What needs to be in your canister filter for saltwater???

[2dmax]

I have a eheim clasic 250 in my 65g tank with about 50lbs lr and about 1inch sandbed.

Tanks been up since mar 31.

I have a carbon bag and chemipure elite in canister. And the usuak white pad, brown looking balls and some kind if white small rubber short pipe pieces that came with the canister.

What needs to be changed? Or removed? As the filter was supposed to be for freshwater as well.

What do i need to do maintenancw on and how frequent?

Any reply would be greatly appreciated...

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[_Alex_]

Remove te hole canister in general it's a nitrate trap. If it has bio balls in it, you need to remove them slowly to prevent a nitrate spike. Say if there is 20 in there remove 5 at a time over a 2 week period.

Then do regular water changes as can use the canister to run carbon if you need to. I wouldn't use for much else. I ran one for my first year and had better success once I completely removed it. Could also look into hob overflow box and adding a small sump.


-Alex-

 

[_Alex_]

Oh only been sept up since march 31? Do you have any fish yet?? If not you can just remove it all at once and not have a problem. If have fish I would remove balls slowly first then once gone the rest of the canister


-Alex-

 

[mainereefer]

if it was used for fw, were there any fw chemicals used with the filter? if so it could kill your reef or at the very least complicate everything.

I wouldnt use it at all, I would get a nice little sump !

if your going to chance it anyway.... thoroughly clean the filter, get rid of everything that you got with it, use it for carbon and maybe some phosban clean it every week or so

 

[ReeferBob]

Canister filters are great for reactors like phosphates or carbon. If you clean them out religiously every week or so they are ok as a mechanical filter. But life is full of good intentions and this rarely happens. Never use the bio-media that comes with them it will not complete the nitrogen cycle like live rock does reducing nitrates to gas. Also your Ammonia will (may) spike if you remove too many bio-balls at once, not Nitrates.

 

[mike007]

Do you have a skimmer if not you need one. There are several nice hob skimmers.

 

[2dmax]

I do have a pro 125 coralife hang on skimmer... dont have enough $$$ to start a sump...

If sump is the way to go whats a cheap setup to start with?

Also thw bio balls is the stone like grey/light brown balls? How about the white rubber like material at the bottom of the filter? What are those for?

I have a bout 50lbs live rock, 2 clowns, 2 gobies and 2 mandarin dragon, 2 cleaner shrimps, 2 hermit crabs, a bunch of turbo snails, corals as well leather, bubble, frog and torch and an open brain. Small acan too.

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[Hugo’s_Reef]

I have a 60 gallon with a Jbj 4 stage canister filter and have successfully ran my tank for about 1 1/2 years now . I have all kinds of coral even sps.i must say sps are iffy I purchased like 5 and only 2 survived and have grown nicely . But Lps anemones mushrooms and specially zoanthids have done great .i clean my filter once a months scrubbing everything and replacing chemipure elite and carbon .oh but I also have a remora s protein skimmer that works wonders .i did although had bad cyano algae problems but fixed that very quickly with a gfo reactor .im sure you can buy gfo from bulk reef supply with a media bag and call it a day .

 

[NanaReefer]

Hate when someone says canister filters are nothing but nitrate factories!! Especially if they're only repeating what they've heard or read! Not from personal experience.
I've been using them for 35+ years. Still throw one on my sw anytime extra chemical filtration is needed. When properly maintained (as with any filtration) canister filters are a great asset to any tank, be it FW or SW.
Sorry for the rant but hate misinformation!


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[totion]

Before I switched to a sump I ran an eheim 2215 for 8 months with no problems.

In mine I had the ceramic rings, then a coarse blue filter pad, then the brown ceramic balls (biological filter media), then a fine mesh pad, followed by phos sort and chemipure. The trick is to clean it frequently. I cleaned mine twice a week.

To clean I would put the brown ceramic biological media balls in tank water and swirl them around to rinse. The ceramic white rings I rinsed in regular hot water, same with the coarse and fine filter pad.

I like my sump better for the added total system volume, and less frequent cleanings.

I used a 15 gallon long (built my stand to fit the sump under it) with an eshopps overflow bock, cpr small filter sick and holder (two filter socks which are switched out and washed every 2 to 3 days), a reef octopus nwb 110 protein skimmer (in my intake chamber), followed by a triple baffle bubble trap, then an empty chamber (future frag rack place), then another baffle and a return chamber with a mag drive supreme 5, which flows into a hydro eth inline heater, then a ball valve (mine stays wide open) to a Utube style outflow.

If you are interested in building a sump I can post pictures of mine for you. If you want to stick with the canister just keep an eye on your nitrates and clean your canister frequently.

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[2dmax]

Yes i have a little bit of cyano that builds up and i always syphon them out. So i need to get a gfo media? Also replace the chemipure? How often? Also for the carbon mediaa how long before i change that?

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[totion]

I never ran carbon footprint for gfo so I'm on sure, but the chemipure I use for 6 months before replacing. I used purigen before that but screwed up recharging it and killed a lot of stuff in my tank. I had cyano until I added two more powerheads. I have something close to an 84x turnover rate of water movement in my display tank.

 

[totion]

*never ran carbon or gfo

Thank you predictive text lol. I really should proofread when using my phone.

 

[kashbrook]

I have a 55 gallon with a HOB Ramora skimmer and a Fluval 305 canister (and about 35# live rock). My aquarium stand doesn't accommodate a sump so I had to make do with what I have. So far, all my corals have grown at least 5 times in size in a year.

 

[2dmax]

I just bought another canister filter eheim 2217.... i got on sale for 90 including taxes.. added to the tank a d removed the bioballs and added white floss filters instead.. return spray is really strong water flow..
So now im running 2 canister filters running... i can use one now for a quarantine tank if needed...

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[2dmax]

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