canister filter

[gene71495]

Hello,

What are most people running in thier canister filters?

[mikersx02]

I am a big fan of eheim ephusubstrate (looks like rocks) or whatever its called. I also run a denitrate media such as seachem matrix.

I have 0 nitrates, nitrites, phosphates, very stable water parameters.

NO SUMP!

[PRDubois]

Did you leave the filter media in or take it out?

[davewbush]

I don't run any thing my canisters came with. I run 3 fluval 404s with 2 liters of eheim ephusubstrate pro, phos-pure and chem pure. I took out the filter pads. To day I put in new filter pads in the bottom chamber that I cut to fit. I plan on cleaning these eveey two weeks and changing them out every month. If they seem to be putting phosephate back into the tank I will change them eery two weeks.

[Aquarist007]

Alot of reefers gut the canister filters--take all media out--and run just carbon in it. It makes a much more efficient way of running carbon in that the water is forced through the entire media rather then taking the easy way around the edge of it as when it is in a bag in the sump for example.

[lobsta™]

my canister worked great for the first 6 months then my nitrates went up to like 40ppm.... the stock media is no good for marine use, LR, carbon work well... stick to it

[CStoner]

I am new, but everyone here says to get rid of the canister filter or just run media in it.

I run GFO and carbon only. I also service it every week.

[gene71495]

Is phos-zorb media any good? Should I run it in addition to carbon in my canister?

[mikersx02]

There are 2 filtration functions a canister does. It does mechanical as well as biological.

I can vouch for the mechanical filtration causing some phosphates IF you neglect to change it at or clean it at proper intervals.

The eheim ephusubstrate pro paired with some sort of denitrate works great. The only problem I experience is that it belches nitrogen (periodically) when enough nitrogen gets built up in the canister. This makes sense because your live rocks and sand bed do the same thing throughout the day... little bubbles float up from the rocks inside your display tank.

Eheim has canister filter media that is carbon...thats what I run sometimes. I am pretty good about cleaning my pads. I highly recommend still running mechanical filtration to keep the substrate from getting dirty... just clean it every 2 weeks or sooner...takes 2 minutes.