filtration

[friendlyburger]

Hi all

I have a 6 x2 x 2 tank with a sump and 3500 lph pump. I do a 1/3 water change weekly and gravel clean once a month. I have a about 30 assorted malawi in there ranging from 5cm to 12 cm. I have a fair bit of drift wood that tends to be breaking down and leaving suspended matter floating in the water about mid way between water change. This doesn't effect the fish as I'm not lossing any but just annoys me as it is a display tank in my lounge room. Is the suspended matter always going to happen with a sump? Do i need to add an internal powerhead filter or should I increase the size of the pump in the sump? What size?

Jake

[bilbok]

Hi Jake,

I take it you haven't had the sump running very long. The water should clear after a while. You could run a power head inside the tank to prevent any of the suspended matter settling on the substrate, but I dont think you need any further filtration. My 6x2x2 has the same setup as you but with a power head and about 35 medium sized cichlids in it and the water is perfectly clear. Other wise you could get some new driftwood. Let it run for a while and see how you go.

Cheers,

Matt.

[oakes]

With a sump it is critical to get the water flow spot-on so that it flows directly into or past the intake, otherwise suspended matter will just circulate in the tank until it ends up on the bottom.

Personally i found this difficult to achieve, and ended up taking the easy (though kinda expensive!) option of adding a canister. This now provides alot of the mechanical filtration, while the sump provides more biological filtration than i will ever need.

An internal filter will do a similar job but will need much more frequent cleaning.

[jeppry]

you could try taking out the drift wood and hit it with a scubbing brush.

or

add a very large bristlenose ???

[SOLEMNDRAGON]

I have a 110 litre sump on my 6x2x2 with a 3000lt an hour pump and i have approx 50 malawi's ranging from 5 to 25cm and my water is crystal clear all the time it gets a bit of suspended matter in it when i feed but usually about 15 to 20 mins later i have a crystal clear tank again.

[friendlyburger]

Thanks for the feed back.

Oakes - I am having the same problem as you. Matter seems to be circulate. I appreciate that a canister filter would be less maintance but I can pick up a internal powerhead filter for $20. Just thinking of the $$$.

Jeppry - I've never keep bristlenose. I always though they actually made more mess rather than cleaning the tank up. Am I off the mark there? How do they go with the higher ph,kh,gh levels? ARe certain types beter than others?

Bilbok & Solemndragon - What medium do you use in your sump? I currently only have a sheet of wool and bio-balls. Should I add different layers of filter medium under the spray bar? Althought as I stated above it's more a problem of circulation within the tank. Perhaps the way I have my airstones set up may be effecting the water flow/direction?

Jake

[jeppry]

I got commons in all my malawi species tanks and there fine with the 7.8 - 8.0 ph i dont know about kh and gh but they look healthy and are spawning so im guessing there fine.

reading your original post again i think ya could be better off gettin rid of the drift wood that is breaking down it will be lowering your ph slowly.

but yeah the internal power head filter will work, mind you at first it will stir s@#t up from everywhere and your sump should get most of that mess out of the way. Any lingering bits will get picked up but the powerhead filter.

age of aquariums has a decent range of internal power filters pretty cheap too.

HTH