Percilus Posted December 17, 2014 Report Share Posted December 17, 2014 Hello all couple questions for those with planted tanks. I have been using purigen as biomedia in my hob. I know this might not be a great setup in the future when I plant and possibly use ferts. What do you guys use for bio media in your filters? I hear filter floss and lava rock might be better choices for bio media. Also recommend me a good quality canister filter please. I'd like to get away from using hob on my main tanks. My main tanks are only going to be 5-55 gallon sizes but you can never have too much filtration haha! Is there any way you could run 3 small tanks off one beast canister filter. I just think the maintenance on a canister would be less annoying and the filtration would be superior. Correct me if I'm wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kukayla Posted December 17, 2014 Report Share Posted December 17, 2014 I've got about 5lbs of ceramic rings and bio balls in my canister, along with purigen. I have purigen in 3 different planted tank setups. There are tons of people using purigen in the planted tank filter if you look online. Works wonders for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geleen Posted December 17, 2014 Report Share Posted December 17, 2014 Simple is better , some bio rings and some floss on top with a coarse sponge in the bottum. Purigen is not as efficient as ceramic rings as bio medium, and is a luxury. Smaller tanks do great with a HOB, above 30 gallon you could choose to use a canister.....Most are quite efficient and cannister wars are common. A cannister is designed for 1 tank; if you want to set up a system with drilled tanks and a sump you can run all of them of the one pump. I run most tanks onjust air driven foam filters but not to efficient in a planted tank as there is limited mechanical filtration. J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckmullin Posted December 17, 2014 Report Share Posted December 17, 2014 Depending upon what you've got in the tank you can actually run a planted tank with no filter...just something to move water from here to there. So the saying 'never enough filtration' is a misnomer. It depends upon tank specifics than anything else. I have a fully hi-tech 75g that I use a fluval 305 canister and it works perfectly for my needs. Go to the fabric store or walmart and get a nice big bag of quilt batting for $5.99 you have filter material for the life of your tank. I know purigen, used it and love it but it is not needed for a planted tank. You don't need carbon or any other filter additives other than just basic floss. You can use the $1 store plastic dish sponges as well as many people use this method. Like lighting for a planted tank -ham- people have as many opinion for canister filters. I like the fluval brand. One thing that I can say though look NOW till boxing day for a canister as the prices are about the best of the year. You can find fluval's 50% off during this time. Maintenance on a canister is changing out the floss 1x a month. Just that. People have changed the tubing that is typically included in the canister filter packages for various reasons so this is something that can also be looked at. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frogfish Posted December 17, 2014 Report Share Posted December 17, 2014 From bottom to top in the canisters I use sponges, floss, ceramic rings and top off with more floss/pillow stuffing. On the hob I use sponge and rings and sometimes floss if I've moved the substrate around too much when planting. Everything seems ok and from what research I have done all you really need is surface area so a filter full of sponges and a bit of floss would probably work as well as ceramic rings or lava rock. As far as maintenance goes they get a sponge squish, ring rinse and floss change whenever the flow output is reduced. As far as a recommendation for a canister check reviews and do some searching, I ended up with the filstar because I like how big the media baskets are and it's pretty easy to use and clean but it's not as quiet as I expected based on review and research. I find the hob to be easier to clean and I seem to have less issues with protein film on the tank with the hob. Another thing I like about the filstar is the volume of water it holds, makes me feel like I have more tank for some odd reason although the extra water also makes it heavy especially when pulling it out from under the cabinet while hunched over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Percilus Posted December 18, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2014 Thanks for the recommendations guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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