The only thing you use a HOB filter for in SW is by adding cheato to it & making it a mini-fuge. I've got Aquaclears on all my smaller tanks for that.
Convert 36g tall FW to SW
- Thread starter merc123
- Start date
Well, I'm kinda new to this forum & don't know who knows what around here... I assume since you have a tang in your avatar (I also would assume it's yours), you probably already know about SW filtration & how it's nothing like FW filtration.
Pufferpunk;1329104; said:
that is true that i do know about SW filtration. I wish that tang were mine, but its not. Its my favorite SW fish and i would really love one to look as nice as that lol. Im not sure if its a fish owned by a public aquarium or what but i was searching powder blue tangs and found it there. absolutely gorgeous.
neways back to the point on this forum, if i had to recomend a type of filtration then i would deff recommend a sump type filter, wheather if be a WD or not. its by far the most effective filter for SW by adding water volume, water/gas exchange, and its easier to turn into a sump/refugium with the proper baffles and what not. However for a 36 gallon i would just as much assume that this aquarist doesnt want to lean toward a sump form of filtration. the only reason i would use a HOB filter is because the aquarist is much more likely to keep that filter clean, then he/she would a canister, just because of the amount of work involved lol. this i learned from experience years ago when i started in this hobby. i would also recommend that the filter be for at least double the volume of the tank its on because that makes it that much more efficient. adding cheato to it is an awsome idea and using if for mechanical is equaling fine because he stated hes getting LR so thats his bio filter. i would urge strongly that you get small flow powerheads to move that water around and keep the detritus sepended in the water column so the filter can remove it from the water, and change your mechanical pads every 3-5 days depeding on stock and feeding habits. a week at the max however. and never ever ever lack on water changes because removing the toxic water is the only way to keep that water clean. you must consider every aspect in a reef tank, not just ammonia, nitrite and nitrate as were all very common with in FW. the disolved organic load gets very high even with effective protein skimming and this helps in every way, but is by no means a life saver.
I do maintenance on both tanks every weekend and canister filter maintenance every few weeks. Think I'll just keep fw fish
Yes, It took me a while to finally figure out that SW filtration is totally different (& much less maintence) than FW filtration. I would definately recommend a HOB skimmer though, over a HOB filter box with pads & such.
in any reef tank a skimmer is a must, but so is a form of mechanical filtration. without the help of the box filter and floss hes doing more work then its worth. changing pads 3-5 days or so is not that bad. buy filter floss in bulk and cut to fit, then just pull it out and put a new one in, it take about 15 seconds. water change schedual will stay the same as FW depending on stock and type of corals.
I'll have to admit--although I do not generally use anything for mechanical filtration on any of my SW/reef tanks, I did put a sponge in my sump today--just to get some of the "litter" floating around my reef. I jsut can't take it anmore! I plan on rinsing it daily though.
Pufferpunk;1335258; said:
dont you just hate that. thats one problem with mechanical filtration is if you forget about it, you can pay the price lol.
Can someone please tell me why these things are "nitrate factories" in a SW system but not in a FW system?
