I love my royals but.....

[David R]

I have two around 4-5" currently in my 400L tank and destined for my next big tank that is currently in the planning stage. They're great fish and I really want to keep them, but the mess!!! With sand as the substrate it seems impossible to get it clean, there is always sawdust hanging around, even stuck to the drift wood. How do those keeping large panaques deal with the mess? Just good circulation and plenty of mechanical filtration? And ideas or suggestions for building a sump/filter system for a 1500+L tank that deals with the waste the panaques make would be much appreciated!

[charles]

you can try add one of those hydro circulation powerhead at the top toward the back of your tank on the side of the glass. As the water floats through your system, the waste will collect normally on the base of your powerhead, in this case, the front lower corner on the same side of where you place the powerhead.

It is actually better with sand as sand doesn't trap much waste. You can place your siphon hose an inch or two above the waste and it will siphon out all the waste.

[krazyGeoff]

So I don't have big Panaque, BUT my 4 x 20+cm LDA33 make way more mess than the colony of L204.
I'm talking 7 days and you can't see into the tank, and that's with a FX5 on a 540 liter tank (200x60x45?)
I put on an Aqua One Nautilus CF2700 and filled it up with filter wool, say enough for 2 or 3 pillows, basically as much as you can get in there!
Then chuck in 3 or 4 Tunzee 6045 circulation pumps, and hey presto.
The water is crystal clear, and I only need to replace the filter wool every 6 or so weeks.
The quiet side of the logs still sludges up a little, and there are places where the pooh settles, it's as thick as a match stick, and approx length too.
That's about all you can do. Sand is good, because the pooh just sits on the top. The CF2700 picks up the finer particles (sawdust).
With the gravel in the L204 I still run an external filter wool filter, but the gravel just fills up with sludge, and you really can never get it clean.

Cheers

[David R]

I think you two are right that circulation will play a big part, even if all it does is push it round so it settles in the same spot.

Geoff, pooh I can handle, its that fine sawdust stuff the panaques make that drives me mad! There's been a pretty big discussion on filtration on MFK recently, and one of the things most people agreed on is that an often over-looked part of mechanical filtration is actually removing it from the system before it has time to pollute the water. Obviously you're not having issues despite only cleaning that big filter out every six weeks, but ideally I'd like to have this set up simple to maintain and that includes being able to regularly remove the large quantity of physical waste. The best option IMO would be a large bead filter (like the Ultima II's) that can be regularly backwashed, but they're not available here and would be expensive to import. I'm planning on using a settling chamber before my sump to [hopefully] catch a lot of the waste before it gets to the filter socks. I ran a system like that on my old 6' and it worked pretty well for catching the mess from my old 6" L190, but there wasn't enough circulation to keep it all suspended and sucked into the overflow. The settling chamber had a footprint of roughly 80x35cm and that from that one royal it would catch a 10mm thick layer of sawdust in a week, and there was still far more left in the tank!

Would love to see what kind of filtration the likes of Rob Rensen and ElTofi use for their big panaques.

[krazyGeoff]

I just use a Aquaclear HOB on the L204, with the filter wool. But the sheets of filter wool, cut and folded.

Looks a bit unsightly, but its a breeding tank, and could be hidden with only a little effort.
Takes about 60 seconds to change the pad (I pre cut them all when I buy the sheets).

Only issue is I have to change the pad every 3 or 4 days.

It's just as effective and much cheaper than the big canister filter.

Also it adds to the circulation.

You could give it a go while you sort out the final solution. You never know you may like that solution? And I think it meets your needs, clear water, easy to maintain, remove waste more frequently.

Cheers

[dw1305]

Hi all,

its that fine sawdust stuff the panaques make that drives me mad! There's been a pretty big discussion on filtration on MFK recently, and one of the things most people agreed on is that an often over-looked part of mechanical filtration is actually removing it from the system before it has time to pollute the water...... but ideally I'd like to have this set up simple to maintain and that includes being able to regularly remove the large quantity of physical waste.

Both the saw-dust and faeces aren't really that polluting. This is because they don't contain enough easily bacterial decomposable proteins or sugars (that encourage bacterial blooms) that will deplete the water of oxygen. It is a bit of strange concept, but if you can think of everything in terms of the processes in the tank that use up oxygen (the BOD), like respiration, "biological filtration", the "ordinary" bacterial decomposition of sugars and proteins, tank management becomes a bit easier. There is a more complete description of wood and BOD at: <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 0&p=245385>

The problem really is that if the "bulky organic waste" ends up in the canister filter it slows water flow, as the filter becomes clogged the oxygenated water that was fed into the canister becomes de-oxygenated and biological filtration begins to fail, once this process starts O2 levels fall and NH3 levels in the tank rise and unless some action is taken immediately death is imminent for rheophilic fish like Panaque spp which have a high oxygen requirement. This can then lead to the conclusion that the saw-dust (left in the tank by the reduced flow) has killed the fish, rather than elevated NH3 &/or depressed O2 levels.

I know from the work we did with landfill leachate (you can just think of it as uber polluted tank water) that the major constraint to biological filtration is nearly always oxygen availability. This is one reason why bio-wheels, HOBs and particularly "wet and dry" trickle filter work well, they have large gas exchange surfaces, and also one of the potential problems with a sealed system like an external canister filter.

In this case "KrazyGeoff's" method works well because he has separated mechanical and biological filtration, and waste is removed before it ends up in the biological filtration system.

Other approaches are an easy clean sponge pre-filter on the intake or a "solids separating" type approach (like "David R" mentions) with a settlement chamber or a Koi pond style pump. This is what a successful UK keeper ("matthewfaulkner") of big Panaque spp. has found <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... mp#p183709>:

For my bigger Panaque community tank I use a 6000lph solids handling pump in the tank feeding a pressurised pond filter. The pump is off the bottom, and the flow (also from an Eheim pro3) pushes all the waste to below and around the pump. Some is taken up by the pump but as much as I can I siphon it out, daily if I have the motivation. In my smaller Panaque/plec community tank I use a Eheim powerline 2252 (1200lph) internal, the flow from 3 externals helps push the waste to the internal. And again I try and syphon as much as I can, as often as I can.

In order to properly cope with Panaque waste you need specially designed setups like what Farid and Haavard use, gravity fed sumps or filter rigs. The best methods are the ones that are able to physically remove to waste before it has time to block filters and degrade in the water.

This is what "RobRensen" posted about his set-up: <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... er#p250562>.
and "ElTofi's" set-up: <http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... er#p244059>.

cheers Darrel

[Mehreen]

Hmmm interesting..........

[David R]

Seems how this has been bumped back up, this is what I'm doing on my 400L to extend the interval between cleaning the filter wool;



simple but effective pre-filter, very easy to clean under the hose. And here is a days worth of crap/sawdust;



With out this I would be cleaning/replacing the wool every couple of days, now it nearly lasts a week! (there is also two canisters running on the tank...)

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Pleased to hear they are doing well. The easy clean pre-filter is a good idea. If you can keep the saw-dust fines from entering the biological filtration it is best. In the filter they will clog the media, and as soon as water flow is reduced oxygenation is compromised.

How much effect does the coral in the sump have on water hardness?

cheers Darrel

[David R]

How much effect does the coral in the sump have on water hardness?

Barely enough to counter my super-soft rain water and massive pile of wood! I also dose with calcium and baking soda before water changes to bring the TDS of the new water up to ~30-40 and to help prevent it from crashing.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

How much effect does the coral in the sump have on water hardness?......Barely enough to counter my super-soft rain water and massive pile of wood! I also dose with calcium and baking soda before water changes to bring the TDS of the new water up to ~30-40 and to help prevent it from crashing.

Interesting, I'm a rain-water user as well, but our rain-water has about 30-40 ppm TDS naturally, possibly due to collecting dust on the way down (all the geology is limestone here).
We get a fair amount of rain (about 900mm annually), but my suspicion would be that you probably get a lot more.

cheers Darrel

[David R]

I'm not sure of the actual figure but I'm certain we get more than that! When I say I'm on rain water I mean we collect it straight off the roof and into a big plastic tank, so it doesn't really come into contact with anything that would greatly increase the mineral content.