reccomend filter for 5foot?

hi i have i 5ft tank now am wating for the stand to come b4 i fill with water.........any bros can reccomend the best filter? i have a canister filter but it may not be enough any ideas?(not sure on flowrate on canister)

[PNT Guy]

Well it depends on what kind of filtration system u prefer. OHF, Canister (Fx 5 would be good), sump or ios?

[Mr.Q]

hi bro for 5feet and above best for me is to use sump tanks

Thx for replies , i like the canister type but ive heard the biological filtration nt so good. . . .Can just take.those box filter and fill with bioballs? And whats the price approx.for fx-5?

[wei_yuan86]

Hi brother, the possibilities vary greatly in in terms of filtration type and media...
Perhaps you should read up on them before deciding.
Should also consider what fishes you intend to keep, the number of livestock, planted/non-planted? Some filters could be too strong for your fishes to swim happily in your tank while some fishes are sensitive to water conditions. It's quite hard to recommend filter types w/o much information..

[Mr.Q]

Originally Posted by wei_yuan86

Hi brother, the possibilities vary greatly in in terms of filtration type and media...
Perhaps you should read up on them before deciding.
Should also consider what fishes you intend to keep, the number of livestock, planted/non-planted? Some filters could be too strong for your fishes to swim happily in your tank while some fishes are sensitive to water conditions. It's quite hard to recommend filter types w/o much information..

agree,first of all u have to think of what fish and how many fishes u r going to keep,if u just keep 1 or v few fishes then i think u dont need to build a powerful filtration system

[PNT Guy]

Originally Posted by stackdeck

Thx for replies , i like the canister type but ive heard the biological filtration nt so good. . . .Can just take.those box filter and fill with bioballs? And whats the price approx.for fx-5?

Yeah i would recommend sump tank filtration system too, easy maintain and have a big capacity for medias.

Canisters is what i currently running on as my main system maintaining them is a chore as i do not have the money to get a sump system.

A fluval fx5 cost around SGD300+ if i remembered correctly.

The fishes going in are small now , but do grow big . Probably no $ for a sump too so i guess canister sounds good , and anyone know weather a.few box filter with bio balls will work?

the recommanded turn over rate is 6 - 10times. so 522 at 90% full is 500l.. to get at least 6 times turn over rate u need 3000l/hr of flow.. fx5 is rated at 2300l/hr, when its packed with media, should be around 2000l/hr.. thats only 4 turn over rate.. add a wave maker to increase flowrate and will thus increase filtration rate since more poo and water will be filtered away.

A few questions:
1. Does this flowrate of 2300 litres/hour include media packed into the filter? Likely no, as pointed out above.

2. Does this flowrate apply to all heights (the distance between the top of the tank and your filter pump). I think most would indicate the flowrate and the maximum delivery head. The latter refers to the highest point it can pump to,but it does mean the flowrate is consistent at 2300 litre/hour at all heights. Obviously at higher points, the flowrate will be reduced significantly. The loss in flowrate due to height is called "headloss".

Although the published flowrate for a filter could be, for eg 2300litre/hour, in actual fact, when we take into account the above two factors, it could only be a fraction. Any turns in the piping would reduce flowrate as well.

Hence, when we base our estimates purely on the cannister flowrate, we are being overly optimistic.

There is a cost to how much turnover we want for our tanks, in terms of more filters deployed, higher wattage (more electricity), etc. The optimal turnover differs for each tank, and will be one in which the tank will be effectively filtered:
Mechanical filtration (free of particles)
Biological filtration (free of ammonia & nitrite)
For eg in a low bioload tank, TO can be lower without harm to the fishes, whereas in a high bioload tank, it's better to have at least 4 times TO, and if possible even higher as it is difficult to calculate headloss and our estimates could be wrong. The higher TO is to give allowance for errors in estimation.

For those using cannister filters, it seems that the choice of increasing flowrate is a lot more limited. Short of adding another filter, an OHF, you can't do much else to raise the flowrate. For those with sump filtration, it is a lot easier, just changing the pump will improve flowrate.

actually 4x turnover is more than sufficient and i find it to be at optimum. If its too fast, your BB may not have enough cycletime to breakdown the NH4 and NO2

This was discussed in Atom's thread where he advocated a higher flowrate (as high as possible) and his solution is to increase the surface area in the sump (if I interpreted it correctly).
Anyway, I think a lot are not even hitting a TO of 4, so this is not so much of an issue. Most think they are doing better than 4, but this is an illusion, because headloss was never factored into their beliefs.