filter 400 on 55

[kirtis]

http://www.petdiscounters.com/aquarium/filters/ml_emperor_400.html


please look at this link and tell me if this would be a good filter for my 55 gallon fish tank when i set it up , it pumps 400 gallons of water in one hour, that is a bunch of wahte,r maybe to much for my 55 ??????

 

[mtellin]

If you have a good amount of live rock, a DSB, and a good protein skimmer the Emperor is really kind of uncessary unless you want to run carbon once in awhile, and if thats the case the are cheaper ways to do it then spending 65.00

If you have a sump just but some carbon in a mesh bag for about a week a month. BTW, that is definitely not too much flow by itself, you should have between 10x and 20x turnover rate in your tank(just a general rule of thumb)

Mike

 

[kirtis]

ok thanks for posting but what is a dsb, also , when i do set it up , i am gonna go or try to go slow , so i won't have to have a skimmer yet will I ??? somneone told me that if i don't over crowd my fish that that filter i showed you would be plenty to filter the water, he said taht protein skimmers are good but i don't have to have one unless i notice a film growing on the top of my tank,,, how much would a skimmer be for a 55 gallon

 

[kirtis]

and why would i want to run carbon i have never heard of that before

 

[monkeyboy]

The emporer isn't too much for your tank at all. It would probably do fine w/ just fish but would be rendered useless ( like mtellin said) if you had a good dsb (deep live sand bed) and around a pound per gallon of live rock. Personally i would stay away from the outside power filters for your tank and get a sump. The overflow box would have a prefilter in it for some mechanical filtration, and you can drop a bag of carbon in the sump (in sump skimmers are usually a little cheaper than their hang on counterparts for the most part). Activated carbon is highly purified pellets of carbon that both absorb and adsorb (chemically bond) w/ organic wastes. The general consensus @ reefs.org is to run a bag for around 3 days to a week once a month to remove any residual yellowness in the water. So IMO, i would set up the 55 w/ an overflow box, a sump, and a strong return pump. It can be run w/out a skimmer for now but i would suggest one for every tank. Skimmers for your 55 will range from as low as 60 bucks to 400+ so do some major research first.
This would be set up w/ a deep live sand bed and plenty of live rock.

HTH

[ November 01, 2001: Message edited by: monkeyboy ]</p>