filtration problem

[muskieswen]

I have a 55 galon tank with a ehiem pro 2224 canister filter. I see constant particles in the water colum. I am almost 99% sure it is bottom debri. It really is noticeable after feeding time. I only feed once a day and no I am not overfeeding. The tank is a planted tank. I change water every friday night after work. I am fairly new to this hobby and think this is abnormal. Am i right? I have the spraybar just below the surface adjusted with a slight ripple on the surface. Water is clear just a lot of particles. Particles are super small but when there is alot of them it just does'nt look right. Any suggestions would be helpful? :(

[lee914]

what filter media do you have loaded in the Eheim?

[muskieswen]

mech,blue sponge,bio,white sponge

[lee914]

I have never kept planted tanks so as far as that goes I am not sure, it could be plant matter, but I have not noticed that in planted tanks I have seen. You might want to try adding a type of micro mesh, it is pretty cheap and you can just add it to the canister and it would remove very small particles down to 1 micron.

[anonapersona]

My planted tank is prone to dirty water also, I think that a lot of the new plants are decaying as they put on new leaves for the new situation. This creates a lot of mess in the filters, I am cleaning the 2213 weekly, replacing the white pad with quilt batting each time and actually rinsing media every other week. I added a sponge cover to the Pro2 and I am changing out the white pad in it monthly and rinsing the media then too.

Quite likely I need to the get the intakes higher so they are not along the gravel.

[muskieswen]

anon,
I just did a water cahange tonight and determined that yes these particles are coming from the bottom. I changed my white pad and I think I am going to attach another inlet pipe to the other end of the tank. I think if I put a tee fitting in the line it should work. Then I will leave it up higher so I will have a high intake and a low intake. I'll let you no in the future if this works. I just want a clear tank!

[RTR]

I'm not sure what you mean by particles from the substrate. Are you talking about particles of the substrate itself, as in fine/sugar sand? Or are you talking about plant debris/fish poop/uneaten food, and other waste which has settled to the bottom?

If the former, you have the current aimed wrong. It should not be stirring up the substrate.

If the latter, you want debris to be stirred up so that the filter can collect it. If it is not suspended it does not get filtered out. There also could be a problem with water retun and intake not working together.

[ewok]

what's the gph of the filter?

i'm probably weird and i don't do planted (cichlids), but i'd be adding more gph. preferrably with a filter that you can stuff full of floss.

i defer to rtr's judgement tho..........

[RTR]

ewok - the only complications of planted versus non-planted tanks is that you do need current to break up the boundry layer effect and get nutrients/CO2 to the plant leaves, and the that plants themselves are too good at being current-breakers. But particle removal (mechanical filtration) is pretty much an efficiency measure rather than being based on just gph. For high-efficiency filters (crudely perhaps Eheim versus an HOB) you do not need high gph to get good particle capture. But you do need to have a feel for the current flow and whether or not it is seting up a dead-end gyre or really processing all the water - even after all these years I spend no trivial amount of time adjusting current in my tanks. And sometimes I do what you suggest and just upgrade the unit itself to get more gph. :o

[muskieswen]

Does anyone feel that if i add another inlet tube to the other side of the tank, that this would help pick up some of the particles. I also think maybe my current maybe too strong after what i am reading in these posts and i will turn it down a little so as not to stir the bottom up. Right now it is turned up pretty much at full capacity. Thanks everybody for all the information, you sure can learn alot with word of mouth.