Wet Dry Pro's and Con's (Play Nice Guys and Gals)

[nfored]

I don't know if this will take off but I am interested so what the heck.

Here is my list

Pro's
Consistent water level in main display.
Easily upgradable.
Easy maintenance.
If done right can be almost invisible in the tank, you can drill 2 holes with flat strainers and only see those two strainers.
Provides storage to need equipment giving you added space in your display.
Larger capacity then conventional filtration.
The ability to do a water change without stressing the fish.
Easy access to aquarium water for testing without stressing the fish
Provides a place to add chemicals to the tank and have it distributed to the display.

Con's
More work to setup and install.
Louder operation then other filtration types, If setup incorrectly.
Takes up more space.

 

[X24]

Another con is with drip trays not all of the surface area of media comes in contact with water, just where the water drips through.

 

[nfored]

Man I am surprised more people haven't chimed in, btw X24 your little sneaky trick killed IE and cut off a customer I was talking to on our VOIP phone system. But hey that’s the price they pay for calling me at work while I am on MFK, they better get their priorities straight.

 

[Tigerdat]

I have had both wet/dry and canisters filters on big tanks. I liked the ease of maintenance with my wet dry filter. All I really needed to do was to swap out the prefilter every few days and I could wash the prefilters in washing machine. They have lasted for years before the prefilters needed to be replaced. It also filtered the water fairly well. But there are issues with wed/dry filters as well.
1. at feeding time I really needed to turn off the filter so the floating food(pellets and Krill) wouldn't get sucked off the surface. I tried feeding rings and they always got scummy and needed to be cleaned regularly.
2. They take a lot of room underneath the tank and I seen a few stands get mold, although that can be easily fixed.
3. The biggest problem I had was with water changes. I found it interesting that you are thinking that having a wet/dry filter would be less stressful on the fish...I found it to be the most stressful filter setup I could have. Here's why, when doing a gravel clean/ water change I could only remove about 10-15 gallons of water before the sump would run dry and the filter would stop. I would still need to remove about another 50-60 gallons when doing a water change on my 200 gallon tank. There was no circulation (very stressful) until the filter was running again. I tried several ways to fill the sump/tank but none of them really worked out very well. Keep in mind I am not a slave to my fish tank, I will not carry 50-75 gallons of water to fill a fish tank...415 to 622 lbs. This tank was set up on a drip system that got about 15 gallons a day. In the end I just did real small gravel cleans and tried to keep the sump full. I never really resolved the issue about filling the tank up quickly and currently a friend has my old tank and filter setup. He has to carry water to do water changes, its such a pain that his fish suffer or his girlfriend gets pissed off because he is tanking so much time doing water changes...we have all heard the line "you love your fish more than me"
On the 240 gallon tank it has a Eheim pro3 canister and two 110 Aquaclears. It is also on a drip system so it gets about 20 gallons a day. When I do a gravel clean the water level drops but the filters keep running. I can turn up the drip and in a few hours the tank is full again. Canister filters can be plumed so there isn't a bunch of junk in the tank.

 

[nfored]

Yes I have had the issue with floating food, I fixed that buy not using any, I only feed sinking food, shrimp and algae wafers.

A sump with a drip system would be the easiest to keep up, put an overflow in the sump, turn on the drip and forget about it.

I can't agree with you that its less stress full to do water changes without a sump. Your dumping water into the tank and scaring the fish, plus you have to lift the water higher. I have a canister also so i always have circulation, and I don't think that fish would be stressed if they didn't have circulation for the 20 minutes it takes to change the water.