Mechanical Filtration Needed?

[akaatomic]

My tank is pretty young. I have a protein skimmer, 100lbs of live rock and a Fluval 404 canister connected to my 90gal. I've basically been living on reef forum web sites for the last three months and I see a lot of recommendations not to use mechanical filters because they're nitrate factories. My fluval has sponge/biomax/nitrate sponge/phos-ban. Should I disconnect it and just put in another powerhead to make up for circulation? How do those of you without mechanical filters deal with the tiny debris and particles that get kicked up from time to time? Just wait for it to settle? My protein skimmer has a compartment for media (carbon) if needed, so leaving the canister running empty so that I can add media won't get put to good use very often. Ideas? Thoughts on the debris question?

[motorslave]

If its going to be a reef tank I would use the canister with carbon and change it out every week or soo. The extra flow wont hurt! The different media ina filter traps waste products and allows them to dacay in the water till you rmove and clean the meia, untill then the waste products leach into the water column creating quality issues for your water. Carbon absorbs the nasties but needs to to changed regulary to avoid it eventually leaching. All you need is a strong skimmer and LR.

Robert

[Geoff]

depending on the skimmer. the major detrital remover could be you. this is prolly the most important part of doing water changes is removing piles of detritus.

using cannister filters for an hour after a water change or a major tank reaquascaping is fine, but running it longer just makes it a nutrient exporter. what happens is the trapped detritus decomoses releasing its bound nutrients back into the system because of the flow going through it. if it was a pile of detritus on the ground it would just sit there and the leaching back into the water column would be significantly less.

filter sponges are the biggest culprits for this.

G~

[Twitterbait]

I just use a filter sock in my sump and then run it throught the washing machine every week or two will a little bleach.