Hooking up a canister filter to a tank

Emmanuel.dam

New member
I'm gonna hook up my canister filter to my tank but it's gonna take like 3L of water and I don't hav a very big tank only 50L give or take, what should I top the water up with once I have hooked the canister up?



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Yep...saltwater. You use freshwater for topoff, because you've lost water but the salt remains. If you want to expand volume, you add saltwater, otherwise you'll dilute the salt you already have.
 
When people in the other thread advised you to lower your bio load or incease your filtration they didn't mean to add a canister filter. The amount of fish you have in such a small tank is not going to work no matter what you do. You need to either upgrade to a bigger tank/skimmer or take some of your livestock back to the store. You can put the biggest and best cannister filter in the world on your tank but a 13 gallon aquarium can still not support a Foxface and several other fish.

Since you live close to the ocean you can probably keep stuff alive for a while by doing a TON of water changes. In the end, and this is purely theoretical since he will not live that long, the Foxface fish will barely be able to turn around in your tank.

If you don't want your tank to turn into a little swamp you need to start doing some reading up on the basics of keeping a reef tank (between water changes!). When you have ammo and nitrite readings on a tank that is several months old things definately not going well.
 
OP:

I took the liberty of looking at a bunch of your posts. It's pretty clear that you have developed a real passion for the hobby and care about your tank. That said, I don't think you really hearing the advice you have received. As almost everyone has noted, your bioload is very likely too high for the tank. While someone will almost certainly tell you that they have kept a foxface in a small tank, the odds are very heavily weighted against you.

With regard to the cannister filter, again, there are those that use them successfully on a reef tank but the large majority of successful reef keepers avoid them for a variety of reasons including maintenance and the risk of them becoming a nitrate factory. Note that they can be useful for occasional water polishing and perhaps as a substitute for a media reactor.

The single greatest tool in the reef keepers shed is patience. The second most important tool is critical research. This means read ALL of the stickies, listen to the advice of others (even if it's not what you want to hear), read books, etc.

I think you're going to be a great reef keeper. Just need to get you thinking like one.
 
What if I put a bigger skimmer and canister whilst setting up a bigger tank?


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A cannister filter will work against the skimmer by converting dirt to nitrates etc before your skimmer can simply remove it entierly. Your best bet if you are planning a bigger tank is to do a lot of water changes and feed sparingly. Go read the stickies first though and you will save yourself some major headaches. Almost everything you need to know to get started properly is there.
 
In the canister filter ill only have matrix as a filter media and that's it, it's just more bio filtration :)


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I don't have a sump on my tank so I do use a canister. I run GAC and gfo. I see good results with this. You just have to make sure to clean it at least weekly. My nitrates are undetectable with my API kit. That being said, cleaning it is a pain in the butt, and I would rather use a reactor, just don't want the extra junk in the tank.
 
I have had my 55 gallon tank about 3 years now I guess, I have no sump, a hob protien skimmer which collects a pretty good amount of junk, and a cannister filter filled with carbon and floss and a biosponge, my skimmer and filter are rated for 100 gallon tank. I change my filter media every 3 months, my nitrates stay at zero, i do a 20% water change one a month. I have had pretty good luck with my cannister filter so far.
 
Needing information concerning CF's

Needing information concerning CF's

I have had my 55 gallon tank about 3 years now I guess, I have no sump, a hob protien skimmer which collects a pretty good amount of junk, and a cannister filter filled with carbon and floss and a biosponge, my skimmer and filter are rated for 100 gallon tank. I change my filter media every 3 months, my nitrates stay at zero, i do a 20% water change one a month. I have had pretty good luck with my cannister filter so far.

Do you have any phot's of your system?
What kind of CF do you have?
 
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