Struggling with water clarity.

Hi guys I really need some help and advice. As you may or may not lmow I recently serup a new tank after my 20 year old 1.5 meter sprang a leak.

The new tank is also 1.5m but much taller, it holds around 400 liters of water. I am running my Treta 1200 bio filter, 1x internal power head for circulation and aeration and also the over head filter supplied with the tank and a water polisher, which has now become a permanent fixture and filter wool is replaced weekly.

With the kind of heat we have been experiencing in GP in the past few week, i have resorted to weeky water changes. Now this is only a temp fix and the water is then fine for 3 to 5 days, then gets cloudy again.

I dont think i am over filtering, but its the first time i have ever used the top hanging filter and i suspect this is causing my headache.

I do have a bag of purigen not uet used and never used before but now i am considering it.

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@David Kusner ,

Past experience we have had with those over head filters supplied with the tanks, in two tanks we had, was that they useless and gave us grey hairs
The pumps that come with them ae not strong enough and the amount of media they hold is not enough
We eventually gave up on them
I have also heard dozens of people complain of the same thing and in your case it will be worse as the fish you have are not small and produce quite some b load

The Tetra 1200, I assume is turning 1200l per hour, on your 400 liter, its circulating the water 3 times per hour which is bare minimum for normal fish.. you have fish that as I said, produce quite a lot of bio load
Personally, I would either try DIY an overflow and add a sump to that tank with a decent sized pump or, add a big canister like a Fx6 or Dophin C2400.
I prefer a sump as it gives space for much more media, extra volume of water and much easier to clean
I have no problem cleaning my 2m sump on my own but I always had to ask @Cesar to help clean my canisters as I do not have the strength to move them

This is how I feel.....

 

Thanks @MariaS, what you said makes 100% sense, I took it for granted that my Tetra 1200 would do the job not doing the sums properly, so i see where I went wrong and yes the overhead filter is just useless. I have arrange for another external BIO filter, a big SICCE Whale 500 and will run the Tetra together with it. That should do the trick and then I can remove the overhead as its useless. I unfortunately dont really have the space for a SUMP as much as I would like to have one. Sadly the cabinet that came with the new tank is not great quality, it really cheap built and bad designed in terms of space. Also I already had a spill inside the cabinet which I lucky caught in time so it did not cause much damage and I cannot risk it again.

I am sure the combination of 2x canisters moving around 2500 liters per hour, plus a big water polisher should do the the trick!

 

That sounds good, should sort you out

Good luck.

 

You don't state exactly - Is your water cloudy or does it have suspended particles in it.? It might just be that if it is a new tank your filters have not matured yet and could just simply be an algae bloom which will go way by itself - but can also last for a few weeks! If it's suspended things in the water then yes mechanical filtration will sort out the problem

 

It looks like a combination of both. The current canister filter on their, the 1200EX was taken directly from the old tank and the water was transfused between the 2 tanks before the fish were moved in. Obviously the substrate is new, I used PFS which I have never done before and besides what @MariaS pointed out, I am also starting to think that I may have to much substrate in the tank. Although with big fish, they have completely rescaped the tank for me about 5 times now since I put them in 2 months ago. I am about to add another canister with purigen this time to see what happens.

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@David Kusner ,

The water you transferred from the other tank isnt the cause.. we going to do the same this weekend with @Cesar's new tank.. that water is long gone with your water changes
PFS isnt the problem either, we use it on all our tanks and my water is crystal clear
The master rescapers ... Our tanks get rescaped right through the day.. sometimes frustrating but on the other hand, no dirt is trapped under your substrate ( i try to think positive there)

I honestly think the problem is that filter that comes with the tank.. its just not doing the job
I am sure a decent canister is going to help a lot

I was just running thoughts through my head on this tank and remembered how high this tank is.... the hight could be a challenge in terms of filtration and keeping the water crystal clear and my reasoning is that the suction power of a canister is usually aimed at sucking up debris fom tanks with an average height of 65/70cm
With the tank being so height, you could find it will be a challenge for the canister to vacuum in debris that is floating at a height higher than the average tank
Am I making any sense?
You need the canister to be pretty powerful and just a thought... if it can be done.. raise the intake of the canister a bit higher up and not leave it at the bottom as it usually is so that its vacuuming in water from higher up in the tank

The height of this tank, it was a pity you didnt have it custom built with an internal filter built along the side with holes all the way up the side of the tank
In this way the water and debris is constantly being sucked in at all heights of the tank
My internal filters have i think4 or 5 holes from bottom to top along the side so all my debris is being drawn into the filter constantly at all levels of the water column

Just give this some thought ( if I have made sense) and play around with ideas

 

@MariaS ,

Thanks for the detailed advice, you have given me somethings to consider. I did manage to get another Canister filter and made some mods on the input line, by replacing the current inlet pipe that came with it with a much larger diameter one, so that the flow and suction into the canister will be higher, also it makes it much easier to siphon. This canister has 4 baskets so I used 2 grades of sponge media in the bottom 2 trays and some matrix and ceramics and purigen in the other 2.

I already noticed the difference this morning. I am also going to custom build a new spray bar over this weekend to run down the back of the, since now I will have extra space once I remove the overhead filter. I plan to build a spray bar with 20mm PVC and experiment with different lengths and hole sizes. My idea is to get the return water back to the tank, distributed evenly once pumped back.

 

@David Kusner ...

I was just tossing ideas around and thinking out loud... even if only some of it helps its great

If you already saw a difference this morning, its a good start..
The PVC spray bar is a good idea, it will also assist in pushing the debris to the intake.
@Cesar has just done the same in the new tank on the return from the sump
As you say, you will have to experiment with length and size of holes as this will all depend on the strength of the flow from the canister

Sometimes it takes a little while to find the 'perfect' balance but you will get there!