The Puffer Forum

A cannister will just produce nitrates, not worth using. I would sell it and use the money towards a sump or live rock. A sump is the smaller tank under the display tank, this will house your skimmer, live rock, heaters and any other jazz you don't wish to have in the main tank. Clowns don't play nice with puffers as they tend to nip, this will eventually upset your porc who will likely have a good clown lunch. Puffer tails taste good to clowns. Tbh a 120g fowlr is only really suitable for the porc alone, if that.

Canisters are traditionally bacterial filters and also particle filters. If uou use SW bacterial filtration you are locked onto 50% water partials weekly, which is massively $$$.

FOWLR + skimmer + macroalgae refugium does not need particulate filtration ordinarily. It kills too many valuable micro- and low macro-life forms which are valuable to the system. This pretty much makes external canisters useless, but I have used them as current producers with in-tank fine filter intakes to protect micro life forms fron being pulled into the pumps. That leaves the external canister itself empty but does provide current flow. Those internal prefilters I rinse every other day to weekly, depending on the set-up need for current fine-tuning. My set-up tend to be muti-tanked, so frequently have sufficient return flow from the refugia to not require extra current flow in the display. If ypou are trying to operate a single-tank set-up, you will need to provide for curret in the display by some means. The skimmer retun will not by itself provide enough flow in the dispaly by itself IME.

Thanks I was hoping someone would explain exactly why I couldn't use the can most people just state don't.

good news for the wife grab her a tank and we have the filter for the discus she has always wanted to keep.

I'll be looking into skimmers and sumps any recommendations on the type of algae to use to use?

"Sump" is an over-used and misused word. It really means simply another tank connected with a display tank. yje secondary tan histirically and most commonly is below the display tank, but it can be on the same level, beside or behind the display; or above the display. Also historically the "sump" (i.e., the accesory tank) housed the utiliyies such as mechanical and biological filtration, heaters, skimmers, etc. - all the less than attractive utilities. I sump can be just for proving more water volume for the fish. Public aquarium displays frequently us accessory tanks for certain dispays to make the fish more visible, but with a second tank behind the display to double the water volume - where crowding or swimming space is not a stress issue. We can do the same things at home.

Sump does not mean filtration only. There are potentially many different uses, but utility space and increased total working volume are the most common. Iuse accessory tanks for: grow-out for fry, housing utilities such as 24/7 lighted macroalgae refugis, reversed and/or same light cycle veggie filters, external plenums or DSB (deep sand beds), mechanical filtration, biological filtration, extra LR (allowing more swimming space in the display), or simply for increased total water volume (Pufferpunk's signature line of "The solution to pollution is dilution"). Sump are just extra tanks used to make your life easier and/or your system look and work better.

HTH