Pristine Clean Tank a Myth

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In my tank i used circulation power head to blow waste into filter intake (you can hide power head behind your decor, I also position my filter output to blow along side the back tank wall, you will need to trials and errors to get it right with the flow rate. I never have to vacuum or clean my sand substrate ever, it's always clean and water always sparkle clear minus feeding time LOL cause pellets giving out fine dust on water surface and my fish pooping same time too but my water back to sparkle clear less than 1 hour. :)
 
Yuki Rihwa said:
In my tank i used circulation power head to blow waste into filter intake (you can hide power head behind your decor, I also position my filter output to blow along side the back tank wall, you will need to trials and errors to get it right with the flow rate. I never have to vacuum or clean my sand substrate ever, it's always clean and water always sparkle clear minus feeding time LOL cause pellets giving out fine dust on water surface and my fish pooping same time too but my water back to sparkle clear less than 1 hour. :)
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The problem is changing to the HMF filter. When I was running 3 AC110s plus a powerhead, my tank bottom would be very clean because almost everyone would get picked up at some point. If not, I would just use a algae scrubber to push around the dirt on the bottom and then it would get picked up. No with the HMF, there is not mechanism to really pick up all of the the fine and large debris. Large debris is too big, and significantly more debris settles.
 
I have never used Rid-X, and haven't vacuumed for 4 years. I feed mainly NLS, over filter, and let the inhabitants clean their own damned floors :D
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nzafi said:
The problem is changing to the HMF filter. When I was running 3 AC110s plus a powerhead, my tank bottom would be very clean because almost everyone would get picked up at some point. If not, I would just use a algae scrubber to push around the dirt on the bottom and then it would get picked up. No with the HMF, there is not mechanism to really pick up all of the the fine and large debris. Large debris is too big, and significantly more debris settles.
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IMO, HMF filter works good for much smaller footprint tank. While its very neat setup but it won't do the job in term of mechanic filtration (also, depend on how live stock level and fish species).
xraycer xraycer same here, my tank is heavy over stocked but water always sparkle clear, and clean even my tank is like 20 years old and got beat up with time and it's still able show how clear the water, substrate thanks to those Geos :)
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Yuki Rihwa said:
IMO, HMF filter works good for much smaller footprint tank. While its very neat setup but it won't do the job in term of mechanic filtration (also, depend on how live stock level and fish species).
xraycer xraycer same here, my tank is heavy over stocked but water always sparkle clear, and clean even my tank is like 20 years old and got beat up with time and it's still able show how clear the water, substrate thanks to those Geos :)
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I converted my 180g to HMF as an experiment. I found folks in Europe that were using them for tanks up to 800g. I am planning to upgrade to a ~10x4 tank in the next 1-2 years and am trying to research as much as I can from filters, to substrate, background, etc for that tank. Conversion to the HMF was a test because if I like it, it will save me tons of money on a future filter for such a tank not to mention all the power savings. For that tank I would either do
1) Two ultimata IIs (want redundancy) - Will cost over $2K for filters and pumps. Plus the pumps required use a crap ton of energy (200w + each)
2) Sump - Never done and am not confident in my plumbing skills to make this leak proof. Not to mention needing a 180-225g sump on massive tank.
3) HMF - No potential for leaks, cheap and easy to maintain

I obviously cannot put a Ultima on a 180g to experiment and sumps are proven so I decided to give the HMF a try seeing there are so few people in the US that can attest to it. :)
 
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I feel like you talking about 2 different things here.

1. Water clarity / Tank Cleanliness
2. Water quality / Low nitrates

To have super high water clarity and next to no particulates in the water column you need to under stock and over filter with massive water changes. Since being in the hobby I have only just been able to achieve this on my most recent tank.

its a 75g with 1 4" GT and 10 1-1.5" syno petricola. Its filters with all mech media using a FX6. You can literally see through the full 4 feet of water with amazing clarity. I have never been able to come close to this with previous planted tanks that were fully stocked.

But i do feel like you can have low nitrates and healthy level of tds with water that is not clear and debris on the sand etc. If you simply keep on top of adding fresh water to the tank regularly you will achieve this. But the second you do a feeding with an overstock tank you will make the water dusty and lose the clarity but that doesn't mean that nitrates are high.

I guess my point is you need to find out what you want. For me I would rather have less fish with super clean high clarity water to enjoy the colors of my fish. The overstocked dusty / particle filled water was not something i liked looking at. Over filtering is KEY!

If you decide you want a lot of fish than you can achieve healthy conditions but not likely the crystal clear water I think your after.
 
philipraposo1982 said:
I feel like you talking about 2 different things here.

1. Water clarity / Tank Cleanliness
2. Water quality / Low nitrates

To have super high water clarity and next to no particulates in the water column you need to under stock and over filter with massive water changes. Since being in the hobby I have only just been able to achieve this on my most recent tank.

its a 75g with 1 4" GT and 10 1-1.5" syno petricola. Its filters with all mech media using a FX6. You can literally see through the full 4 feet of water with amazing clarity. I have never been able to come close to this with previous planted tanks that were fully stocked.

But i do feel like you can have low nitrates and healthy level of tds with water that is not clear and debris on the sand etc. If you simply keep on top of adding fresh water to the tank regularly you will achieve this. But the second you do a feeding with an overstock tank you will make the water dusty and lose the clarity but that doesn't mean that nitrates are high.

I guess my point is you need to find out what you want. For me I would rather have less fish with super clean high clarity water to enjoy the colors of my fish. The overstocked dusty / particle filled water was not something i liked looking at. Over filtering is KEY!

If you decide you want a lot of fish than you can achieve healthy conditions but not likely the crystal clear water I think your after.
Click to expand...

I think you are spot on. I am trying to achieve high clarity and cleanliness via a cheap solution with very little maintenance which is not realistic. If you want the results you have to put the time and money into it.
 
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