I'm sick of cleaning out my 200 micron filter socks every two days!!!!
The set up is around 1400 litres, running a big sump with filter socks, about 6000lph turn over. More info can be found in the link in my sig. I feed a lot of fine foods (flake etc) for the geos, but 99.7% of it sinks and gets eaten, very little goes over the overflow.
I'm considering the following options for improving the mechanical filtration;
1. FX5 running on the tank as usual, set up mostly for mechanical with wool and sponges as the sump has plenty of bio. Will this take enough of the particles out of the water to increase the intervals between cleaning the socks? Its the easiest solution.
2. FX5 running as a pre-filter before the sump to take out most of the physical waste before the water gets to the socks. This would allow me to run finer micron socks to polish the water, but wouldn't add any turn over to the tank.
3. Make a settling chamber before the socks. I'm running an old 30g with a couple of baffles before the sump on my 210g tank as I got sick of my royal plec creating so much saw dust the filter wool would clog in a matter of days. It works really well and would collect .5-1" of muck on the bottom every week between water changes. Only downside is it'll be more expensive and complicated to set up than the FX5, and might not catch enough of the fine stuff to make a difference. On the other side it doesn't require any more power to run as there's no pumps.
4. Some sort of other pre-filter set up?
5. A big pond filter, or some sort of DIY filter.
Suggestions???
The set up is around 1400 litres, running a big sump with filter socks, about 6000lph turn over. More info can be found in the link in my sig. I feed a lot of fine foods (flake etc) for the geos, but 99.7% of it sinks and gets eaten, very little goes over the overflow.
I'm considering the following options for improving the mechanical filtration;
1. FX5 running on the tank as usual, set up mostly for mechanical with wool and sponges as the sump has plenty of bio. Will this take enough of the particles out of the water to increase the intervals between cleaning the socks? Its the easiest solution.
2. FX5 running as a pre-filter before the sump to take out most of the physical waste before the water gets to the socks. This would allow me to run finer micron socks to polish the water, but wouldn't add any turn over to the tank.
3. Make a settling chamber before the socks. I'm running an old 30g with a couple of baffles before the sump on my 210g tank as I got sick of my royal plec creating so much saw dust the filter wool would clog in a matter of days. It works really well and would collect .5-1" of muck on the bottom every week between water changes. Only downside is it'll be more expensive and complicated to set up than the FX5, and might not catch enough of the fine stuff to make a difference. On the other side it doesn't require any more power to run as there's no pumps.
4. Some sort of other pre-filter set up?
5. A big pond filter, or some sort of DIY filter.
Suggestions???
