help on filtration in my tank

[Britishseapowerr]

I have a 100 gallon tank with a snowflake eel, live rock and an assortment of fish. Right now I am running an undergravel filter through a powerhead and nice canister filter. My water is pretty clean and I haven't really had any issues but I was wondering if anybody had any suggestions on improving my filtration. Would a protein skimmer help since there is nothing really filtering particulate matter on the top of the tank? Or should I invest i a reverse powerhead and run my UGF reverse flow, and if i was doing this would a protein skimmer be necessary. Any help or ideas would be great, thanks

 

[Bifferwine]

Hi and welcome!

Undergravel filters are for freshwater, not saltwater, so my main suggestion would be to remove it entirely. Unfortunately, in an already set up tank, that's quite an undertaking. Undergravel filters lead to poor water quality in saltwater tanks, because crap, detritus and gunk gets trapped in the "no man's land" between the plate and the bottom of the tank, and there's nothing to get rid of it. It just rots, and is spit back into your water.

Canister filters are also not usually a good idea for saltwater. They also tend to lead to nitrate problems.

The best type of filtration you can have is a protein skimmer. If you get a protein skimmer, you don't need any other type of filtration. Protein skimmers are a hundred times more useful than any other type of filter out there, for saltwater.

What are your nitrates reading at? What does "pretty clean" mean?

Any chance your set up used to be freshwater?

 

[Britishseapowerr]

I bought the tank from somebody who had been running it with coral and fish saltwater so it was saltwater before I bought it I don't know about before that. As for the ugf, I know that space is a problem but I have been told that running it normal flow will get rid of gunk beneath the plates and running it reverse flow will eliminate extremely frequent water changes. The canister filter is used more for activated carbon and biological filtration. My ammonia levels are stable rarely going too high above zero only during feeding times too. I am buying a protein skimmer no matter what but is running this setup going to hinder my tank at all?

 

[Smitty]

Hello and welcome to the site...A good protein skimmer rated for twice the size of your tank and 1-2lbs or live rock per gal is the best filtration for your tank...since the tank is established already and you can't remove the ugf, just disconnect the tubes running to the bottom plate and then cover the hole(s) with the substrate.

 

[Bifferwine]

If your ammonia levels EVER go above zero (or as you say, "too high above zero") then you've got major problems. Ammonia should never ever be anything but zero. And ammonia levels should not go up when you feed, as you say they do in your tank. This is very strong evidence that you need to fix your filtration ASAP, as even very small levels of ammonia are fatal to fish and inverts. Ammonia is not found in healthy tanks.