Tropical Fish Forums

[Sacrophyton]

I know that mechanical filtration for reef tanks is not neccesary, and sometimes reccommended not to use... but theres a ton of debries floating around in my tank... especially when the powerheads turn on after they've been off for a while. does anybody know of a simple, mechanical only filter? I thought of another idea, but it is very time consuming; turn all powerheads off and let the debis settle on the bottem. then, vaccume the sand. unfortunetly, for me I have to bend over so I can control the flow of the vacume, or else it just sucks up the sand. after I've siphoned about 5 gallons of water out, let it sit in a bucket for about an hour. siphon the debis out of the bucket, taking only about half a gallon of water with it. then put the other four and a half gallons back in. I've done it with other tanks, and it takes about 1 hour of labor and 1 hour of waiting.

[Michael L.]

Aquaclear power filter perhaps? A guy that works at the lfs I go to runs two sets of powerheads at alternating times so that no dead spots occur. He has it all on a timer so that whenever the powerheads switch, a mechanical filter turns on for about 30 mins. Perhaps you could just run a cheap power filter like an Aquaclear for a little while after you pumps turn on and shut it off afterwards so no bacteria grows in it.
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[gm333]

Get a marineland H.O.T. magnum filter. just pop it on the tank once a week for 24hrs will clean up debris you have floating in the tank. Not to mention its a good idea for carbon every now and then anyhow.
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