I'm trying to decide on the appropriate filtration for a large freshwater tank that is 12 feet long 3 feet wide 2 feet high. This tank will be heavily planted (attached is my current 120). My initial thought was to use a sump with a series of poret sponges from 40ppi to 10ppi which should provide both biological and mechanical filtration but a shop keeper strongly recommended using a 'close' system which is basically a large canister filter. My thought is the sump would be easier to clean than the canister filter and he really couldn't explain why it was advantages to use a canister filter but he did have me look at a tank they setup for the local hockey team (nhl team in my home city). The concern i have is their tank was a bare tank (well substrate but no plants) with a couple of very large fishes while my tank will be heavily planted and I would think the sump would deal with the debris from the plant better esp if i can trap most of it int he first compartment. With my current 120 i use prefilters to keep most of the crap out of the filter and it seems to work well though i have to clean it once or twice a week (the prefilter) - i have an fx6 on the 120 with a 2117 (initially i had 2 2117 but since the tank is vastly over populated (11 adult angels, 5 clowns, 6 yoyo 5 zebra loaches, 10 sterbai, 27 cardinals, 12 kuhli, 6 pleco (2 lemon bn, 1 regular bn - very large for a bn, 3 l204), 1 gold ram, whatever i forgotten to mention - i thought adding the fx6 would help. I like to get the filtration right the first time on this tank since it will be a pia to change later. I will likely order it from customaquariums unless there is a better place (i don't like plantedaquariums tanks since i have to go through a shop and getting the details is a pia because of the middle person).
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