# Filter question



## mlefev (Apr 19, 2005)

I have my 10 gallon set up, but I'm moving next week (hopefully they do ok for the move, I'm putting them in an ice chest full of the tank water), and wanted to make some changes since I have to empty it anyway. 

It's home to 3 tetras, 3 danios, 1 platy and a cory (yes I still need to get him a friend or 2 if I can without overcrowding). I want to get sand for the tank instead of gravel because the cory doesn't like it at all, and it's a pain to clean in my opinion. 

I wanted to know what kind of filters work well with sand. Right now I have the plain old underground filter that comes with about every new tank (plastic plates that go into the bottom of the tank, and the plastic tubes with the piping hooked to an airstone at the base) It does a terrible job of keeping the tank clean, and while I know tanks need quite a lot of maintenance, having to treat the water (mainly water changes) and clean things almost daily is rediculous.

So any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks in advance.


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

I have a 10 gallon tank with an Eheim Aquaball 2206








It works well, has adjustable water flow and you can point the outlet nozzle in just about any place you like, and it's easy to clean. However, the foam comes in only 1 piece, so it's a fiddle to replace (you don't want to replace it all at once, so the best thing to do is cut it in half, replace one half, then a few weeks later replace the other half) and (this is my biggest complaint) it rattles a little bit. I like my tanks to be silent. 

The tank on my 20 gallon is a Fluval 2 plus and I love this filter. I considered getting the Fluval one plus for my 1- gallon, but it seems that the Fluval 1 plus doesn't have many of the features of the 2, 3, and 4, such as two-part foam, adjustable flow, or adjustable direction of outlet.


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## mlefev (Apr 19, 2005)

Thanks  I'll look into getting one of those. I'm really tired of my filter. Only Petco carries the cartridge inserts (at least that's the only place I have found so far) and it doesn't work well at all.


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

I forgot to mention the most important thing: if you replace your filtration unit, and also throw away your gravel and replace it with sand, you are throwing away 100% of your good bacteria, and your tank will go through the whole new tank syndrome all over again, except this time it will have a pretty much full load of fish, unlike the first time you set it up (when hopefully you only had a few fish in, like the danios). Your ammonia and nitrie levels will skyrocket and it's a good chance that most if not all of your fish will die.

So I don't think that what you're planning is a good idea...

If you had thought about this 2 months ago, then this is what you could have done. You could have run the new filter in your tank to let it build up bacteria, gradually (if that's possible) shutting off your old filtration, so that when you were ready to move the new filter was providing all the filtration for the tank. And then when you moved the tank you could set it up with new sand, but with the seasoned filter, and your fish would probably be OK. (You'd lose some bacteria by losing the gravel, but most of the bacteria is in the filter so you'd probably have enough.)

You need to run a filter in an old tank for quite some time to build up the requisite quantities of bacteria! In setting up my 10 gallon tank I let the new Aquaball filter run for just over a week in my old tank, and when I put it into the new tank, 4 days later I got a big nitrite spike (but no ammonia). While the filter was in my old tank the ammonia -> nitrite bacteria had grown, but not the nitrite -> nitrate bacteria. So I was doing massive water changes for a week to keep my snails safe (I had a couple of apple snails in the tank) but 2 weeks after I added the snails and the fitler, it was fully cycled. 

The moral of this story is that even if you put a filter in an existing tank, you still have to wait plenty of time to let the bacteria grow. I would guess that at least 3 weeks are required to grow the necessary amount of bacteria.

But you don't have this time! I would suggest that you move the tank, keeping everything exactly as it is, keep the gravel, keep your old filtration system. Once you get to the new house and your tank is all set up, then get your new filter and let it run in the tank for at least 3 weeks, and then turn off your old filter. If ammonia and nitrite stay 0, you're ready for the next step. Put all your fish in a big bucket, take out the old gravel and filter, replace with new sand, put fish and now seasoned filter back in tank, and you've accomplished your makeover with very little risk to your fish.


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## Mr Aquarium (Jan 18, 2005)

Wouldn;t it work to if he ran the old filter on it when he set it back up and put the gravel in the leg of a pantyhose and put it in there after he puts the sand in, then run the new filter on it with the old filter for a couple months?
or even putting it in a bowl and setting it in there to maybe? putting the bowl under the old filters water flow to keep the sand from blowing around?

I have heard allot of variations of this type of thing in here and AC.


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## Mr Aquarium (Jan 18, 2005)

One other thing maybe, I am doing this on our 29g brackish tank, I didn;t have a subsrate for it so I took all the larger rocks out of my 75g tank awhile back so i just used them in it, then I am in the middle of changing that for really small river rock, so I moved it all to one side, and put the new rock on the other, then as soon as I get around to it, will do the other side.
it;s been a couple months maybe sence I did it, just neeed to finnish it now.


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

Mr Aquarium said:


> Wouldn;t it work to if he ran the old filter on it when he set it back up and put the gravel in the leg of a pantyhose and put it in there after he puts the sand in, then run the new filter on it with the old filter for a couple months?


I think the problem is that his (her?) old filter is an undergravel filter, in other words, the gravel *is* the filter media! And you really can't run an undergravel filter with sand. So that's why I think it's best the move the tank exactly as it is, and start running the new filter in the tank after the move, then (after a month or so) turn off the old filter, check ammonia & nitrite readings, and then swap the gravel for sand.


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

The gravel in the pantyhose works well. Just set it on top of the sand and keep stocking levels very low (2-3 fish per 10 days). This will allow the bacteria to spread and shouldn't shock the tank.


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## mlefev (Apr 19, 2005)

That sounds like a good idea. I've only had this tank set up for 2 months, but haven't lost any fish. I only let it cycle for 2 weeks, but used the filter cartridge inserts from the tank I had before. I have a family member that's actually bringing my fish to me about 3 weeks after I'm done moving, so if I set up a tank immediately and get the water parameters as close as possible to the tank they're living in, it probably would work. I'll keep thinking about it though. I don't want to harm my fish.


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

Hmmmm. I fear that your good bacteria will die if you leave them without food (fash waste) for three weeks. I would suggest taking just a few of your toughest fish (the 3 danios would be perfect) with you in a bucket when you move, and set up your tank immediately and put them in it. They will help feed the bacteria you have and allow it to settle into the new filter. I think if you leave the tank empty for 3 weeks, and then add all your fish, you'll have problems.


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