wet dry filter systems

[murph213]

Hi everyone! i have a question about wet dry filters. Now I have a 55 gallon using an emporer 400. however my water chem. is always off , especially nitrates. I have been told wet dry is the way to go. thay also recomend a pump that pushes 700 gph.

Is this true or is my lfs trying to make a sale? Also if I do buy this will it correct my water chem? I also been told I could add more live stock (fish).

Thanks,
murph

 

[cdangel0]

Murph,

As a general rule of thumb Wet/Dry filters really do next to nothing to help with nitrates, and are generally considered to be very outdated. Wet/Dry filters use a container full of "Bio-Balls" that act as surface area for benficial bacteria to grow on, the problem with these is the balls get dirty and have the reverse affect on Nitrates...they go up.

I'm not saying they're a horrible idea, I just think you would be dissapointed in the long run.

Nitrates are really reduced by a couple things, the first and most effective are water changes 10-20% per week, religiously. the second would be a deep sand bed and a big ball of cheato rolling around in the sump.

Which means you would need to have a sump, and if you're going to put in a sump, you might as well go ahead and build in a fuge. And since you're doing all this work already, why not take this opportunity to upgrade to a larger tank? The more water volume you have the more stable all of your parameters will be afterall.

J/K - do some water changes to get the nitrate down, watch how much and what you are feeding, and do not add any more livestock until you are stable.

 

[a1amap]

no need to buy a new wet/dry sump get an old tank and make a sump and refuge.
You can use extra rock and sand instead of bio balls. Put some fast growing macro in the refuge to suck the nitrates down.