Fishroom, electricity and sponge filters

[Charney]

So I recently got engaged and with that it looks like I will be moving out of my apartment sooner then I thought. We need to move closer to both our jobs. Right now i am in an apartment that has too many tanks and are heavily stocked. We plan on moving to a significantly large place and I will have a fishroom again. This means I can go back to my old ways of a lot of light to moderately stocked tanks. I have six tanks now and I am paying a decent energy bill and this will most likely only go up. I don't plan on moving to late summer but wanted to start getting some plans and already started putting money away for the upgrades. So my questions revolve around sponge filters. I imagine it would be cheaper to get a blower and run most tanks on sponges instead of the ACs and canisters I am using now. The tanks will mostly range from 40g upwards to some large tanks such as 125 - 150 (yes I am aware this may not be large to many people here). Can I filter most of these tanks with sponges effectively? How do you determine how many or big of sponges yo need? A fair amount of my tanks will be pleco species tanks that need current, so I would be adding hydor type powerheads. Or does it make sense to just use canisters/ACs on these tanks to get the flow anyway? The only thing that gets tricky is that this move will most likely only before a year until we figure out exactly what town we wanted to reside in. Thanks for the input

 

[aldiaz33]

Air powered sponge filters would definitely be the most efficient.

I would suggest calling Jehmco and speaking with John; they are a fish room supply shop so they have tons of experience when it comes to sizing pumps to appropriately filter multiple setups.

Jehmco.com.

My condolences on the engagement- lol. Word to the wise: I would suggest figuring out what it costs per month to run your tanks and make it clear that you are covering that expense (electricity + water). The last thing you want is for the Misses to use the cost of running the setups against you...unless she's as into it as you are, then I retract the condolences offered and offer my congratulations instead!

 

[deeda]

I agree with Alex's suggestion about contacting Jehmco for air pump recommendations, John was extremely helpful for my little fish room including PVC header size, valves, etc.

You will need to know at the very least the maximum tank height(s) plus the total number of tanks you will be running. I don't think you will need to use a blower, they are normally reserved for really big fish rooms and are very noisy.

 

[strollo22]

Would it be more efficient to just run a few tanks on one sump? This would also take care of the flow issue as a well placed return pipe could be the same as a powerhead. Maintenance would be a hell of a lot easier too as you would only have to replace filter socks/pads every few days.


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[UnstoppableJayD]

Mike,

You could go with the sponges and blower, also you could run the sponge with the power head for tanks you want flow. But if i was doing it i would do what strollo said and plumb them together and run K1 or a big sump... You will only be running one or 2 pumps and get the stability of the water volume, also as you know with my 500 i dont run heaters because of the heat from the pumps and the drop on heaters (huge power drain) should defuse the cost.

 

[strollo22]

Good point with heaters, Jay. My living room stays at 65 in the winter and my tank stays at 76 with no heaters. On the flip side- it gets pretty hot in the summer.


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[UnstoppableJayD]

Good point with heaters, Jay. My living room stays at 65 in the winter and my tank stays at 76 with no heaters. On the flip side- it gets pretty hot in the summer.


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Thanks! Mike likes to figure out cheap ways to do things but doesn't think of all the angles... Worrying about filters when the heaters are the real energy guzzlers

 

[skjl47]

Hello; It has been a while, but at one point I ran all my tanks from air pumps. There were air operated extrenal as well as sponge filters. There were also the UGF. I have not seen any of the air operated external filters in shops for a few decades and they may not be available any longer.

With light to moderate stocking a tank will do well with only sponge filters and some siphon cleaning. I have run tanks that way with some fairly heavy stocking, however it is a bit more tricky to keep good conditions over time.

One thing I did was to bury a sponge filter in the gravel substrate. This was a little less unsightly if that matteres to you.
With what you plan to setup it may take a good amount of air. This could possibly be done with one or two more powerful pumps or a set of smaller pumps. I always ran a few smaller pumps and replaced them as needed. One thing that may pay off is to get a brand of pump with readily available replaceable parts. They are much better now but the flexable parts do wear out in time.

A friend had a nice pump with double pistons and cylinders to run his shop. it made a lot of air but was noisy and expensive.
Good luck

 

[DDK]

Sponges are a great choice but a blower... I would look to a couple coralife pumps, I ran about 10 tanks with one pump and it was adequate. Blowers are going to set you back around 7 grand for ones that dont sound like a car in neutral with the gas stuck to the floor. They break down costing around a grand a year to run depending on the quality. The noise level in my lfs guy's shop was quite then loud my next visit and he chatted with me for about 20 mins about how his quite blower always breaks on him stating blowers are the only way to go yet it sucks cause once it stops it takes some $ to get them running again.

Edit: late at night

When I read blower the only blower that came to mind was the lfs massive blowers and not the smaller cheaper ones. A smaller blower would probably work great but in my opinion its a bit over kill. Some good solid smaller air pumps would do the trick for your situation imo.

 

[Charney]

Air powered sponge filters would definitely be the most efficient.

I would suggest calling Jehmco and speaking with John; they are a fish room supply shop so they have tons of experience when it comes to sizing pumps to appropriately filter multiple setups.

Jehmco.com.

My condolences on the engagement- lol. Word to the wise: I would suggest figuring out what it costs per month to run your tanks and make it clear that you are covering that expense (electricity + water). The last thing you want is for the Misses to use the cost of running the setups against you...unless she's as into it as you are, then I retract the condolences offered and offer my congratulations instead!

Thank you for the advice. I will have to contact him. I was actually discussing the electric and water bills with her the other day. I think I will probably just pick those two bills and have her take the cable bill or something. She is really not into fish at all but I am very lucky because she is very tolerant of them! Right now we are in a815 square foot apartment with about 420 gallons of water.

I agree with Alex's suggestion about contacting Jehmco for air pump recommendations, John was extremely helpful for my little fish room including PVC header size, valves, etc.

You will need to know at the very least the maximum tank height(s) plus the total number of tanks you will be running. I don't think you will need to use a blower, they are normally reserved for really big fish rooms and are very noisy.

That will be alittle bit of a challenge now knowing all tanks, but obviously once I move I will figure it out very quickly. I want a couple 3 ft wide tanks, which may prove tricky to find too.

Would it be more efficient to just run a few tanks on one sump? This would also take care of the flow issue as a well placed return pipe could be the same as a powerhead. Maintenance would be a hell of a lot easier too as you would only have to replace filter socks/pads every few days.


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I imagine when we move the next place will only last for about a year until we decide on a more permanent place. Once we are in the end point home I will do systems like you mentioned. My main concern with these type of set ups is when it comes to breeding. I wan to get much more into breeding and on a system you can fine tune just one tank and do individual wc and temp swings and etc.

Another thing I was wondering about with tanks all being on one system can prey fish sense predators on the system. Jay and i were debating this last night. Fish release phermones, so I wonder if other tanks could sense the FATF, RRS, and other predators and this may affect spawning behavior.

Mike,

You could go with the sponges and blower, also you could run the sponge with the power head for tanks you want flow. But if i was doing it i would do what strollo said and plumb them together and run K1 or a big sump... You will only be running one or 2 pumps and get the stability of the water volume, also as you know with my 500 i dont run heaters because of the heat from the pumps and the drop on heaters (huge power drain) should defuse the cost.

Thanks! Mike likes to figure out cheap ways to do things but doesn't think of all the angles... Worrying about filters when the heaters are the real energy guzzlers

think mentioned in one of my other responses in this multi quote, but don't want to loose the ability to control the head for temp swings.

Also sometimes you don't give me enough credit. I normally have most angles covered I just don't point each one out.