I have a 75 gallon tall planted tank with common easy freshwater fellows. I wanted a cichlid tank, but I also wanted a well planted tank; the planted won the decision. The plants and inhabs are doing fine.
But I still yearn for a dwarf cichlid community tank. I got the idea to split the 75 gallon tank in the middle, plants and common community to the left, rocks and dwarf cichlid community to the right, with a Hamburg Mattenfilter (HMF) separating the two. My existing two Emperor 380 filters would remain on each side of the HMF also. The HMF would be constructed with two foams to make filter maintenance possible while retaining segregation. That leaves me with two options. a small HMS sump between the two filter foams, or consider one side of the divided tank to be the HMS sump.
I am looking for comments from persons familiar with splitting a tank and/or use of HMF filters.
But I still yearn for a dwarf cichlid community tank. I got the idea to split the 75 gallon tank in the middle, plants and common community to the left, rocks and dwarf cichlid community to the right, with a Hamburg Mattenfilter (HMF) separating the two. My existing two Emperor 380 filters would remain on each side of the HMF also. The HMF would be constructed with two foams to make filter maintenance possible while retaining segregation. That leaves me with two options. a small HMS sump between the two filter foams, or consider one side of the divided tank to be the HMS sump.
I am looking for comments from persons familiar with splitting a tank and/or use of HMF filters.