The Puffer Forum

I just bought a 75gal aquarium, and want some opinions on a canister filter.

It was suggested I get the fluval 405, but I'm getting mixed reviews.
What would you all suggest? It will be for a freshwater tank, transitioning into brackish, then eventually salt. I'm stockig it with two GSP.

Yesterday, we were talking about the Equipment for a transition BW tank.
I think the best is to elaborate a Sump filter, and later, when SG rises above 1.015 put a Skimmer to save WC.

Thats cuz Sumps work just like a canister for FW and will work good from BW to SW...
But if you want a canister anyway.. any filter that moves 500g/h its enough.

I read that you need to drill your tank with a sump filter, is this true with all sump filters?

You don't have to drill the tank, you can use the method of a siphon, but if there's a power outage, you might end up with water everywhere...

I run a Fluval 405 on a 75 and I love it (also a large spong filter and AC70 for surface agitation)... I really like my filtration.

I also have a Fluval 305 on a 55 gallon brackish tank with my Ceylon in it. I have the salt at about 1.017. I slowly brought the salt up to this level from fresh water as he grew. No skimmer, but I do 50% WCs a week on it.

You don't need a sump for freshwater if you have good filtration. I like to save money, and have used the aquatop filters from eBay without any problems in the past years. Go with a known brand if you want to play it safe. The rule of thumb is 10x the gph as the gallons in your tank. So, with my Fahaka's 150 gallon I have 2 525gph canister filters running, and will add third of the same filter once he reaches a larger size.

I just noticed you said it was going to transition to BW and then SW. In that case, a sump would be a good idea IMO, but isn't an absolute necessity on that size tank if you keep up on your water changes. I'm sure there are some who would disagree with me though.

If your gonna transition your tank from fw to sw a sump would be a good Idea ! A sump will not overflow during power outages if the return is set to the right height! I have mine set at water level or just below so when the power goes out it will only drain till the water can no longer drain from tank!

Hm okay. I will research a bit more with the sump filtration system, since I really am not familiar with it.

Thanks for your input everyone

http://www.melevsreef.com for sump info. How big is the tank? How long will it be before you go SW?

My tank is a 75gal, and it will probably be a couple months. I want to do it slowly, because the GSP I am getting is smaller, in fresh water now. So I will be doing raising my SG every two weeks by .002 once I actually get the GSP. I still need to cycle my tank.

I also won't be buying a filtration system for two weeks. So once I have that, I will start setting up and cycling.


Also, off topic question, when I get to sw, would a clown fish (with lots of corals, enemies, ect) just be a small snack to a GSP, if it's it's only tank mate?

Anemones may actually kill your GSP, and your GSP may eat the corals anyway. And clownfish are mean most of the time, he may end up eating your GSPs tail or something.

Stephjls wrote: (with lots of corals, enemies, ect)

I hope your not going to but corals and enemies in there that would just be mean. LOL I think you ment anemone(dont worry i had to google it to spell it right LMAO)

And with all puffers its hit or miss as to what they will be ok with. Most will not be good with corals and from what ive read clowns can be/are very aggressive and might mess with the puffer

I'm pretty sure they were just being silly or auto correct got them
I'd steer clear of enemies and clownfish with a gsp as well.

Bananas, yes anemone*. I'm not sure why my ipad isn't recognizing that as a word.

Okay, I'll just get the two GSP instead of testing the waters with other tank mates.

(looking over this post I see my auto correct has changed "bahahaha" into bananas.. )

Autocorrect FTW