Filtration ----
- Thread starter chen88
- Start date
Joey
Moderator
I still did my water changes.... Usually a 50% every 5-10 days. 4 a month for sure.
hondas3000
New Member
why waste more water and time if its not necessary. If water test show no sign of bad water and fish have no sign of heavy breathing then I don't think there is better then that. What I would do is once in awhile I would add some seachem Prime to the water.
Joey
Moderator
Large water changes still have benifits that a drip does not.. thats why they can and generally should still be carried out... just not as often as you generally would. You can even get by on skipping them while away. They are not mandatory, but still benificial.
Dont add extra chemicals to the tank if they are not needed... whats the point?
Prime removes chlorine, chloramine and ammonia... all of which should not be in his tank anyway....
Dont add extra chemicals to the tank if they are not needed... whats the point?
Prime removes chlorine, chloramine and ammonia... all of which should not be in his tank anyway....
RDFISHGUY
New Member
Only water change I've done in the past year on my 230 was when I moved the tank across the room to make room for the 360. No problems at all. No sick fish. No ammonia. Before that I had some valves crater and overdosed Prime killing my ray. Its been running for a year problem free now. I don't even use the fancy carbon filters. Just sediment filters and dose with Prime. Even when the dosing pump quit working I still never had problems. We have chloramine in our water which I thought would be a problem but so far it hasn't caused me any grief.
I look at it this way: you can run the expensive filters and not know when their life expires or you can add Prime and refill your dosing container as it gets low. If you don't have chloramine in your tap water a jug of Prime goes a long way. If you do have chloramine get Seachem safe and dose for the amount of chloramine in your municipal water supply.
If you have no ammonia or nitrate readings then water changes are useless. You are doing water changes every day with the drip. This way everything stays constant. Large water changes will only cause large swings in your water parameters and lead to more problems IMO. At the end of the day its your tank and you have to do whatever makes you sleep at night.
I look at it this way: you can run the expensive filters and not know when their life expires or you can add Prime and refill your dosing container as it gets low. If you don't have chloramine in your tap water a jug of Prime goes a long way. If you do have chloramine get Seachem safe and dose for the amount of chloramine in your municipal water supply.
If you have no ammonia or nitrate readings then water changes are useless. You are doing water changes every day with the drip. This way everything stays constant. Large water changes will only cause large swings in your water parameters and lead to more problems IMO. At the end of the day its your tank and you have to do whatever makes you sleep at night.
hondas3000
New Member
Prime® also promotes the production and regeneration of the natural slime coat, and you also need to add prime when doing water change anyway. Beside I have no idea how effective my carbon filter remove chlorine so I just take extra step.
chen88
Super Moderator
Here's some simple shots of my drip/auto water changer system...quite easy to be honest but too me a good part of the day to install as I was also changing out some of my media in the sump and also waiting for everything to run properly. I used clear tubing to the drain for the reason that I am able to see the water flow from the sump to the drain...always like to see water flowing somewhere! Lol...
Here's the 1/4" incoming line from the filter into my main tank
1" Bulkhead from sump out to drain
45degree elbow out from cabinet to drain into basement...you can also see the 1/4" tubing incoming from the filter..I could have hard plumb this portion but then it would be hard for me to lift up my heating vent when I want to do any manual water change....also this is flexible so no concerns about the kids (or myself) wacking it..
Here's the drain and water line from filter in the basement...
Actually that's it...nothing magical, nothing too good looking
and took me almost 25 years to do (and longer if you guys hadn't started it here!)...lol
I'm on Day 6 of it being installed and still hesitant of no manual water change at the moment but will monitor water param's every other day for now...yesterdays reading for ammo and nitrate was "0"...PH was at 7.8-8.0 which is normal for my area....
I didn't realized the cap of my sump but I managed to filled only have of my compartment with 142 pcs of the BH from Eric...I thought I'd have a few left over so filled the rest with a Jap Mat like Mat I purchased from a Koi place in Markham early summer and only now had used it...it'll help break down the crap too before the water gets down to the BH and more..
I'm going to have a huge sale on my bio balls soon...lol...I have enough bio balls to fill at least 3 sump in my backyard..
Here's the 1/4" incoming line from the filter into my main tank
1" Bulkhead from sump out to drain
45degree elbow out from cabinet to drain into basement...you can also see the 1/4" tubing incoming from the filter..I could have hard plumb this portion but then it would be hard for me to lift up my heating vent when I want to do any manual water change....also this is flexible so no concerns about the kids (or myself) wacking it..
Here's the drain and water line from filter in the basement...
Actually that's it...nothing magical, nothing too good looking
and took me almost 25 years to do (and longer if you guys hadn't started it here!)...lol I'm on Day 6 of it being installed and still hesitant of no manual water change at the moment but will monitor water param's every other day for now...yesterdays reading for ammo and nitrate was "0"...PH was at 7.8-8.0 which is normal for my area....
I didn't realized the cap of my sump but I managed to filled only have of my compartment with 142 pcs of the BH from Eric...I thought I'd have a few left over so filled the rest with a Jap Mat like Mat I purchased from a Koi place in Markham early summer and only now had used it...it'll help break down the crap too before the water gets down to the BH and more..
I'm going to have a huge sale on my bio balls soon...lol...I have enough bio balls to fill at least 3 sump in my backyard..
hondas3000
New Member
looking good chen, except the pics where you have it through the heating vent . Look like you can heat up the water pipe with that too.
. Look like you can heat up the water pipe with that too.
chen88
Super Moderator
looking good chen, except the pics where you have it through the heating vent
Lol, I know, need to cover that! Lol
All I know is that tomorrow will be a full 7 days since my last manual water change and all readings are still 0. This going great so far!
danfong88
New Member
the return is tie wrap to the gas line? is that to building code???
It looks great !!! have the sump in the basement is great!!!! . You have pictures of your fish collections?
skynoch
Moderator
I base my drip rate on what will keep my tank at around 10-30 ppm nitrate. I good place to start is 100% tank turnover for a week.
rudy
Moderator
Why? he has a 1 inch Bulkhead. I would venture to guess...it would be right there!!
chen88
Super Moderator
Yes!....I've switched off my pump even before putting in the 1" bulkhead and never overflows as I also have a back flow valve on the output into the tank...but with the 1" bulkhead it flows right down into the drain so even with a power outage...and as long as the water is still available...I'll still have water change at 60-70gpd without power since I have my water dripping into the main tank!