Canister vs live rock

A

antsld

Reefing newb
I know this has been gone through before and many people are against canister on the basis they are 'a nitrate factory'. I don't get it and it seems neither do RED SEA , AQUA MEDIC et all who supply plug and play aquariums with back of tank compartments which include compartments for a skimmer + mechanical + chemical and BIOLOGICAL (yes BIOLOGICAL) Filtration.

Nitrate factory....how can a canister filter with BIO filtration be more of a nitrate factory than live rock when both contain nitrifying bacteria and neither can produce more nitrate than there is nitrite to convert from ? - this assumes a good skimmer in both cases.

I'm not convinced about the de-nitrifying content of live live given that denitrifying anaerobic have to lay deep inside, and we all know that you have to be either 'lucky' or have some denitfying 'process' not to have to carry out regular water changes

I'm going to be upgrading my 20 Gall tank and I'm tempted to go for the following

Dead rock - fed up of unwanted 'guests'
canister filter (as stated above , similar to RED SEA and AQUA MEDIC setup really)
1st rate skimmer.
and.... RED SEA NO3 PO4 -x - works for me on my current setup...more or less zero nitrate and phosphate and no side effects
AI sol lighting

look forward to comments
 
Hello and Welcome!

The problem with a canister filter is that the media in there traps the particles before the rot, but you still have water moving through the filter. So after the particles do rot down to nitrates, they can just be washed back out to the main water column. Also you cannot set up an anaerobic zone in a canister filter to create an oxygen zone for denitritifing bacteria to set up residence to complete the nitrogen cycle.

A protein skimmer is different because it completely removes the dissolved organics from the water column before they can break down.

The live rock doesnt trap particle, they tend to stay suspended in the water column where they can be removed by a water change or a skimmer. Or the particles can fall down to the sand bed where they will make their way to a few oxygen free zones to become nitrate gas, which just leaves tank.

You arent seeing this because 1. your tank is small, its very easy to do a water change and remove enough of the organic material in the water before they become an issue in the canister filter 2. You have a protein skimmer on a small tank, that will remove most of the dissolved organics before they can get to your filter.
 
Hi, and welcome to the site. Since this is not really an introduction, but more question/comparison of your canister filter, I am moving it to the appropriate area.

I think Hannah has given you all the information you could hope for on the subject of the canister filter. There are people that run them on their systems, very few, but there are some. However, they remove the bio-balls as they do run these. Some people use them once a month or so to polish their water as well.

As for your up-grade, I would look into alternatives for your lighting. The AI Sol fixtures are missing alot of the lower spectrum of light. Most people run T5 lighting supplementation to make up for this loss of spectrum. I just spent the best part of 2 months researching LED lighting, trust me on that one. You would be better off with the Ecotech Radion (if it is in your price range), or the new Kessil A350 Tuna Blue if it is available in your area.
 
Re the AI Sol leds (vs T5 you recommend), I was keen on the AI having seen the usaage of them directly next to a tank using T5 and the colouration of the corals with the AI was quite frankly amazing in comparsion to those under T5's
 
antsld said:
Re the AI Sol leds (vs T5 you recommend), I was keen on the AI having seen the usaage of them directly next to a tank using T5 and the colouration of the corals with the AI was quite frankly amazing in comparsion to those under T5's
Click to expand...

What I said was, you will still need to run T5 lighting (in addition) to help make up for the missing spectrum of the AI fixtures.
 
I noted that - but what i said (or hoped I said) was one tank had AI Sol only and the other T5 only and the coral colour under AI was amazingly better. THe LFS stocking them had completely been 'converted' to LED and was in the process of changing all his MH and T5 to AI.

As a 'control' I phoned another (who I knew didn't think LED was up to much) and runs (well ran) all his corals under T5 - guess what...he now is also converted.

So if the colour under good LED's is much better...is there a downside ?
 
What I'm puzzled about tho is (as I stated in my 1st post) if big plug and play manufacturers (e.g. RED SEA) are (in practice) installing a canister filter in the back compartments, (as well as a skimmer) I would have expected them to have done this based on research
 
Well, if you are going to run LED for purposes of saving money on bulb replacement, then go for it. However, you will still need to run T5 actinic bulbs to make up for the missing spectrum from those particular fixtures. The issue with that is 2 fold. 1) you are still replacing T5 bulbs everey 9-12 months. 2) you are running more electricity by having to run the T5's in support of the AI fixtures.
My point was look into other fixtures that offer a wider, especially lower spectrum than the AI does. I'm not saying those are bad fixtures, just that they are lacking in the lower bluer spectrum in comparison to the others that are available.
 
Conceivably, if you completely cleaned out the detritus from your canister filter every 1 to 2 days (before the detritus breaks down into nitrates) and you had the right media in it -it would keep you water clean BUT cleaning in out that often would get old fast. I don't have a canister filter but some people have used them on a temporary basis with marine tanks in emergency situations to fix serious problems. Packed with carbon or phosphate, ammonia, or nitrate adsorption media and poly filter they can clean the water fast.
 
Isn't that what live rock does tho....convert the nitrites into nitrates ? No different to the biological process of a canister filter. If the sponge (mechanical filtration), the carbon (chemical filtration) was taken out and only ceramic rings left in the canister, wouldn't that be just the same as live rock (except in a canister) rather than the main tank ?

Has anyone else had experience of Red Sea NO3, PO4 x. My unerstanding is a alcohol based liquid feeding system which creates bacteria to feed on the nitrates...then the 'stuff' remaining is then skimmed away...works for me - never have to do water changes
 
antsld said:
Isn't that what live rock does tho....convert the nitrites into nitrates ? No different to the biological process of a canister filter. If the sponge (mechanical filtration), the carbon (chemical filtration) was taken out and only ceramic rings left in the canister, wouldn't that be just the same as live rock (except in a canister) rather than the main tank ?

Has anyone else had experience of Red Sea NO3, PO4 x. My unerstanding is a alcohol based liquid feeding system which creates bacteria to feed on the nitrates...then the 'stuff' remaining is then skimmed away...works for me - never have to do water changes
Click to expand...

You should still be doing water changes to replace things like iodine that are used by inverts. There is no 'magic bottle' that will eliminate the need for water changes
 
thanks for your comments on canister vs live rock. I received a comment which explained clearly the downside of canister
 

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