tips on using a canister filter for a reef aquarium

[lifeoffaith]

Bottom line, if you must use one, clean it regularly. I had one on a 46 gallon bowfront for a while, and didn't realize I needed to clean it regularly. You should have seen how bad it was when I did finally realize I needed to, not to mention the law of GHA I had all over my rocks due to the extra nitrates. I did however have a bunch of sponges that had found it to be a good place to hang out, so it wasn't completely a waste.

 

[andyg1960]

I think a lot of people who spout this "nitrate factory" crap probably never used a canister themselves and are just repeating what they have heard. Fact is its just not true. I have been running a Fluval G6 on my reef for quite a while and my nitrates are zero. All you need to do is clean it. If your not willing to clean and do general tank maintenance, canister or no canister, your tank will suffer.

 

[Salty150]

Plus canister filters make it MUCH easier to do water changes!

Take out the old water through the outlet, put in the new water through the inlet.

 

[Ontheway]

Hi guys, I started thinking on a second hand canister filter recently. The reason is, there are so many tiny little snails producing in aquarium and ending up in my sump. I have placed a circular cut strainer sheet to inlet of my headpump to prevent shells damage the prop, but this time snail shells along with chaeto strings clogging the strainer and lowered flow speed causing gurgling problems in overflow box due to changed flow rate.

To prevent this happen continuously, I decided to contonuously filter out larger particles with help of such a canister filter. Basically, a motorised filter mechanism with "easy-to-clean strainer cup" having like 1x1 mm holes will cut it.

Do you know any product serves to goal above? I am not going to use sponges etc. Just want to collect larger stuff and easy to dump.

Thanks,

 

[SALTYwaterDOG]

I too use one as a reactor Carbon and Purigen. It works well for me i change it once a month, and haven't seen elevated nitrates. I do run a skimmer and fuge.so it is not my primary filtration.

 

[Capt.Nemo]

I have a 4 stage canister and an HOB Protein skimmer. Those that have issues with a canister are the ones who don't clean it but every 2-3 months. I clean mine every other week with 10% water change.
My PH runs about 8.0 and every thing else is a big fat ZERO. I have some Phosguard in mine as I am bringing my Phosphates down from some leaching.
But I am good with canister.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

[Ontheway]

Is there any brand-model with easier maintenance?

 

[Salty150]

Is there any brand-model with easier maintenance?

Fluval G3/G6

 

[gallegos]

I agree you should not use a canister for a Reef. I have done it all canister, wet/dry, sump, refugium, hob, at the end of the day sump and/or refugium is the way to go. The others will cause nitrate spike unless you clean it out everyother day. I'm speaking from experience

 

[Salty150]

I agree you should not use a canister for a Reef. I have done it all canister, wet/dry, sump, refugium, hob, at the end of the day sump and/or refugium is the way to go. The others will cause nitrate spike unless you clean it out everyother day. I'm speaking from experience

You don't have to clean it out every other day.

Once a week at the most - when you do your 10% water change.

And if you are running carbon, Purigen or ChemiPure, etc - you should be fine.

I have seen a lot of sumps that are far, far, dirtier than any canister filter I have ever had.

 

[Tautoga]

I use a Fluval 406 on my tank that Ive had up since September/October.

I use it for mechanical and chemical filtration. I have the large foam pads that are on the side. It has 4 chambers. The bottom chamber I put foam that is smaller mesh than the first foam pads, above that I have ceramic pieces which I am going to switch out to something else (probably carbon or other media) The top has SeaGel for silica and phosphate removal because I started the tank with dead rock and it was leaching silica.

I dismantle and rinse everything once a month and the SeaGel is replaced every 4 months. Its never filthy but it does the job I wanted it to do which is catch debris.

I had the usual diatom blooms, small Cyano bloom, hair algae bloom etc. They've all pretty much died out now and I have coraline algae starting to colonize the rocks along with feather duster worms and amphipods.

The tank looks great and keeps getting better and better every month.

 

[Jackie_Long]

I am a new member. I have a 1 year reef tank 100 litters. I quite sure the canister filter work great like a reactor. I am using JBL Proline 901 which has seachem Purigen, Rowa Phos,Rowa Carbon.

 

[BarIzoN]

Hi,

I just installed a Fluval G3 on my 55G sumpless system. It's running for two days.

The unit is small (smaller than I expected) and fits easily under the tank's cabinet - which has limited space.

So far, it was easy to assemble, and to start, I washed all the filters and cartridges with RO/DI water, not with tap water as said in instructions.

I'm not worried about the conductivity values nor with any other "feature" of the filter.

I think I needed a sump, but I have no room to add, so I'm giving a shot with this filter.

I noticed the water is way clearer and crystalline - that may be for the carbon filter in place.

I'll wait a week to see how the filter is doing...

I have an Aquamaxx HOB skimmer and the skimate is less dark as before.

With that said, I'll track the nitrates and keep posted here.

- BarIzoN -

 

[silz86]

I know this post is old, but it has some good information. Hopefully somebody will see this and chime in on this.

I have a JBJ 10 gallon desktop series tank. I HATE MY mechanical filtration on this sucker. It doesn't even work! I was thinking about scrapping this tank and getting a different one but really liked the dimensions of this tank. So I wanted some input from people with canisters to see if my idea would work.

I currently have a reef glass skimmer and my heater that would be in the tank. I would run a small powerhead for flow and I would also have the return pump from the canister for surface agitation.

I have 10lbs of live rock and 10 pounds of lives sand for biological filtration.

If I get a fluval g3/g6 and empty all the chambers and put the following:

Chemipure , phosban and some of those marine pure spheres.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/marinepure-ceramic-biomedia-1-1-2-spheres.html

You guys think I will be able to run this and have crystal clear water? I would not use filter floss but maybe for a day before a water change just to help me rid of the other particles. but overall there will be no sponges or floss just because I do NOt want to deal with this so called "nitrate factory"

Any advice or input would greatly be appreciated. Thanks

 

[whittaker727]

I'm glad I found this thread for my first post on this forum. I'm rookie reefer and I too have a canister filter that I'll be using to start out with because that's what I already have and I'm trying to be intelligent about spending my money in this expensive hobby to get started. I have a Marineland C-530 and a 60 gal aquarium tank that is not drilled for a sump or a hang off the back type sump. I'm not afraid of maintenance and hope that diligent cleanings, water changes and being engaged in what's going on in my tank will allow me success until I can save up the coin to venture into a reef specif designed tank. I'm looking forward to what the site has to offer.

 

[OldReefGuy]

IMO, They are great and I have always used them in the past and with my new tank, that was my first purchase also.
Canisters Good....Bad Husbandry Not Good.

 

[Oiler3535]

I’m running a 46 bowfront. 6 month’s old with a pair of Oci, a Royal Gramma, Banggai, and tiny still see through tiger blenny. And while I hadn’t planned to go reef so soon, kept getting corals essentially given to me by local reefers making room for new corals. Big Colt, bunch of ricordea, bunch of mushrooms, gsp, Xenia, frogspawn, and bunch of different zoos. No room for a sump, and yet to find a reasonably priced hob skimmer (just heard of one rated for 75g I might get for 160 CAD so crossed fingers). Using my canister from when ran freshwater. Water running crystal clear (weekly clean light algae on glass bc forced to use tap water). Ammonia and Nitrates negligible. pH 8.2, and phosphates between lowest 2 colours on API kit. Alkalinity 10. Monthly ~20% water changes, and clean my canister at same time. Yet to have a problem. After reading horror stories about nitrate factories I had been cleaning canister weekly, but physical filters were barely dirty so moved back to monthly and still fine. Running ceramic rings, purigen, carbon, and phosguard. Going to remove the rings and add GFO ASAP.