new filter for established tank...

[Flycaster]

Well after finally taking the plunge and buying an Fx6 I find myself in a position ive not been in before.... I figured I would run it along side my existing canister for a couple of weeks. Would that be sufficient to get a reasonable bacteria colony in the Filter? Its replacing an Otto 1200 so there is heaps more filtration for my messy fish. Any advice would be appreciated

[Pharmlou]

I would run both permanently, no such thing as over filtration.

Clean the media in the Otto with tank water and put it in the fx6 ( it comes with bugger all media anyway) and fill the Otto with Poret foam or coarse sponge and filter floss so that it's mostly for mechanical filtration. Be sure to fill the FX6 with extra media like matrix , coral rubble and floss to reduce the flow a little ( it's a beast). Set it up so the outflow is in the middle of the tank aimed up to the surface, left and right of the centre. That will give you excellent flow throughout the Tank and not annoy the inhabitants too much.

Of course if you really only want to run with just one filter, about a month should be fine provided it's an established tank.

My personal preference is for redundancy, which is why I have at least two filters per tank plus an air driven sponge filter ( with battery back up for blackouts!!)

Good luck

[Flycaster]

Thanks, that seems like a reasonable option. Appreciate the reply :-)