What filter should I get?

Santa-clause · Post by **Santa-clause** » 05 Oct 2006, 03:00

I am soon to be starting a 71 gal tank/281 liter aquarium. The filter being the most important piece of equipment. I have a choice of filter and cost.

aquaone 2200 in stock normal price $359 your price $299
FX5 is normally $695 your price $595

Now I could get two aquaone filters for the price of the FX5, but aquaone isn't the greatest brand that I have read about. I think they have around the same flow rate, and to fill the FX5 its going to cost me another $150. So I am leaning towards the 2200 and just change the media over to Eheim or Sera. So what do you think. This is my wanted fish list so match the fish to the filter.

Red-tailed black shark (1)
Tiger barbs (15)
Royal Pleco L? (5)
L47 Mango (2)
L204 (3)

I know these fish get big but I am getting them all under around 5 cm so I can have fun growing them out.

FuglyDragon · Post by **FuglyDragon** » 05 Oct 2006, 04:04

3 royals is going to produce a huge amount of waste in the form of very fine sawdust from the drift wood they continually rasp on, and which they need to survive.

You will need some serious pre-filtering to stop it from clogging up your main biological filtration.

Perhaps consider an internal powerfilter with easy change foam cartridges (I use eheim aquaballs) both to move the water about so the sawdust dosnt gather and to remove it before it gets to your external filter.

I gave up on keeping my royals in a single tank system(3 internal power filters and an external eheim couldnt keep up without weekly cleaning of the internal power filters.) and they are now housed in a sump filtered rack, the bottom of the sump (a 30"x18" tank) gets covered in about a 1cm deep layer of sawdust in about a month.

Santa-clause · Post by **Santa-clause** » 05 Oct 2006, 04:16

I don't mind doing maintance on the tank, I'm not shore what L # Royal I want yet, if I use one 2200 that's 2200 LPH turning over my tank 7 TPH. But if I added 2 then that 14.
Their is a larger model 2400 but I cannot find anything on it. Royal's are one of the most beautiful plecos and to keep 5 I would keep up a huge amount of water changes and clean the sponges/mechanical filters weekly.

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 05 Oct 2006, 14:08

A combination of a large wet/dry filter and a quality outside canister will cope with most fishes' waste output and maintain good flows of oxygenated water through the tank.

Santa-clause · Post by **Santa-clause** » 05 Oct 2006, 15:06

I would like to do a wet/dry but lack the knowledge to do it, id prefer to stick to the canister. I'm going to get two for I have changed my fish to all current dwelling fish, so shouldn't be a problem .I'm going to get 2x aquaone 2400 so I should get around 18x turn over. Here is my stocking list for this tank

L027 (2)
L027b (2)
L027c (2)
L190 (2)
L47 (2)
Royal Whiptail (3)

A large amount of plecos, but I'm getting them all under 5 cm. And will upgrade them to larger tanks when bigger.

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 05 Oct 2006, 15:30

That will work. Wet/drys are even easier to maintain than canisters and have the added advantage of oxgenating the water more than canisters. But there are many ways to satisfactorily filter aquariums.

Reginator · Post by **Reginator** » 05 Oct 2006, 18:18

I use tetra EX series cannister filters and reckon they are about the best available (bear in mind I'm in Spain).

Santa-clause · Post by **Santa-clause** » 05 Oct 2006, 23:07

So my filter is all good?

mrwickedweasel · Post by **mrwickedweasel** » 10 Oct 2006, 20:25

Zeb-nz, pure blood, call me the man, Santa-clause, zeb man, reef-man, springer, pleco-man and any other user names you may pretend to be!
Here is a list of some of your posts about filters, from plecofanatics Read them please
http://www.plecofanatics.com/forum/show ... hp?t=21283
http://www.plecofanatics.com/forum/show ... hp?t=17128
http://www.plecofanatics.com/forum/show ... hp?t=19591
http://www.plecofanatics.com/forum/show ... hp?t=20728
http://www.plecofanatics.com/forum/show ... hp?t=17805

apistomaster · Post by **apistomaster** » 10 Oct 2006, 20:48

Makes you wonder what motivations drive someone to act so dumb, doesn't it?

mrwickedweasel · Post by **mrwickedweasel** » 10 Oct 2006, 21:18

Indeed it does

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 11 Oct 2006, 14:20

One must also question why someone who's never posted on Planet Catfish decides that it's SO IMPORTANT to post links to another forum, where a user is asking valid questions [albeit perhaps childish and ignorant]. Also, I think there are several other members at PlecoFanatics that haven't behaved correctly [as in being mature and "professional"] in those threads that I looked at.

But as I stated in private message to fish fodder: The behaviour on other forums does not, in itself, make someone more or less desirable on this forum.

As part of the moderator team, I think it should be made clear that ANYONE behaving incorrectly will be warned and if necessary banned - and inappropriate posts may be removed.

--
Mats

FuglyDragon · Post by **FuglyDragon** » 11 Oct 2006, 15:43

Well

The Mangos are gonna set you back around NZD$160 each

The Dull Eyed Royals about the same $150 - $170 each depending on size.

Have never seen L027, b or c offered for sale in NZ, but a standard Panaque Nigrolineatus around $130 - $150.

There are few Papa Plecs around at the moment @ $150 +

Give up on having zebras in NZ, last ones sold I know of went for over $2k for a small colony of I think 4 and that was a few years ago.

So given that this isn't just a complete wind up from some kid who is bored, who in their right mind would entrust $1500+ worth of hard to find and replace fish to the cheapest Aquaone external filter they can find...

If your serious go Eheim, 2 external Eheim 2324 Thermofilters at around $650 each and probably a trio of internal filters to move water around, as I said I use aquaballs at around $75 odd each.

71 gals isnt even approaching being big enough for that many royal plecs either.

Prices are all in New Zealand Dollars (NZD) about 60 US cents (yes we pay a lot for our equipment and fish here)