Changing Filter Questions.

[gsk177]

I have a 55-gallon that I am converting into a Cichlid tank. I currently am running an Emperor 400 and am going to be purchasing an Eheim Pro II 2026. How should I go about switching filters? Should I let the biowheels from the Emp. Float around in the tank for a week or two or just hook up the Eheim and let them both run for a couple weeks? Is there any change on overfiltration? I was wondering if maybe I should upgrade to the 2028.
Also, I have some ceramic media in the Emperor that I plan on using in the Eheim, but what other media should I use? I also plan on getting a fairly large amount of low-light plants if that matters on media.

 

[chaynes]

Just hook it up and let it run, don't worry about overfiltration. As far as media I personally keep it simple and run floss/foam/polyfil whichever is around. Sometimes I use ceramic discs/lava rocks just for more places for bacteria to colonize also. Personally I run two large filters on my cichlid tanks and it seems to work very well.

 

[Tightdog1]

well first of all what kind of cichlids are you planning on putting in the 55g?

on my 55g i have a fluval 304 and a biowheel pro 60 and the water isnt too bad for how overstocked it is. i also have this POS bravo 200 also that i had layin around. but i think you will be fine with the 2026 as it is rated for 100g tanks, i was gona buy that 1 but i didnt cause of $$$ issues. but i would leave the emperor 400 on the tank cause its never really bad to have too much filtration and it will help the ehiem out when the ehiem in new to the tank, IMO.

on media i would just use what comes with the ehiem or just use what it recommends i think it is 1 coarse and 2 fine filter pads, the carbon filter pads and the 1L efimech and 4L efisubstrat but if you are going to use the ceramic media you have you may want to use less of the efisubstrat depending on how much of the ceramic stuff you have.