Am I really filtering anything?...

RobertW

RobertW

Arctic Ice Fish
Jan 25, 2008
100
0
0
Anchorage, Alaska
Other than biological filter (150 GPH bio wheel) on my Eclipse tank setup... I was just thinking that i guess im not really "polishing" the water at all am I? It has the carbon cartridge and that doesnt seem to me to be a very effective way to push the water through the carbon...

My question is: Am i polishing my water at all like this? Do I need to get an additional filter? The fish are all good... The only one concerned is me...
 
If your parameters are good and you have no foul smell and are happy with the clarity of the water, don't mess with it. Carbon doesn't work after a month. I don't bother putting new new carbon. I just use it as an additional bio media filter as it has plenty of surface area.
 
what size is the tank? for tanks under 75 gallons the rule of thumb is a turnover rate of about 7-10. Meaning for every hour the filter draws 7-10 times the tank volume.

If I had a 20g tank I would want a filter that draws 140-200 GPH.

For your filter I wouldn't put it on anything bigger than a 20g.
 
<has 2 of those Eclipse/Explorer filters in house... one on a 1g explorer, one on a 6g Eclipse hex.

They really aren't bad. The filter pads get pretty good w/ age. Just be sure to give them a good throttling in old tank water when you change water - or whenever you can see some build-up on them) and don't bother replacing 'em unless you wear one out or find that you need carbon for some specific reason (like getting some medicine/dye out of water - when you'd need fresh carbon to do it anyway).

I find them to be good for 1g, a bit marginal for a 6g.
 
theotheragentm said:
If your parameters are good and you have no foul smell and are happy with the clarity of the water, don't mess with it. Carbon doesn't work after a month. I don't bother putting new new carbon. I just use it as an additional bio media filter as it has plenty of surface area.
Click to expand...

thats a week or two until its no longer active.

the sponge is helping polish the water. if your happy with the look dont worry about it.
 
If you want super polished water, get a product called purigen from seachem. Do a search on the forum, you won't be disapointed.
 
Don't trust any filter's gph or tank size rating. Cut them in half then filter accordingly. As long as you don't create a flow issue for a specific fish, you are good to go.
 
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