To canister filter or not to canister filter ?

[Frogbone]

I am thinking of permanently hooking up my canister filter to clear up my tank water.
I have a lot of suspended particles in my water, it looks like "dust" and it bugs me when I see some of you guy's tanks with crystal clear water.

If I hook it up, what type of filter media should I use ?

I need to have the water from my overflow go into some sort of sock filter first as it is entering the sump unfiltered right now.

I have a round 6" dia, 7" long filter media drum.

What do you suggest to put in there?

Oh, the reason why I am asking is, I hear quiet a while back that canister filters take out essentials that are needed in the tank. That's why I never bothered hooking it up into the system.

[geshields]

Canister filters will start to act as a biological filter after about 5-7 days.

If you are having problems with cloudy..or dirty water, my bet is that you have an underpowered skimmer, feed too much, etc...

Those of us with crystal clear water have good skimmers, run carbon sometimes and feed every other day for the most part...

Get to the root of the problem instead of trying to bandage it...

Greg

[FastFish720]

As Greg said a skimmer will make a huge difference. I would also run carbon if you plan to run media in the canister. I believe you want around 300gph of flow through most skimmers. Mine is fed directly from my overflow. To calibrate mine I hooked a maxi-jet 1200 and timer how long it took to fill a bucket. Then adjusted my ball valve to let in the right amount of flow by timing it too.

[kpax]

Ditto on the carbon. I use a canister but I usually only run it for about 8 hours a week.

[Frogbone]

I have been doing some reading and I might run teh canister with Purigen rather than mechanical filter media.

Purigen is supposed to be a good alternative to carbon as it doe not indiscriminately pulls stuff out of the water as carbon does.

Carbon removes even good stuff from the water but Purigen does not.

Now I need to find out if I can run phosgard and Purigen in the same canister.

As long as I do not filter out any detrius it should not create a nitrate problem.

Do you guys run your overflow water through a sock filter or something like it before it enters the sump/skimmer/return area ?

[David Grigor]

Not. I would only use a canister for short periods of time. Not needed under normal circumstances.... Nothing wrong with some suspended particles in the water as it can serve as food.

[Lars]

I was looking at using a canister filter to polish my water. I believe my waters cloudiness comes from my unrinsed southdown sand (was the "right" thing to do at the time I set the tank up). At any rate, the addition of my two streams have added quite a fit of flow to my tank, and does shift my sand around. In my case, I don't think it's food or protiens. I think it's fine sand in the water column.

My plan was to do the polishing in short bursts. Maybe a day or two at a time with cleanings/dryings between. Hopefully borrowing or renting one so I didn't have to buy one

Lars.

[JnS]

from my experiances sand and canister filters do not work well together, the sand gets caught in the magnet area and will over time ruin the magnet.

[tico mike]

FWIW, I run HOT magnum 250's full time. For the most part they are empty. About once a month I run carbon and a filter sleeve for several days and then remove it again. In between carbon treatments they act as power heads.