Newbie filter question

[Karlsbad]

Hi,

I need to get a 75, I currently have a 20 high, for my (currently) 3 inch tiger Oscar that my girlfriend brought home from Wal Mart with a 30 dollar 10 gallon kit :(.

The tanks on its second week and he's hanging in there and acting happy and healthy and I'm doing all I can for him. I want to get him a girlfiend. He's so funny with the only other fish which is a 3" catfish(don't yell at me SHE bought them I just took it upon myself to take care of them after she killed the plecostomus and I fell in love with the Oscar, who she named Princess before we found out he's a he). I HAD to take out their house and rinse it and wipe it down and the Oscar was cool but the catfish freaked out and I swear to god the Oscar seemed like he was trying to calm down the catfish who hides in the log in their house unless its pitch black, he was like "OH GOD HIDE!!!". I'll get another pleco as soon as the tank is done cycling, but for now its a battle keeping that white string algae under control without adding water and screwing up the cycle. Basically I've scraped the sides and then sat there with a net for like an hour getting as much as I can out of the water, cause it doesn't make it to the filter, this was the case even when I put an additional up to 20 gallon power filter in the tank, and then there's so much current that my fishies can't swim. have a Penguin 125 which is supposed to be for up to 30 gallons(I really wish the guy who told me to buy it at petsmart had told me to spend the extra 5 bucks and get the one for up to 50)on which the intake is like 6" from the top of the tank and there's always a lot of food and waste sitting on the bottom that never makes it to the filter, enough that if the gravel's disturbed the water gets cloudy enough to concern me.


Geez I wish there was like a workshop with demonstrations on filters in the Chicago area. So anyway I'm pretty sure I want a canister for the dream 75 that I HAVE to get in the next couple of months. There are so many kick a** 55 gallon used setups around and so few 75's :(. Anyway, it seems like on canisters, you get a plastic thing that clips on the edge of the tank and it draws the water from the top or a few inches down from the top, is that true? I can't tell from all the instructions and various FAQ's I've read. So how can I filter the water at the bottom of the tank? Can I do something to get the intake for a canister there, or will adding that much rise to the hose make it work improperly? How do undergravel filters work? It seems like its basically just a plate with holes in it that you draw water through with a power head and the gravel itself ends up acting as the filter? So you end up with more gunk in the gravel? How do you clean it then? That just doesn't make any sense to me and I have spent hours(probably more like days at this point)looking. Is all the water supposed to pass through the filter(s)? I'm not even going to ask what a sump is.

Sorry if this isn't very coherent, it's late and I'm really confused about this stuff as it is.

[125gJoe]

I suggest a Rena Filstar xP-3. I have one now on my 80 gallon, and will eventually replace my Fluval 404.

Link: Canister Filters (http://www.rena.net/cgi-bin/trans.pl/en/products/rena_range/rena_filstar_xp.shtml)

[Oscar_Wild]

I like the fluval 04 series. I have 2 304's and want a few 404's. The comment you make about not wanting to add water so you don't mess up the cycle? It is advised that you continue to do frequent water changes while cycling with fish. Especially with an oscar, you should change 25% every 3 or 4 days.

[famman]

For a 75 gallon I would highly recommend an Eheim 2026 canister filter - $135 on ebay. It will kick bootie plus you can adjust the flow rate and slow it way down and cycle it on your current 20 gal high.
good luck
:)

[JSchmidt]

Some random thoughts....

With very messy fish (like oscars), I'd probably stay away from UGF filters. The upkeep on that sort of filter would be pretty demanding.

I'd also consider two filters for a 75 with messy fish. One would be primarily a mechanical filter, preferably one that has a high flow rate and is easy to clean and has reusable media. An HOB filter would do the trick; I like HOT Magnums packed with floss and prefiltered with a sponge, but an AC 500 or an Emperor 400 (with foam to replace the filter cartridges) would also do the trick.

A second filter would be primarily for biofiltration and a canister filter (packed with only ceramic noodles and prefiltered with a sponge) would be my choice. This filter wouldn't need to be opened very often and would isolate biofiltration away from the mechanical filtration. The aforementioned would Eheim 2026 would be OK, but for a 75, I'd go with a 2028.

Also, changing water during the cycle will not slow the cycle, but it will make your fish more comfortable. I'd change enough water to keep ammonia below 1.5 ppm and nitrite below 1 ppm.

Good luck,
Jim

[fpsiv]

Hey Karlsbad...
Some more random thoughts... :)

The "plastic thing that clips on the edge of the tank and it draws the water from the top" is called an overflow. Generally these are used with a sump-based filter system on aquariums that haven't been pre-drilled for pluming connections.
Most canister systems don't use an overflow, but rather have a submerged intake tube that you can locate at any depth you desire. However, it's generally not a good idea to locate the intake all the way at the bottom of the tank in case of a 'water siphoning onto the floor' type disaster.
I have a Filstar XP-3 on my planted 75 gallon and have been very pleased with performance of this filter. The XP filters also come with the necessary inlet/outlet rigid plastic tubing which means the filter is almost ready to roll right out of the box. Good quality biologic media (ceramic rings, bio-stars, etc.) are unfortunately not included.

Good luck!
-fpsiv

[125gJoe]

The Filstar xP-3 also has adjustable flow rates!

It's well designed and priced reasonable. I have compared it with the Fluval 404 and found the Filstar xP-3 to filter out debris better...:)

[demon_surfer]

I would go with what Jschmidt said. with big fish the more filtration the better. and AC500 for mechanical and a canister for bio should keep your water pretty clean... you will still need to do pretty frequent water changes though 20% once a week is recommended. big cichlids are very messy fish.

[125gJoe]

Originally posted by Oscar_Wild
I like the fluval 04 series. I have 2 304's and want a few 404's. .... I have also heard the x04's are a better design than the x03's. I'm not sure what they improved. By now the older x03's shouldn't be sold anymore.

[Karlsbad]

Thanks for the answers, you know I would love to see some working filter setups somehow, even just pics of the tubing would be great.

I have to focus on my cycle right now. Maybe my ammonia kit is screwed but I'm reading 6 ppm right now. I Made a desperate longwinded post in here, http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16717 but no one's going to answer at 3:30 in the AM :( . Stupidly added Maracyn. How many/ water changes of how much are too many, I did 25% twice in two days, can I increase that?

[anonapersona]

The sky is the llimit, IMO, when you are dealing with high ammonia or nitrites.

I went through something like that, when I disinfected a filter with bleach before adding it to a fresh tank from a Q tank. I did back to back water changes of 30%, 50%, then 85%, in desperation -- the test was maxed out, even after the second water change. I back calculated that the ammonia must have been about 16 ppm.

It was a rather fast cycle, but very very hard! I don't have the records, but I'm thinking 18 days. The nitrite cycle was actually worse, I had to test morning and night, and change water twice a day at one point.

Only one of those fish survived, but I still have him. The others were lost to a bad water temperature one time. No fish likes cold water, especially with large water changes!

You might want to start leaving buckets of water out over night to let some of the CO2 gas-off. When water first comes out of the tap, the pH is lower, due to the carbon dioxide in the water under pressure. As the bubbles break out of solution and leave, the pH rises. So, my tap is 7.6 but the tank would be at 8.2. A large water change makes for a big pH swing in this case. If you just wait overnight, or run an airstone in a bucket of change water for an hour, the Co2 will gass-off and the two will be more equal.

You ought to test the tap water before and after gassing off, just to know if this is a big issue for your water.

Oh, did anyone suggest to you to keep a journal? Keep data on what you measured, and what you added, and how it all worked. I often even added quotes or hardcopies of important info I found online.