I was at Petland shopping for a filter for my new 75 gal tank and the guy told me that the filter (HOB) that said it could filter up 90 gal would do barely anything for my tank. He then tried to persuade me into buying this huge engine filter that cost over triple the price of the filter i saw. I then went to Petsmart and they said that the same filter would work fine and a lady said she has used it herself and it works great. I decided to go with Petsmart and bought and installed my filter. I don't plan on changing it but it would be nice to know if I made the right decision and if not what are ways I can improve filtration without spending too much?
GPH and recommended gallons are a different thing. My filter on my 40 gallon is rated for up to a 100 gallon aquarium but it cycles 383 GPH
For a 75 gallon tank you want at least 600 gph for HOBs . What do you mean by engine filter, do you mean a canister filter? What fish are you planning on keeping?
I won't lie my 30 gal tank is over filtered and it makes maintenance much much easier on you each week...
yeah i meant the canister filters, anyways apparently my filters gph is 400... I plan on keeping 2 angel fish, 1 clown pleco, blue rams, congo or rainbow tetras, Boesemani rainbowfish. Fish amounts might change but that's the plan for now.
Overfiltering is always a great thing to do. There IS more to a filter, in my opinion, than GPH, namely, media capacity. A great, and inexpensive, way to supplement your filtration is using one or more sponge filters.
A canister filter's actual GPH output is less than the rated one, as media slows down the filtration. I might go with one that has a bit more rated GPH.
I would really like to just keep my HOB filter as of now. I would consider a sponge filter but i sort of don't like the bubbles that build up on top of the tank. Instead could I just do water changes? How often and how much would I need to do?
Sorry, for some reason I was thinking you had a canister. You don't have enough GPH then. Unless you're willing to do daily water changes, I would add a second filter. A sufficient GPH is important in facilitating your cycle - you want a high enough GPH to ensure that the waste water is reaching the filter efficiently. Since you have 400 GPH, you'd want another filter that has 200-350 GPH.
An "engine filter", if you're talking about a canister, is well worth the investment. Media capacity is unmatched by anything besides a sump filter, or maybe a corner mat filter. But supplementing your HOB with a couple of sponge filters(plants can be used to hide them, and there are several plants that can actually grow ON the filter, is all you really need to do.
Not to mention, that canister filters are low maintence, quiet, sometimes take less energy, and are not visible in the tank!
The only reason why i didn't choose a canister filter was due to their high cost. I plan on purchasing another HOB 200 gph filter to reach 600 gph while also adding some live plants. Thanks for all the help guys!
On my smallest aquariums 20g long I use 1050 gph pumps to power my filters. With hobs. More filtration is always better. Picking appropriate filters for the livestock is important though. But a good guide to have adequate filtration is whatever the box says cut it in half. If it says good for up to a 90 gallon aquarium it would be 45 so for a 75 you'd want two.
Does also depend on the filter. One filter might push, let's say 300 GPH, another, say 500GPH, but if the 300 holds 3 times the media, I would say they could both probably run the same tank, given identical stocking. Of course, the filtration you need in the first place, to me, comes down almost MORE on the fish you are stocking than the capacity of the tank.
