Filter swap?

Aparker2005

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Hey everyone. I'm getting very frustrated with our 3 Seachem tidal filters on our 125 reef. It seems every week I do a water change and plug them back in, they won't power back on if there's the slightest bit of grime on the impeller. It's getting to be where I hate doing water changes because of how much of a hassle these 3 filters are to clean the impeller.

That said, I'm thinking about switching back to our old FX6 or FX4 from our freshwater tank I kept.

I know the consensus is gonna be drop both and do a sump, but that's just not possible for us right now. Our tank isn't drilled and I don't have the time or expense for one currently.

That said, would running the FX6 and or FX4 be a good idea, using the media we already have? We really only have room for 1 with our qt tank under the main tank.

I figure it would still be weekly cleaning, but they're much easier to work with to me.

The only thing I would miss is the surface skimmers on the tidals. Good or not, they seem to do a decent job at keeping the water clean.

Thoughts?
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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I want to show you a trick about filter management/surface area management and prediction in reef tanks but we need to see a pic of the display first

if it has a huge stack of rocks in it for surface area/ like most reefs/ then running those canisters 100% empty has the same effect on your biofilter that running +5 more fully packed canisters would convey. they are neutral impact

removing them does not lower your tank's ability to control ammonia, adding three more would not make your current ammonia control better. the rock stack alone is enough, always, your filters are only good for water motion/what's in them does not matter.

it matters in freshwater setups bc they don't have the inherent surface area a reef display has. the filters are handy for polishing the water, keeping out suspended items but that's your marine snow feed/we like that to a degree in reefing and in no way is not running any filters on your setup consequential, you're free to do as you like with them


we are trained to see filters as required in all tanks, they're not, no other design for aquariums packs the filter inside the display and then glues corals to it like we do in reefing.
 

Bucs20fan

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Hey everyone. I'm getting very frustrated with our 3 Seachem tidal filters on our 125 reef. It seems every week I do a water change and plug them back in, they won't power back on if there's the slightest bit of grime on the impeller. It's getting to be where I hate doing water changes because of how much of a hassle these 3 filters are to clean the impeller.

That said, I'm thinking about switching back to our old FX6 or FX4 from our freshwater tank I kept.

I know the consensus is gonna be drop both and do a sump, but that's just not possible for us right now. Our tank isn't drilled and I don't have the time or expense for one currently.

That said, would running the FX6 and or FX4 be a good idea, using the media we already have? We really only have room for 1 with our qt tank under the main tank.

I figure it would still be weekly cleaning, but they're much easier to work with to me.

The only thing I would miss is the surface skimmers on the tidals. Good or not, they seem to do a decent job at keeping the water clean.

Thoughts?
So I have several of these filters, you have to take the part that goes inside of your tank off, and clean out the impeller. Its clogged up with gunk. This is part of filter maintenance. If you do this once a month you wont have any issues out of them.

There are several youtube videos on how to do this, its very easy.
 
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Aparker2005

Aparker2005

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Heres our tank. The filters have mechanical filter pads, seachem matrix, and chemi pure blue in it. You're saying I could remove these and rely on the rock in the tank only? I always wonder about mechanical and chemical filtration on reefs.

So I have several of these filters, you have to take the part that goes inside of your tank off, and clean out the impeller. Its clogged up with gunk. This is part of filter maintenance. If you do this once a month you wont have any issues out of them.

There are several youtube videos on how to do this, its very easy.
Oh I know how to clean them, it's just very frustrating taking it off the tank every time. Our tank sits within a wall so it's always a reach over the tank deal.

20220808_123048.jpg
 

Bucs20fan

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Heres our tank. The filters have mechanical filter pads, seachem matrix, and chemi pure blue in it. You're saying I could remove these and rely on the rock in the tank only? I always wonder about mechanical and chemical filtration on reefs.


Oh I know how to clean them, it's just very frustrating taking it off the tank every time. Our tank sits within a wall so it's always a reach over the tank deal.

20220808_123048.jpg
Do not remove all of your media....Keep the sponges and the chemi pure. If it aint broke dont fix it. You shouldnt have to clean the impellers more than once a month. Im not trying to discourage you from using a sump, just saying on the tidals.

And you can never have enough matrix, its great stuff, operates exactly the same as your reef rock.
 

Bucs20fan

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On another note, I run a fluval fx6 and 2 tidal 110s on a 180 gallon predator aquarium, full of triggers and eels, and it does wonderfully, all have sponges, carbon and lots of matrix.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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Yours is the lower end of the rock density stack, rare among tanks and ideal because that's less catchment for particulate waste. you can keep higher suspended planktors in a tank like that vs super packed rock stacks which are one giant filter catching everything in the wake that passes by.

that's a very very high quality setup and scape. I'm 100% sure that rock stack can run the fish with no additional supports even if that was a bare bottom tank with no extra help from the small sand presence.




this thread is a study related to your matter. its fifty pages of literally removing all surrounding surface area other than rock stack in about 200 reefs. we like studying biofilter extremes, which are rock stack extremes in that thread.

yours is among the more up-to-date arch / negative aquascape approaches and it's ideal because we never needed all those rock stacks to reef, and because you have less over used surface area to be cleaning out and jetting out of waste mud. you have an ideal reef there. yours is the first time I've seen the bare minimum amount of live rock in my opinion, which is ideal. having any extra does NOT insulate against crashes. literally anyone who goes on vacation and comes home to a fish wipeout was not served by the 100x overage of surface area a common reef has.

a partial/multiple fish kill will always overcome anyone's biofilter, temporarily. feel free to negative aquascape all day long it has advantages to huge rocks stacks. less surface area for aiptasia's to latch onto/benefit #44. as soon as you pack all available rock area in growing corals all the real estate will be used up, and algae won't get a foothold. you can't grow algae in a corals mouth lol/so make all that limited surface area full of mouths and it won't get invaded. I do that in my reef currently. being lazy puts algae on my glass, not on the corals, and corals take up 100% of my live rock.
 
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LeftyReefer

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I'd think about removing 1 or 2 of the tidal HOBs and replace it with a skimmer if you don't already have one.

Run 1 skimmer and 1 or 2 HOB's for mechanical filtration and the surface skimming.

Saying that, I'm a little surprised your tidal impeller is clogging up as often as it does. I use the Tidal HOB on a 40b of mine and I hardly ever have to clean the impellers. maybe twice a year.

I also built a power filter that I use on my sumpless tank for additional mechanical filtration when needed.
I just took an empty RODI housing, put in a washable/reusable pleated sediment filter and put a pump on the inlet hose. Drop the pump into the tank and start filtering water. I make sure to blow off the rocks and kick up the sand before running the filter. works great to get all the gunk out that the HOB's don't, that has settled into the sand/rocks.
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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owners of seneye ammonia meters are uniquely positioned to collectively report what surface area modulation does in a reef tank, their devices keep daily logs by the hour of changes/precision changes in the calibrated units. scanning seneye logs gives any reader a valuable insight on what surface area really does in a reef tank. any failure of surface area or bacteria will immediately report as raised nh3 plus you'll have dead fish causing the raise; a fish kill is the only event known in reefing to overpower a biofilter. dosing antibiotics into the tank doesn't count, that's already breaking the rules of reefing.

in normal reefing, all displays have sufficient surface area for their bioload.


as soon as removing sand, or rocks, or filter components causes uncontrolled ammonia you'll see seneye owners posting about it.

seneye has been around over 5 years now, and no trend ever happened from them/that's telling trend. in fact I know of zero reports of a failed cycle from a seneye owner, much less any trend. 5 years with no outliers :)


the last person in reefing to ever concern over ammonia/ which by extension means to concern over available surface area including surface area inside canister filters and sandbeds is a seneye owner...we rely on their reported patterns to guide the crazy stuff we do in my tank transfer and sand rinse thread.
 
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Aparker2005

Aparker2005

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And I'll give my wife credit. She is the one who did that scape. We do think it's sometimes not ideal for coral placement, but we like the way it looks.

Here's my 20 she did also.

20220827_203540.jpg
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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I have never seen an instance where a common reef bioload could not be carried in any display arrangement, both of those are great setups!
 
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