gotcha! 
so i'll just do it over as long as my fish is in good health thats the objective. 
thanks guys!
so i'll just do it over as long as my fish is in good health thats the objective. thanks guys!you you had the $$$ to spend...
- Thread starter rkc772
- Start date
rkc772 said:okey... so i can use a large capacity wet/dry filter plus a protein skimmer and an air pump/powerhead? wowi know people can die from over oxygenation (from medical books) but do fish die of over O2? this is an honest question.... i just don't want the fish to die.
fish cant die from over aerating a tank
the only way they could die is if you continuously use an oxygen diffuser
with aeration from a air pump and or protein skimmer you cant over oxgenate
you can only reach equalibrium with the atmosphere based on the temeprature and salinity of the water.
A skimmer is a very expensive water oxygenator your wet dry will provide plenty of O2 saturation in the water, your water will only hold as much O2 as the temp and other water conditions will allow, if the wet dry is providing enough oxygenation, which it should, then your skimmer is just an expensive waste of space under your tank thats using electricity.
I've heard skimmers can be used for their intended purpose on freshwater tanks, but the problem is fresh water doesnt foam as well as salt water, so they need modifications to the injector/venturi components to get them to foam well enough. Some people apparently have been successful in doing this. If you want to do less water changes a properly working skimmer is a good start, it removes the biological waste before your bio filter converts it to nitrates, in essence reducing the production of nitrates and the load on your bio filter.
Be careful overfiltering your tank, you cant actually "over filter" as such, but you can just waste electricity and money! Once your bio filter has enough beneficial bacteria colonised to process the current bio load on the tank, any extra filtration is effectively doing nothing but wasting electricity. You could have all those extra filtration devices along with a wet/dry, but if the wet dry is capable of handling the bio load, then you could remove the other devices and it would not impact the water quality in the slightest. Sure its worth having a redundant filtration system(backup filtration in case of a failure) but dont think sticking loads of different filters on a tank is going to make the water quality better, that only works if your current filtration is not sufficient for the intended bio load
Mechanical filtrion is different story...
your wet dry will provide plenty of O2 saturation in the water, your water will only hold as much O2 as the temp and other water conditions will allow, if the wet dry is providing enough oxygenation, which it should, then your skimmer is just an expensive waste of space under your tank thats using electricity.I've heard skimmers can be used for their intended purpose on freshwater tanks, but the problem is fresh water doesnt foam as well as salt water, so they need modifications to the injector/venturi components to get them to foam well enough. Some people apparently have been successful in doing this. If you want to do less water changes a properly working skimmer is a good start, it removes the biological waste before your bio filter converts it to nitrates, in essence reducing the production of nitrates and the load on your bio filter.
Be careful overfiltering your tank, you cant actually "over filter" as such, but you can just waste electricity and money! Once your bio filter has enough beneficial bacteria colonised to process the current bio load on the tank, any extra filtration is effectively doing nothing but wasting electricity. You could have all those extra filtration devices along with a wet/dry, but if the wet dry is capable of handling the bio load, then you could remove the other devices and it would not impact the water quality in the slightest. Sure its worth having a redundant filtration system(backup filtration in case of a failure) but dont think sticking loads of different filters on a tank is going to make the water quality better, that only works if your current filtration is not sufficient for the intended bio load
Mechanical filtrion is different story...
i was wondering... my LFS has almost around 50 cichlids on a 60 gallon tank (the range from 1-2 inches) and they told me they don't do water change everyday, and when we tested their water it was perfect zero on both nitrite and amonia, nitrate were at 10. it was amazing to see it that way. how can they do that? that a lot of load. they use undergravel filter and wet/dry (maybe).
do i increase bioload on the filter if i am adding or having plenty of fish?
do i increase bioload on the filter if i am adding or having plenty of fish?
Yep, ammonia and nitrite should remain at or very close to zero if your filtration is established and sufficient enough for the bio load(bio load is basically the amount of waste your tank inhabitants produce, more fish or messy fish + more bio load). Regular water changes are only used to reduce nitrates, which dont get removed by traditional biological filtration.
I would think an undergravel filter on its own may struggle on thet tank, but a wet/dry filter with sufficient media and flow would be enough to keep that tank at zero ammonia and nitrites with weekly changes to keep nitrates low
I would think an undergravel filter on its own may struggle on thet tank, but a wet/dry filter with sufficient media and flow would be enough to keep that tank at zero ammonia and nitrites with weekly changes to keep nitrates low
thanks "hardb0iled" at least now i know how to set it up. i'll get a bigger wet/dry for a 240gal, maybe a 300 capacity wet/dry will do the trick... or a 400 gal capacity wet/dry the only reason why i'm thinking of getting a larger or almost double is because sometimes i buy fish in bulk and i don't want a surge in amonia or nitrite... is this a good idea or 300 will do the trick?
the only reason why i'm thinking of getting a larger or almost double is because sometimes i buy fish in bulk and i don't want a surge in amonia or nitrite... is this a good idea or 300 will do the trick? rkc772 said:thanks "hardb0iled" at least now i know how to set it up. i'll get a bigger wet/dry for a 240gal, maybe a 300 capacity wet/dry will do the trick... or a 400 gal capacity wet/dry
Probably always better to get slightly too big, this then may accomodate for temporary overcrowding or if you decide to upgrade the tank to slightly bigger one etc. If you regularly dump a bulk lot of fish into the tank, or in other words, a sudden increase in bio load, then you more than likely will still get a spike - the beneficial bacteria take time to multiply and 'catch up' to the sudden increase regardless of the size of your filter. During this time, ammonia and nitrites will accumulate.
If you do find yourself needing something to accomodate sudden increases in bio load - look at an FBF(fluidised bed filter) filter in conjunction with a wet/dry, they are suppsoed to be good for that very thing. As it happens, I have an FBF running off my wet/dry as an additional filtration device. I will post up some more recent pics in the next couple of days if you like.
that would be great "hardb0iled" wanna see how it is. last time ii had an order or 10 blue pleco and i added it up the amonia and nitrite spiked high and i needed to change the water eveyday for the next 7 days. after that i had almost 35 fishes in a small 29 gal tank. amazing how they pulled through. any advise if i have like a dozen of fish comming? do i need to put them one at a time like for 6 hours... 1/2 hour each fish... i always aclimate them and put them all together. seems its a wrong thing to do.
