I am in the process of getting everything together for my 300 gallon black water tank and I've hit a snag. I can't decide if I want to run a sump setup or canister. I am going to have floating plants in the tank as well as a 3D background. If I run sump the floating plants will be drawn towards the overflows but if I run a canister the only option I see for heating the tank is to use the eheim with built in heater and I'm going to have to run like 4 of them. Let me know what y'all think.
300 gallon filter help
- Thread starter xjman18
- Start date
Sump would be my vote. I run my 135 with a bunch of canisters and it works but the only maintenance I have to do on my 300 with a sump is change the filter socks. Takes about 2 minutes once a week.
I'll be building a sump for the 135 very soon.....
I'll be building a sump for the 135 very soon.....
It's a matter of personal opinion and taste to be honest. I've had both and prefer canisters and that is what it on my 350: eheim 2262, cfs 14i, xp3 and will put another 2262.
I had a sump on my old 220 and just didn't like it to be honest. I found I had to clean it out more than a canister to be honest. I prefer the ease of maintenance, setup and cleanup of a canister.
Some will chime in the opposite and that's why I say it's personal taste/opinion. Both systems work if setup/cleaned properly.
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I had a sump on my old 220 and just didn't like it to be honest. I found I had to clean it out more than a canister to be honest. I prefer the ease of maintenance, setup and cleanup of a canister.
Some will chime in the opposite and that's why I say it's personal taste/opinion. Both systems work if setup/cleaned properly.
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I'm definitely going to run a sump on my 375 salt but I just can't decide what to do with the 300. I think I will end up using canisters on it for a more natural look to the tank. Now I just have to figure out how to incorporate 4 spray bars into the 3D background lol
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Sump. If you do canisters you can put hydor inline heaters on the return line off of each filter. They're nice.
Both. Its always nice to have options and backups under the stand. I'd say sump first then add a few canisters.
I'm assuming the tank has built in overflow boxes. If you are not using the overflow boxes, they will have to be plugged off by capping the bulkheads at the bottom of the overflow boxes. We have one capped off overflow box in our 300 gallon tank. We run the return from our wet/dry filter to it. Our heater is in this overflow box. We use the return hole near the other overflow box to return the water from our mechanical system.
I'm a believer in holes in the top of the tank for uptakes and returns. This is the top of our 300 gallon tank
The new tank has eleven holes in the top of the tank for 1.5" pipe to accommodate our extraneous filtration. We also have the problem of cutting holes for returns through the background. We're trying to figure out how to cut precision holes in the foam for our background for the eight return holes and the six slots in the overflow system. Here's my very crude rough prototype done with a kitchen knife.
We have every fitting for a hole saw, but none for the hole size we want. These holes have to be a little larger for the epoxy putty going on the foam. Looks like they will have to enlarged by hand sculpting. I will not be the one doing it. I certainly agree with you that dealing with holes for filtration through a background is a PAIN. We did hold the foam in place and marked the holes and slots on the back of the foam with a pen. So all we have to do is cut the foam.
I saw a tank setup at a LFS and they had holes drilled in the tank but no overflow boxes. The holes were just drilled in the back and had an intake spout and return. I was thinking of attempting to do something similar to this and have the intake holes drilled somewhere in the middle of the tank so the intake does not affect the floating plants.
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