Should I switch filter duties?

Hi first post. I have a 75g tank and two Fluval canister filters, a 107 and 407. The 407 has most of the sponge filters it came with and I added some additional biological filtration as well as some carbon. The 107 has some coarser sponges and the rest is poly fill. The water could be clearer in my opinion but isn't bad. My question is should I switch the roles of these two filters so that the larger one is handling the polishing duties while the smaller is mainly biological and chemical; would this help to make the water clearer?

 

depends on what the issue with the water clarity is, what's causing it.

For sure, you can buy a 5 or 10 micron filter water polishing pad and it's going to catch most everything except for viruses in the water, your problem likely isn't which mechanical filter to use, and more likely the filter material not fine enough to catch the smaller particulates and them passing right through.

you know how your filter works, I'd think if you went from the intake, to coarse sponge for large debris, to a fine mat to catch the fine particulate, and then your bio material it should be just clear water, bacteria and virus sized stuff making it to the biological area.
You don't want coarse stuff getting to the fine mat, it just jams it up quick and slows the filter.

I use a prefilter sponge on my wetdry for the heavy stuff something like a 25-50 pores per inch (PPI) rating (they also call it "coarse". Then a 50 micron pad for the wetdry itself and then below that a 5 micron layer, then my biological material, I don't get any build up in the biomedia or the bottom of the wetdry for years now, rinse the prefilter a couple times a week, change the mats in the wetdry once a month. a lot of times the 5 micron can stay because I been doing it a long time, my water is always crystal clear like this.

I think it's more about your can filter not being set up to do what you want it to do and it's just blowing out the fine particulate because the mechanical filtration isn't fine enough to catch it.

the 407 itself should be fine for your tank itself. maybe just rethink and build the 107 as a water polisher for fine particulates that you can turn on or off as needed and let the 407 do the day to day work?

Biological and bulk filtration on the 407 for daily use, and then the 107 filters from coarse to very fine, and no biological in the 107 to just do water polishing when you need it. Probably save you a little bit on the power bill also, polishing is very effective at removing the really fine things that tend to suspend. when I deep clean and stir the substrate my water gets so silty and brown you can't see fish and in 6 hours it's crystal clear again, all on the 50 micron or in the 5 micron filter pads. But I keep the junk in the tank and prefilter sponge and not in my filter until the monthly change vac out whatever I can and the filter clears the rest the vac kicks up, then change the pads. it's a bit different of a set up than what you are doing, just works for me with what I have.

 

Might be a good idea to remove the carbon & replace with either additional sponges or ceramic media.

 

Personally, I have never liked filter floss, whether polyester or fiberglass like we used back in the good old days. If possible, replace that with a filter pad. You can purchase them all they way from a very fine 50 microns up to about 200 micron. The finer the filter, the clearer the water, but the quicker the pad will fill up with debris and need cleaning or replacement. You can also use a fine filter sponge rather than a filter pad. A 100 micron filter pad is a good compromise.

If you have a planted tank, you should not need the filter carbon. If you have artificial plants, then carbon is fine.

 

Thanks everyone for the great advice! I do have a planted tank and long term no plans for the carbon but there are still some tannins leach from the driftwood and the purigen is recharging so I figured I'd use up what I had that came with the filters. Its funny I read so much about the filter floss but what everyone is saying makes perfect sense to me.

 

Thanks everyone for the great advice! I do have a planted tank and long term no plans for the carbon but there are still some tannins leach from the driftwood and the purigen is recharging so I figured I'd use up what I had that came with the filters. Its funny I read so much about the filter floss but what everyone is saying makes perfect sense to me.

The big problem with filter floss is that if it is made from larger denier polyester fiber, it does not trap fine debris. If you make it from small denier fiber, the ball tends to compress, restricting water flow. That is why a pad of fairly uniform thickness tends to work better.

There are plenty of options available, but I tend to favor the Acurel pads.

https://www.amazon.com/Acurel-Waste-Debris-Reducing-Media/dp/B00LRWLT1E/

 

Personally, I have never liked filter floss, whether polyester or fiberglass like we used back in the good old days. If possible, replace that with a filter pad. You can purchase them all they way from a very fine 50 microns up to about 200 micron. The finer the filter, the clearer the water, but the quicker the pad will fill up with debris and need cleaning or replacement. You can also use a fine filter sponge rather than a filter pad. A 100 micron filter pad is a good compromise.

If you have a planted tank, you should not need the filter carbon. If you have artificial plants, then carbon is fine.

they make then in 5, 10 and 25 micron also. if you are layering, much like classifying material when digging for gold, and going big to small, it doesn't jam up like you'd think. it's when you have big stuff in the really fine filter it's worthless.

Like I said, I use the 25-50 pores per inch prefilter, this caches everything that's like 1-2mm.
at 200 microns, that's particles that are 0.2mm in size or larger, I skip this.
Not much gets past the 25-50 pores per inch, from there it's heading into the dust category if it does get past the prefilter.
in the filter box i stack a 50 micron on top and a 5 micron below. the 50 micron catches most of the rest down to 0.05mm and only a slight bit makes it to the 5 micron (0.005mm)

maybe overkill, but I hated all that junk in the bottom of my wetdry filter sitting there being a bug breeding ground and having to do a dig out when it got really funky. Down to 5 microns catches even household dust particles except for the finest stuff, it will catch greenwater algae except for the newest stuff, once it hits 5 microns in size it's out of there also.
It won't catch nitrifying bacteria or viruses and small particle stuff like that, too small to see with the eye even smaller than 5 microns. those guys are like half or quarter microns and less in size.

diatoms are like 20-200 microns (0.02mm to 0.2mm)
Algae (like a single organism) is like 0.2 to 2 microns (0.0002mm to 0.002mm) green water algae is like 5-10 microns in diameter.
I just haven't found anything reasonable that goes lower than 5 microns, I'd probably use it if I did

a canister filter is a closed environment, my wet dry well it's a nitrate factory, an evaporation factory and if it's not kept free of food, mulm and fine particulate build up, an open air bug factory also. Many times I've pulled "filter floss" and had tiny drain fly worms in it at the 30 days mark. A prefilter sponge and filter pads are a godsend!
I can't stand those things all over the place! it's worth the cost to me to keep the water clean the filter clean and it being just a house for bacteria and not a farm for flies. My vac and water changes can do the heavy lifting from the substrate.

 

Thank you! This is fascinating stuff and all makes sense. I am new to the hobby. I started in March with a 20 gallon hexagonal tank and then bought a 9 gallon Fluval flex because the platys and guppies were having many fry to try and separate the males and females and then start really getting interested in the whole planted tank thing, I had no idea. So decided to get a 75 gallon on sale at one of our local pet stores and try my hand going down that route. I have a basement office on one side and my man cave on the other side of the room so the 75g is serving as a peninsula tank and I am loving it

 

Thank you! This is fascinating stuff and all makes sense. I am new to the hobby. I started in March with a 20 gallon hexagonal tank and then bought a 9 gallon Fluval flex because the platys and guppies were having many fry to try and separate the males and females and then start really getting interested in the whole planted tank thing, I had no idea. So decided to get a 75 gallon on sale at one of our local pet stores and try my hand going down that route. I have a basement office on one side and my man cave on the other side of the room so the 75g is serving as a peninsula tank and I am loving it

good choice, those hexagon tanks have odd angles and it's just a flow killer where you wind up with dead zones of no water and problems, and then the solution is more water movement and needing too much current to keep all the water moving for the fish. Just a pain to keep right. the flex is a nice little tank.

75 is a nice size, but it's right on the edge of "big" to where the water changes become.... what's a nice way to say it..... a real chore you won't be looking forward to doing as often as you should. Look for easy and fast methods so water changing can be done quick, when it's an hour plus per weekend it takes the fun out of it after a while. The easier and the faster the better, in my opinion, or you will dread doing it, I still do it the slow hard way with a 5g bucket out of masochism.

 

Thank you it certainly is more time consuming but I think I found a good method for me. I have a 10 gallon trash bin that I siphon water into then I have one of those expanding hoses that I attach to the basement sink and I zip tied bonded filter media around the outlet. What's really nice is the hose itself has a shutoff on the end so doesn't make much mess. I am sure this has all been done before but I feel creative that I figured this system out for myself!

 

The 107 is tiny compared to the 407 with a much slower flow rate. I would think that would make it more suitable for biological filtration? I'd maybe use it's 2 trays for biological filtration and replace one tray of biological media in the 407 with an extra pair of bio foam max sponges. They are quite finely pored sponges and I find that they do a pretty good job without having to add filter floss. Just a thought.

Btw you don't have to have dedicated bio media. You could replace all of the bio media in both filters with bio foam sponges. Sponges work great at biofiltration whilst also filtering mechanically so that would give you the clearest water possible with your setup (without using fine pads or floss). The downside is that you have more sponges to rinse and they don't last as long as bio media.

 

I got away from filter floss awhile ago...in my opinion its a headache, if you want crystal clear water go but two bags of seachen purigen and put them in the canister in place of the filter floss.

 

I got away from filter floss awhile ago...in my opinion its a headache, if you want crystal clear water go but two bags of seachen purigen and put them in the canister in place of the filter floss.

Seachem Purigen is a resin that absorbs organic materials from the water that passes through it. It falls into the category of chemical filtration. While quite useful, it does not take the place of mechanical filtration which removes particulates from the water column. It is these particulates that scatter light and make the water cloudy.

Filter floss may not be the best mechanical filtration media. Replacing the filter floss with another mechanical filtration media might be a good idea. Adding more Purigen might be a good idea. I am not so sure that replacing Filter floss with Purigen is the best idea.

 

My understanding is purigen works on nitrogenous waste, there is a water polishing effect, but it's not doing the same thing as say a polishing filter pad does and is doing more in the area of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate reduction. Reducing that reduces bacteria that break it down, water is clearer.

I've never used that product to be honest, If I kept turtles or Oscar's, heavy waste producers, I probably would. that's how their tank water gets fouled and cloudy, from nitrogenous waste.

Filter floss served a purpose also and worked for everyone for a long time, still works in fact,, but theres just better ways now than filter floss or sponges. (I still use a sponge on my prefilter, just saying they aren't great on suspending fine particle collection).

 

My understanding is purigen works on nitrogenous waste, there is a water polishing effect, but it's not doing the same thing as say a polishing filter pad does and is doing more in the area of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate reduction. Reducing that reduces bacteria that break it down, water is clearer.

I've never used that product to be honest, If I kept turtles or Oscar's, heavy waste producers, I probably would. that's how their tank water gets fouled and cloudy, from nitrogenous waste.

Filter floss served a purpose also and worked for everyone for a long time, still works in fact,, but theres just better ways now than filter floss or sponges. (I still use a sponge on my prefilter, just saying they aren't great on suspending fine particle collection).

I used Purigen routinely for a couple of years. It does have a nice polishing effect. I like the way it gives the water an extra sparkle. But I don't enjoy messing around with bleach and eventually got tired of regenerating it. For a while I was just putting a new bag in every month or two but in the end figured the expense wasn't worth the benefit.

 

My understanding is purigen works on nitrogenous waste, there is a water polishing effect, but it's not doing the same thing as say a polishing filter pad does and is doing more in the area of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate reduction. Reducing that reduces bacteria that break it down, water is clearer.

I've never used that product to be honest, If I kept turtles or Oscar's, heavy waste producers, I probably would. that's how their tank water gets fouled and cloudy, from nitrogenous waste.

Filter floss served a purpose also and worked for everyone for a long time, still works in fact,, but theres just better ways now than filter floss or sponges. (I still use a sponge on my prefilter, just saying they aren't great on suspending fine particle collection).

I use sponges as a pre filter as well, with more mechanical in the filter itself,over ceramic media, over the purigen and then through another fine mechanical filter,i have oscars lol..two very very big oscars...

 

If you have an upflow canister filter, you might want to reconsider having a filter sponge after the ceramic media. Everything I have read recommends placing the mechanical filter media below the biomedia. If you use Purigen or another chemical media, placing it after the biomedia is fine. The objective is removing as much waste material from the water before it reaches the biomedia.

 

Thanks everyone for all your help!!! I decided to try the 50 micron bad and running it as my final stage on both filters. All I can say is WOW that water is clear.