Are canister filters nitrate factories?

[Sick_man]

Hi, I'm currently running a canister on my 20 gal. I got it for free and its doing okay. My nitrate is at 10 and I always hear that canisters are nitrate factories. I have not cleaned mine out in a month either (yeah i know i should). Should I switch to two hang on back aquaclears instead? I'm super lazy and dont want to clean out a canister filter all the time. A hang on back is so much easier but it is less ascetically pleasing. What do you guys think? Should I switch or stay?

 

[Hincapiej4]

Switch

 

[...]

They are not. If you clean it biweekly and do biweekly water changes, should not be a problem. I have a canister on my 40 gallon I clean monthly and I have really low phosphates and nitrates.

 

[...]

Hang on, I did not read the whole thing. Get a seachem tidal. They look somewhat stylish and have a bunch of other good features i am too lazy to name

 

[Sick_man]

Hang on, I did not read the whole thing. Get a seachem tidal. They look somewhat stylish and have a bunch of other good features i am too lazy to name

I have one of those, and man they are hideous. They stick out like 5 inches from the tank. The surface skimmer is trash too

 

[...]

Nevermind then..

 

[Sick_man]

Nevermind then..

Thanks for the input tho

 

[JumboShrimp]

Dirty is dirty, no matter what one uses as filtration, right?

But you might be inclined to pull out some old school filter floss from some HOBs faster than you would be to disassemble the canister.

Maybe paint the back black, or get a background from your LFS to make the HOBs less noticeable.

 

[...]

Maybe get a hang on refugium? You can put refugium stuff in them sucha chaeto to keep the nutrients down and some marinepure blocks and LR and LS to keep Ammonia and Nitrite in check, if you get a CPR aquafuge they are somewhat thing and you can hang on a drawstring filtersock on them.

 

[...]

Thin not thing.

 

[Sick_man]

Dirty is dirty, no matter what one uses as filtration, right?

But you might be inclined to pull out some old school filter floss from some HOBs faster than you would be to disassemble the canister.

Maybe paint the back black, or get a background from your LFS to make the HOBs less noticeable.

Yeah i have black window tint on my tank. Thanks!

 

[Sick_man]

Maybe get a hang on refugium? You can put refugium stuff in them sucha chaeto to keep the nutrients down and some marinepure blocks and LR and LS to keep Ammonia and Nitrite in check, if you get a CPR aquafuge they are somewhat thing and you can hang on a drawstring filtersock on them.

I was thinking about that but my tank is in my room and the red light spill would keep me from sleeping. I am one of those type of sleepers

 

[...]

I mean if you want to recreate the ocean. Lets get some filter feeders, ocean water, bunch of live sand and live rock. Microfauna, algae eating fish, bunch of CuC. And maybe ask the tank to be nice.

 

[...]

I was thinking about that but my tank is in my room and the red light spill would keep me from sleeping. I am one of those type of sleepers

Sleep Mask? and you could get a black blanket and covering it. Now that I am saying this, maybe I should recreate the ocean.

 

[Sick_man]

Sleep Mask? and you could get a black blanket and covering it. Now that I am saying this, maybe I should recreate the ocean.

Ill look into it but I'm not really too open on changing how i sleep. Thanks tho

 

[...]

Oh nevermind then, I really do not want to change your sleeping pattern.

 

[Sick_man]

I might just do two aquaclear 50s and something like that since they dont pop out of the tank that much.

 

[fluked]

Devils advocate here, and to be fair i've never used a canister filter before so my knowledge on them is pretty limited. But couldn't you use a filter sock and/or sponge over the intake of the cannister, either in the tank, or where it enters the cannister itself, that way you only really have to clean that somewhat regularly? and then just use live rock rubble or something similar for the other sections of the cannister, its probably not much more cleaning required over a hob.

 

[Sick_man]

Devils advocate here, and to be fair i've never used a canister filter before so my knowledge on them is pretty limited. But couldn't you use a filter sock and/or sponge over the intake of the cannister, either in the tank, or where it enters the cannister itself, that way you only really have to clean that somewhat regularly? and then just use live rock rubble or something similar for the other sections of the cannister, its probably not much more cleaning required over a hob.

good idea but the intake is behind some rock and i know this is a fish tank hobby but i hate putting my hands directly into the tank. for some reason saltwater irritates my skin on my forearms so i try to avoid that.

 

[Clownfish_Boy]

Since I have no sump in my 60g setup, I use a Aqua-Tech 300gph HOB filter and a AquaMaxx HOB filter/skimmer combine. Looks pretty good......