New to the site/hobby… I am setting up a 30 gallon saltwater tank fish only, possibly easier corals down the road. Any suggestions to what filtration to go with? I was looking at the marineland canister but thought I would ask. Thanks in advance for any help…
Welcome to the site and the hobby ::thumbsup:: :Welcome)
A canister should work fine with that size tank as long as your doing routine water changes. Most of the reef tanks have a skimmer to help with water quality but with good tank maintenance you should be good. Whats your plan for lighting? And type of corals are you looking to keep?For lighting I have a coralife t5 lamp 10,000k/actinic I actually did a trade with a guy from work, I gave him some things and he gave me the stand/tank with the lights and power heads heater etc… But want to try and start out right… For corals I’m not really sure yet I will have to do some research. I do not want to jump the gun…
If you go the canister filter route I would suggest either
Rena Filstar XP3 or a API NEXX
Both are easy to clean and maintain The XP3 is more up front cost but you can use any media you want, NEXX is cheaper but you are limited to their media.
i may catch noise for this, but my filtration consists of an eshopps protein skimmer, macro algae and $15 worth of cheapo amazon bioballs on a 65 gal with a 20 gal sump. Total cost is the same if not less than canister filters. and i never have to change media and hardly clean. I keep softies and LPS with no issues whatsoever. I also bought coral once from a guy that had no filtration at all on a 75 bow front with fish and coral and his tank was one of the happiest and healthiest i’ve seen. What matters is staying regular with maintenance and water changes and good salt. esp once you start keeping coral.
just my :TWOCENTS
[quote=“Bryan76, post:1, topic:6049”]
New to the site/hobby… I am setting up a 30 gallon saltwater tank fish only, possibly easier corals down the road. Any suggestions to what filtration to go with? I was looking at the marineland canister but thought I would ask. Thanks in advance for any help…[/quote]
A deep sand bed, and live rock also can be considered the main biological filtration.
Similar to what alex was talking about, my 125 has been running on powerheads alone for 4 months now… fish are healthy, and some soft coral are growing away… i don’t advise it, but it just shows a good bio filter in action…
you can use just about anything for your mechanical filtration, diff maintenance and cost with each type…
A sump and a protein skimmer is great advice and highly recommended but its not needed to start out…
what do you plan on starting with fish-wise?
btw … :Welcome) to DRC
[quote=“saltcreep, post:6, topic:6049”]
A deep sand bed, and live rock also can be considered the main biological filtration.
Similar to what alex was talking about, my 125 has been running on powerheads alone for 4 months now…[/quote]
haha completely forgot to mention that. i don’t know if there’s a rule of thumb or anything but i’ve done a lb of live rock per gallon tank and have a two to three inch deep sand bed. my last tank was fish only for a long time. i only had about ten to twenty lbs live rock and a one inch sand bed and it STRUGGLED to say the least. much happier with the current setup.
One of the hardest parts of this hobby is working through the possibilities untill you find the combination of husbandry, equipment, and techniques that you both like and work for you. every one is defferent and has their own way… there is nothing wrong with anyones way as long as it works for them…
with that said, I am persoanlly a huge advocate of bare bottom. it works for me. do I love the way it looks? not nessisarily, but my tank runs better that way. I have two kids around and ZERO time, so I do water changes about every 4 months or so. the only “filtration” that I run is my overflow goes into a 10 filled with rock and rubble rock, then runs to my sump. in my sump there is a carbon\GFO reactor. no skimmer right now… I have 1fish in my tank and feed maybe once a week. corals all look healthy, but I have never had much luck with SPS, even when I ran a skimmer, had a fuge full of macros, and spent a lot more time on my tank with maintinence… I just do LPS and softies now.
the point being, that unfortunately you will just have to experiment, but using other peoples profiles is one way to get you going… JMHO, but I would pass on a canister filter and set up a sump. either put a skimmer in there or a fuge, or in my case a bunch of rock… but hey, thats me…
Alex and crew, talk to me about bio-balls in a reef aquarium. When my 90 was originally setup over 10yrs ago it was a FOWLR setup and used a wet/dry, filter floss, and skimmer for filtration.
When I started researching the hobby again I heard that the bioballs were a nitrate factory. I still have a trash bag FULL of bioballs that I could toss into the sump if this isn’t the case? Is it an issue of having them fully submerged in water vs. trickling water over them while leaving them primarily exposed to oxygen like my old setup was? The big issue people seem to have is fish waste/food getting stuck in all the nooks and cranny’s of the bio balls, decomposing, and creating nitrates. (but then again, even my original setup had a sheet of filter floss above the chamber full of bio balls that was swapped out regulary) Adding another thing to clean to the mix wasn’t in my plan, but perhaps with the use of a filter sock, its a non issue?
To the OP, welcome to DRC
again, there is a million ways to do things, but here is how I understand it… nitrates are more toxic in the reef environment as apposed to say fresh water. some things are more sensitive than others to nitrates- ie corals suffer first then fish.
ten years ago or more, the usage of skimmers was not as prevelant, and frankly, the older air stone ones usually had a pretty low efficency. skimming removes protiens and other materials before they have a chance to break down into ammonia and nitrates.
all tanks will produce nitrates on some level, but they need to be exported or consumed- via water changes or marcro algae, or bacterial.
so in a nutshell, you could still use them, but I wouldnt reccomend it. possibly for a FOWLR if that is what you have, but I wouldnt do it for a reef. the caveat being a sitiation like mine where I basically dont feed my tank. that said, if you have a huge refugium, you will probably run zero nitrates anyway. the main point being, what else are you going to run? if your overflow goes to a skimmer, then to bioballs, then to a fuge, it would probably work great. Just bio balls? then your just accumulating nitrates.
They are considered nitrate factories because they have a habit of trapping and building up detritus which releases ammonia which is then consumed by the bacteria that is prevalent on the bio balls and released as nitrate, Bio balls do not support any anaerobic bacteria so it cannot compleate the nitrifying process to nitrogen, so you end up with nitrate levels that just keep going up and up.
Thanks for all the advise so far. Haven’t been on for a little while. One other question, I was looking at some skimmers. Has anybody had any experience with d and d marine? (There typhoon model)
[quote=“Bryan76, post:12, topic:6049”]
Thanks for all the advise so far. Haven’t been on for a little while. One other question, I was looking at some skimmers. Has anybody had any experience with d and d marine? (There typhoon model)[/quote]
I haven’t personally, but you’re on the right track asking questions :
:
skimmers are def one of the things i’d get a trusted opinion on before buying. There’s alot of junk out there with a big price tag on it :TWOCENTS