Should i add another aquaclear 110 on my 75 gallon?

[RD.]

With what you currently have, and a later down the road a mated pair of angels, not what I personally would consider heavily stocked. Reasonably stocked, maybe even fully stocked, but not at all on the heavy side.

 

[SandNukka15]

Yes, with those species, and angels, that's exactly what I was thinking. I once ran 2 AC110's on a 55, but that was with fish that lived in the surf zone. That's not what you have going on, so not sure why you feel the need to add another AC?

My filters are always packed so flow isnt as much as most.

The second aquaclear I was going to add just 1 sponge and a bunch of filter floss. Just thought an extra filter would help clean up some of the smaller particles and debris. I figured The sponge could help with some extra bb for when adding the angels.

For some reason when I clean out my filter when it's time idk why but I always cause a mini cycle. I only clean some of the filters at a time and I always use tank water. But for some reason this happens. So in my head I figured if I had the other 110 I would have the bb spread out a little better

 

[SandNukka15]

That's not heavily stocked lol, if you had 200 tetras or something then yes, it'd be heavily stocked, but you have 42 small fish (under 4 inches) and only 1 somewhat large fish (the bristlenose which would likely be around 6 inches). The angelfish will make the tank medium stocked.

Angel's get to a decent size.

This wont be overstocked once 3 of the Angel's are taken out but all 5 at 4 inches or so will be a decent bio load

 

[SandNukka15]

I'll wait it out for the aquaclear 110 ... if I decide to keep more of the Angel's down the road I'll add it on.

I always like to over filter my tanks especially when I have spare filters around.

Thanks for the input guys

 

[tiger15]

You have a nicely planted tank. Your stocking is not high. In comparison to my planted 75, your bioload is only a small fraction of mine. I have the following full grown cichlid, not counting dozens other non cichlids.

3 Aulonocara
3 EBA
4 Lamprologus tretocephalus
6 Kribensis.

You don’t need another HOB, since you have a Eheim and and AC110. But I would suggest you to replace your AC110 with your Penguin 350. You don’t need the strong flow from your AC110. A gentle flow from the Penguin 350 is better for mechanical filtration. As you can see in my 75, I use two 350 for my 75, and the water is always crystal clear. It’s better to have two gentle filters than one strong filter for better distribution of flow and filtration. AC is so over powering that it is neither good for mechanical or biological filtration. I don’t install the biowheels for my 350s though as I have plenty in-tank bio media and plants will uptake ammonia directly.

 

[SandNukka15]

You have a nicely planted tank. Your stocking is not high. In comparison to my planted 75, your bioload is perhaps only a fraction of mine. I have the following full grown cichlid, not counting the non cichlid and live bearers.

3 Aulonocara
3 EBA
4 Lamprologus tretocephalus
6 Kribensis.

You don’t need another HOB, since you have a Eheim and and AC110. But I would suggest you to replace your AC110 with your Penguin 350. You don’t need the strong flow from your AC110. A gentle flow from the Penguin 350 is better for mechanical filtration. As you can see in my pic, I use two 350 for my 75, and the water is always crystal clear. It’s better to have two gentle filters than one strong filter for better distribution of flow and filtration. AC is just over powering that is neither good for mechanical or biological filtration. You don’t need to install the biowheel for your 350 as you have plenty in-tank bio media and plants will uptake ammonia directly.

View attachment 1377352

Nice tank

Glad to know I'm not overstocked. It's not a good thing tho as I always want to add more fish haha

 

[RD.]

AC is so over powering that it is neither good for mechanical or biological filtration.

Total nonsense.

The numerous AC 500's (old school 110's) that I bought approx. 20+ yrs ago have no issue keeping my tanks well filtered, with enough bio-filtration to perform 90% water changes, with no hiccups. In fact, when I clean my AC filters, I clean all of them, at the same time, again, with no hiccups in tank parameters. How well they perform, or not, is all based in the details of how they are set up, and maintained.

I stack my AC's with large sponge at the bottom to catch the larger particulate matter, on top of that a few layers of blue/white media to catch finer particulate matter, and on top of that a large media bag full of bio-max rings, and a few have Seachem bio media as well. The majority of that bio media is also 10-20+ yrs old. I simply swish that bio media in a bucket of dechlorinated water every few months, and the filter media is generally just rinsed out under my tap water. (not that I recommend that to everyone)

A LFS south of me runs 3 AC 500's on their 300 gallon display tank that is typically packed with fish, and all they run is 2 course sponges in each filter. They rinse the sponges out when the output flow decreases. Their tank is like all of mine, crystal clear, and running for decades with no issue. This store has been king of the LFS's (for livestock quality & prices) in this major city for as long as I can remember.

 

[adamsfishes]

Nitrogen cycle measurements will tell you what you need to know. If your ammonia and nitrite are at 0, adding more filters won't do much. If your ammonia and nitrite are > 0, then you need more biological filtration.

 

[PYRU]

You have a nicely planted tank. Your stocking is not high. In comparison to my planted 75, your bioload is only a small fraction of mine. I have the following full grown cichlid, not counting dozens other non cichlids.

3 Aulonocara
3 EBA
4 Lamprologus tretocephalus
6 Kribensis.

You don’t need another HOB, since you have a Eheim and and AC110. But I would suggest you to replace your AC110 with your Penguin 350. You don’t need the strong flow from your AC110. A gentle flow from the Penguin 350 is better for mechanical filtration. As you can see in my 75, I use two 350 for my 75, and the water is always crystal clear. It’s better to have two gentle filters than one strong filter for better distribution of flow and filtration. AC is so over powering that it is neither good for mechanical or biological filtration. I don’t install the biowheels for my 350s though as I have plenty in-tank bio media and plants will uptake ammonia directly.

View attachment 1377352

Yeah that's not accurate. Everyone has a preference but that doesn't mean what works for you is the end all be all.

 

[pops]

only reason I could see for adding another AC is redundancy, so if one goes down you have another that is capable if taking care of the tank. That being said AC filters are very reliable. I always ran 2 heaters for the same reason.