters are self-priming and we have several or more power outages per year where I live (it also seems the QuietFlow filters are pretty safe when it comes to the risk of backflow/overflow should it clog, though I may be wrong about that).
What seems to be my best option?
I have tap water with nitrates running about 20 to 30. I have two tanks going through the nitrogen cycle right now--a 10-gallon and a 20-gallon. They are planted tanks. My 20-gallon is too early into the cycle to focus on its nitrates, but the 10-gallon is at the point of converting dosed ammonia 4 to 0 and nitrites 0 within 24 hours. The nitrates run high (of course), and I don't expect them to come down enough without providing assistance because of the tap water.
I have very limited media space in my filters (Aqueon QuietFlow LED Pro 10), so I'm trying to decide whether I should buy filters with larger media space to house both ceramic rings and Matrix, or if I can remove the ceramic rings and replace them with Matrix alone. (I have floss in addition to the ceramic rings, as well as a sponge on the intake tube.)
The only reason I'm hesitant to buy new filters is that despite the very limited media space, the QuietFlow filters are self-priming and we have several or more power outages per year where I live (it also seems the QuietFlow filters are pretty safe when it comes to the risk of backflow/overflow should it clog, though I may be wrong about that).
What seems to be my best option?