120g filtration - your thoughts?

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T

TahoeFish

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 20, 2011
179
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Tahoe City, CA
Hi all.

I have a 4 foot 120g with a FX5. At this time most of the fish are juveniles. Here is the stocking:

1 heros efasciatus (red spot sev)
1 heros sp. rotkeil
1 bristlenose plec
5 biotodoma cupido (cupid cichlid)
8 congo tetra
1 acarichthys heckelii (threadfin acara)
1 hypselecara themporalis (chocolate cichlid)
1 satanoperca leucosticta
1 stunted angel fish (size of a quarter and 1 year old)

If they all stay in this tank I realize I'm overstocked a bit. I have opportunities to shift these around so that is not my question.

Rather, assuming all the fish stay as adults, should the FX5 be enough? If you added a second filter, what would you do? I'm more interested in size than brands so please no brand wars. I've also read I could just do a power head instead of a second filter. I know there is some difficulty answering this question as there are lots of factors but just let me know what you would do and maybe why.

THANK YOU.

P.S. I do 10-20 percent water changes and vacuuming weekly
 
Personally, I love to over filter. The FX5 is fine for this tank, but personally, I'd add a AC110 for surface agitation in addition to extra filtration. But that's me. Not that you need the extra filtration. You can probably just use a bubbler or powerhead for surface agitation as well. Kind of a preference thing.

-Rich
 
Fx5 should be good. If you want add an ac110, you can use fine pads for polishing and not have to worry about opening the fx5 every week or two, that alone makes it worth the $60.
 
In a way it depends on how well your FX5 works. It's a powerful filter, but it's only as good as the media in it (type and amount). Whether it's enough can be determined empirically by regular water testing. You might not need another filter. But if you do, I'd suggest an AC110 too.

PS - you may want to do larger water changes weekly, like >50%, to remove nitrates.
 
peathenster said:
In a way it depends on how well your FX5 works. It's a powerful filter, but it's only as good as the media in it (type and amount). Whether it's enough can be determined empirically by regular water testing. You might not need another filter. But if you do, I'd suggest an AC110 too.

PS - you may want to do larger water changes weekly, like >50%, to remove nitrates.
Click to expand...

I agree. I would suggest adding another filter in addition to the fx-5, not because it's not enough filtration but a back-up is always a good idea just in case somthing goes wrong like having two heaters. AC-110's are great secondary filters for this purpose.
 
This is what I use on my 5 feet 120 gal tank

Aquatop cf500 + UV sterilizer (525gph)
Media:
- Purigen 250 ml
- 2 liters of seachem matrix
- ceramic rings + bioballs + ac biomax
- different sizes of sponges (smallest is 50 micron)

20 gal sump (900 gph pump)
Media:
- 250 ml purigen
- 50 micron sponge
- bioballs + ceramic rings
- 1 liter seachem matrix

Circulation:
- 2 hydor koralia evolution 1400gph

Overfiltering is always better :)

PS:
I had an ac70 in there because I like the waterfall effect and all, but the micro-bubbles it produced were driving me nuts, they were produced when the water splashed on the surface. Ended up getting rid of it.
 
And I also use pothos ivy which does an amazing job at sucking up the nitrates... my nitrates never go above 5 ppm even if I don't do water changes for 2 weeks. it grows like crazy too

May 26:

may26.jpg

September 14:

september14.jpg

Other side ( just pruned some leaves cuz I had to rearrange it)

september14-2.jpg

september14-2.jpg

may26.jpg

september14.jpg
 
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