Filtration for 125 gallon tank

[Funfin]

I will be upgrading my 50 gallon tank to 125 gallon. I got a good deal on Craiglist and the tank is in storage as I buy the equipment.

The tank will house 4 goldfish, a bristlenose pleco and applesnails. Yup the pooping crew. This tank will need good filtration.

After much investigating, I bought a marineland c530 canister. It was on sale for $149 - a great price.....and in my budget.

I got it yesterday.....I didn't realize that it was HUGE. My concern is the mntainence. I'm not a strong lady and if this thing is full of water I won't be able to lift it. Does the canister part need to be scrubbed regularly? The media boxes don't have me concerned - it's the actually canister part that has me wooried.

Any words of wisdom? Should I stick with HOB?

[Rocksor]

If you remove the media baskets and put them temporarily in a 5 gallon bucket, you should be able to scoop out the water inside.

You should be able to get away with not having to rinse the inside for 6 months, especially if you just scoop out the water and detris floating that is in there.

If you have room under your stand, you could get those pullout metal sliding shelves and set the C530 on top of that to make it easier to remove it.

See the link to see how this person attached the sliding shelves to the stand

http://www.oscarfish.com/oscar-forum...6343/start,50/

[Funfin]

That's a great idea....a pull out shelve.

Thanks for the link.

[Angelfish11788]

wow, good ideal, this would've helped on my 500.. welp

[jcahow]

I run a number of canister filters and I find that by placing pre-filters over my intake tubes I drastically cut down on filter maintenance. That being said, I clean the pre-filters every week when changing water (rinse in sink, squeeze out water, swish in tank water) otherwise they start to diminish canister flow rates. I only open up and clean a canister when the flow rate has dropped with the pre-filter off.

If your canister(s) are outside your stand then you can use the same water changing tool to suck water/debris out of a canister (after removing baskets)
and then refill it (pour in some conditioner).

If your canister(s) are inside your stand then I would place them in plastic containers (wash basin) which helps prevent leakage and makes them easy to pull out and move around.

[Funfin]

Thanks jcahow

Great suggestions.

Well with everyone's insight...im keeping the canister. Now it doesn't seem impossible to clean it.

[Cermet]

As long as the biomedia and any filtering media in the trays can be removed and cleaned, there is no reason to ever to 'scrub' out the canister. The bacteria on the walls is the good type and does only good - removing it is just throwing away good filter area (minor compared to the tray media but still good.) Of course, after removing the trays, the remaining water maybe very dirty and you'd want to get rid of at as outlined here by others.

[dbosman]

A wet/dry shop vac on wheels should be on your holiday wish list.

Some have a drain that you can connect a hose to. One model, the name of which escapes me at the moment, offers a pump that attaches to the drain to pump the water up a garden hose.

[aqualife]

Hi no you should never 'scrub' a filter as you are simply washing away benificial bacteria

[Funfin]

I didn't realize its more important to remove the water in the canister than cleaning the canister.

The list of "things needed" for this monster tank keeps growing....I think the shop vac would be a great addition.

Greatly appreciate the input.