Helping friend with a 150 gallon tank - Need some help!

Originally posted by O-man21
and no, just the eheim is not enough to filter the tank
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what? their are eheims made for tanks up to 300 gallons. you will want other forms of mech filtration, but the eheim could handle the bio-load on its own.

I like wet/drys and sumps more, just because you could put other stuff in the sump, heaters, plants, etc.
 
I've got a filtering question that stems from your discussion. I have an eclipse system on my 20 gal High w/ biowheel on it. Does that mean that there isn't much of a population on my mechanical filter media that precedes the biowheel in the water current?? I put a couple extra filter pads in the mechanical filtration area so that they are somewhat exposed to the air as opposed to the cartridge they give you which resided completely submerged. I was just curious as to what the effects of me changing out my mechanical filtration would be, do i need to be worried about "good" bacteria problems?? thanks

steve
 
no it doesn't, it means that it is giving an area for bacteria to grow that is exposed to air and water at the same time, thus increasing the health of the bacteria, so they eat more ammonia and nitrate
 
have you ever changed that media before?

if you keep pulling out and replacing media, chances are that most of the bacteria is on your bio-wheel and in your tank (gravel, plants, etc)

If you havent replaced the media for awhile, theres probably quite a bit of bacteria in it. If you can, pull out sections of this at a time to let the bacteria grow elsewhere. After youve done this the first time, you can freely rinse out or replace your media whenever you want without affecting the bacteria population.

HTH
 
that's the thing...i was cycling my tank and everything was going nicely and then i changed out my filter media and increased my water change percentage, and did a thorough cleaning of the pump only to find out that my Nitrites which were "peaking" ( some Nitrates and NO ammonia) at that point were re-set to what seemed to be a starting point. It's now been over 2 months since i've started my tank up and I am at the point again where the Ammonia is on the decline and the Nitrites are rising. I've been curious about this ever since...not to mention I had to medicate the tank as well, but that was supposed to not harm bacterial colonies, who knows???? Thanks for any support and ideas you have!!!

steve
 
IMO I would put big schoolers. Some ei could be bala sharks or tinfoil barbs. I would think a school of at least 3 would be good for bala sharks and 4 would be enough for a school of tinfoil barbs. I also heard that Lima Shovelnose like to school and there should be at least 3 in a school. A school of 3 would work really well in a 150. They grow as slow as heck though:(.
 
How about a reverse osmosis setup?? I don't anything about these except that they are supposed to be the best way to keep the water clean.

I really appreciate everyones help!!! So far, I think I have my friend talked into getting the eheim professional 2329 w/d model, new hoods (2 30"), new gravel (old was bright blue, he's gonna get the wild river variety from Big Al's!!). I told him that since that he filter had a built in heater, he would not need another (correct me if I am wrong). It is really working out well. He buys, I build and setup. He told me that he really liked Angel fish, so maybe we'll setup an environment based from South America. Who knows.... Anywho, chow!
 
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