[fozard]

Hi All

New to the forum. Have had aquariums throughout the years, but they were fairly basic (10g-30g) with minimal plants. I recently bought a CADE 59 gallon rimless tank which I plan to aquascape with quite a lot of plants and maybe ~20 tetra's. I'm hoping I could get some help with equipment recommendations. Note: I am in Canada.

Filter:
After purchasing the tank, I went ahead and purchased a Fluval 307 because it was advertised as working with a tank size of 40-70 gallons. After reading these forums, this advertisement seems misleading and this filter does not seem to be adequate. I bought it online and the retailer wants to charge me their shipping cost, plus my cost to ship it back if I return it (will be close to $50 total I would lose should I decide to return it). Will this filter be severely lacking for what I'm trying to do? I'm willing to eat this cost if this truly wont' work, but hate the idea of throwing that money away. I don't have an alternate use for it. I thought about simply using two filters, but considering this is a rimless aquascape, I'd like to keep equipment visibility to a minimum so two sets of intakes/outlets is not ideal. I have also seen stainless steel intake/outlets which look really nice, but seem to be more troublesome to hook up to a fluval? I think Eheim filters allow them to hook up without issue? (i.e. no ribbed hoses). Also, I'm not sure if there is more 'reliable' equipment in terms of leaks, but if so, I'd lean towards that.

Heater:
I have seen inline heaters that would help with reducing the equipment visibility, but they seem to be a bit more involved hooking up to a fluval (i.e. ribbed hoses)? I'm also aware that some filters have heaters built in, but these seem like fairly high end filters and may be overkill for my setup?

Lights:
No clue on this.... I really like the look/style of the light coming off an arm on the back. As for plants, I don't have specifics as of yet, but will likely end up with a large variety so will want enough light to support a variety of low/moderate.

Realize I am probably missing key information to help with recommendations, so happy to answer any questions.

Would appreciate any help you could offer!

Thanks!

 

[x0769]

Sounds like a good start so far. Like you said, rimless tanks are great, and the less equipment seen the better. I recently switched from a HOB filter to a canister, and visually it's been awesome. I have a Sunsun 302 for my 10ish gallon rimless and use glass lily pipes with it.

You mentioned about leaks and connecting, but I've had no issues with the glass pipes with the Sunsun. The Sunsun came with plastic pipes which I didn't use. I connect a 17mm glass intake to the 5/8" tube that came with the filter without issues. For the glass outflow, I'm using a 13mm spin type pipe since a 13mm lily was too much flow. I had to use a 13 mm tube to connect the pipe to the 5/8" Sunsun tube.

Hopefully we get to see the finished setup of your tank!

Sent from my SM-G988U1 using Tapatalk

 

[EmotionalFescue]

The Fluvals come with ribbed tubing, but you can replace it with standard 5/8" ID tubing (i'm partial to Lee's pond tubing), at least with the 307. Not sure about the 407. The FX4 uses 1" ID tubing.

5/8" tubing works with 16/22mm glass lily pipes.

 

[mboley]

Yes, you definitely need a larger cannister. I run a Oase 600 with a built in heater on a 50 gallon tank, the bigger filter the better. Are you sure about $50 to send it back, it cant be that heavy.

On lighting Im a T5 advocate but also have a tank with a Twinstar S Series led. Be aware there are lots of crummy led fixtures out there. The key is finding one with lots of red and blue diodes, like the Twinstar.

If you havent read the 2hr Aquarist website I would highly recommend it. Tons of expert info there. Good Luck!


Sent from my SM-A205U using Tapatalk

 

[fozard]

Yes, you definitely need a larger cannister. I run a Oase 600 with a built in heater on a 50 gallon tank, the bigger filter the better. Are you sure about $50 to send it back, it cant be that heavy.

On lighting Im a T5 advocate but also have a tank with a Twinstar S Series led. Be aware there are lots of crummy led fixtures out there. The key is finding one with lots of red and blue diodes, like the Twinstar.

If you havent read the 2hr Aquarist website I would highly recommend it. Tons of expert info there. Good Luck!


Sent from my SM-A205U using Tapatalk

Nice, I'll check that website out. Yes, the $50 shipping is their cost of shipping it to me, plus my cost to ship it back to them. Also in Canada, and our shipping tends to be a bit more than the US it seems.

 

[minorhero]

In order to figure out the size of the filter you need you take the number of gallons per hour and cut that in half. This gives you an idea about how much their marketing is lying to you. In this case the 307 is advertised at 303 gallons per hour. So its really about 150 gallons per hour once you add the media into the tank and once you add the head pressure from the floor to tank height. You should be shooting for 4 to 8 times turn over of tank volume per hour. In your case you have 59 gallon tank so 150 / 59 = 2.59. So not good enough. If it were me I'd either hold onto the filter for use in a future (smaller) tank or bite the bullet and send it back.

You want a filter that is going to provide an advertised minimum of 470 gallons per hour. This basically means you are buying either one of the bigger sunsun filters, a fluval fx4 or one of the bigger eheim filters. Its a lot easier to go down in flow then it is to go up. Meaning, you can turn down the flow of a filter that's a little too big but the only way to make a filter more powerful is to buy a bigger one.

As others mentioned you can easily discard the fluval filter hose and go with normal tubing. For the fx4 you can buy a barbed reducer and make the filter use smaller hoses as well.

 

[fozard]

In order to figure out the size of the filter you need you take the number of gallons per hour and cut that in half. This gives you an idea about how much their marketing is lying to you. In this case the 307 is advertised at 303 gallons per hour. So its really about 150 gallons per hour once you add the media into the tank and once you add the head pressure from the floor to tank height. You should be shooting for 4 to 8 times turn over of tank volume per hour. In your case you have 59 gallon tank so 150 / 59 = 2.59. So not good enough. If it were me I'd either hold onto the filter for use in a future (smaller) tank or bite the bullet and send it back.

You want a filter that is going to provide an advertised minimum of 470 gallons per hour. This basically means you are buying either one of the bigger sunsun filters, a fluval fx4 or one of the bigger eheim filters. Its a lot easier to go down in flow then it is to go up. Meaning, you can turn down the flow of a filter that's a little too big but the only way to make a filter more powerful is to buy a bigger one.

As others mentioned you can easily discard the fluval filter hose and go with normal tubing. For the fx4 you can buy a barbed reducer and make the filter use smaller hoses as well.

Good info, thank you. Does reducing the hose size hurt the filter in the long term? Would assume the hose size is a certain size for a reason?

 

[minorhero]

Good info, thank you. Does reducing the hose size hurt the filter in the long term? Would assume the hose size is a certain size for a reason?

Reducing the hose size can reduce the amount of flow the filter is producing. It does not have any long term or short term effects on the filter since the impeller is an electro magnet not a geared device. There is no ability for the different pressures to hurt the filter. This is why better quality filters will often have a way of controlling flow built into the filter (essentially ball valves).

 

[abobo80]

Silicone tubing, broken record but it's a game changer compared to every other type I've tried over 25 total years in the hobby.

 

[fozard]

Reducing the hose size can reduce the amount of flow the filter is producing. It does not have any long term or short term effects on the filter since the impeller is an electro magnet not a geared device. There is no ability for the different pressures to hurt the filter. This is why better quality filters will often have a way of controlling flow built into the filter (essentially ball valves).

Ok thanks. So I guess that same logic would apply to running an in-line heater after the FX4? No issue?

 

[minorhero]

Ok thanks. So I guess that same logic would apply to running an in-line heater after the FX4? No issue?

Correct. I am still in equipment gathering stages for my own 75 gallon tank but I will be running a heater after the fx4 as well.

 

[fozard]

So it looks like some plausible options would be ($=CDN$):

1. FX4 ($400) plus the cost of an inline heater ($110), so $510 total. Rated for Rated for 450 GPH.
2. Biomaster 800 thermo. ($571), plus no cost for an inline heater as its built in. Rated for 400 GPH. (I guess based on the above this is not enough for a 59 gallon tank)?
3. Eheim professional 5e 700 ($560) plus the cost of an inline heater ($110), so $670 total. Rated for 488 GPH.

I can't seem to source a SunSun filter in Canada. Thoughts/recommendations? Any others to consider?

 

[*Ci*]

I’m in Canada, as well. I went with 2 Biomaster 350’s for my 68g tank and am very happy with them. Yes, the built in heater (which frees up the tubes for other in line equipment) is great but especially for the built in prefilters. I have been rinsing them every two weeks and when I decided to open the canister up after 6 mo. of running, it was spotless.
All of your choices are basically in the same range - just close your eyes and go for the best of all possibilities (lol).

 

[fozard]

Was thinking that running two filters may not be such a bad idea after all. Seems like 2x fluval 307’s would get me 412gph total which seems close to the gph recommendation for my 60g tank. Having the exact same filter would help in terms of spare parts (unless the 407 uses the same parts in which case that might be a better idea). Would think having 2 intakes/outlets would help with water movement in the tank as well? Not overly keen on having 4 sets of hoses in the tank but I plan on running glass lily pipes so hoping it won’t take too much away from the aquascape.

Thoughts?

 

[ZChalk]

A Fluval 407 would give you that flow you are looking for but the 307 would probably be adequate given your plan to keep just tetras. With a planted tank you don't really need to focus on the biological filtration (you have plants). The filter would mainly be used for mechanical and chemical filtration. Two canisters would be overkill and look cluttered IMO. As long as you keep up with your weekly water changes (i.e. ~50%) it will do wonders for the health of your aquarium than any type of filter you can throw on. If you feel like there is not enough movement you can always opt to add a power head. Just remember back in the day people use to maintain aquariums with filter boxes that contained just floss and carbon that were driven by an air pump.

With the heater, it might not be necessary. If you maintain your household temperature around the 21-23C then you can get away with no heater.

 

[fozard]

A Fluval 407 would give you that flow you are looking for but the 307 would probably be adequate given your plan to keep just tetras. With a planted tank you don't really need to focus on the biological filtration (you have plants). The filter would mainly be used for mechanical and chemical filtration. Two canisters would be overkill and look cluttered IMO. As long as you keep up with your weekly water changes (i.e. ~50%) it will do wonders for the health of your aquarium than any type of filter you can throw on. If you feel like there is not enough movement you can always opt to add a power head. Just remember back in the day people use to maintain aquariums with filter boxes that contained just floss and carbon that were driven by an air pump.

With the heater, it might not be necessary. If you maintain your household temperature around the 21-23C then you can get away with no heater.

Thanks for the reply. Bit confused as I’m getting mix direction in terms of how many filter gph I would need though. Seems like the 307 is less than half of what is being recommended in an earlier reply.

 

[Asteroid]

Thanks for the reply. Bit confused as I’m getting mix direction in terms of how many filter gph I would need though. Seems like the 307 is less than half of what is being recommended in an earlier reply.

There really isn't any hard and fast rules with filter turnover in a planted tank. I've had extremely clean and healthy tanks with an effective turnover over 1x and had them with 5x. In most high tech tanks, your changing water once a week, have good plant growth, fish load is low. Once the tank establishes most of the filtration is in the tank via substrate and plant uptake. So you just need to concern yourself with flow. All you need is gentile flow across the tank. It doesn't take much to move dissolved co2 and ferts.

 

[mourip]

Yes, you definitely need a larger cannister. I run a Oase 600 with a built in heater on a 50 gallon tank, the bigger filter the better. Are you sure about $50 to send it back, it cant be that heavy.

On lighting Im a T5 advocate but also have a tank with a Twinstar S Series led. Be aware there are lots of crummy led fixtures out there. The key is finding one with lots of red and blue diodes, like the Twinstar.

If you havent read the 2hr Aquarist website I would highly recommend it. Tons of expert info there. Good Luck

Totally agree.

I have an Oase 600 Biomaster Thermo on my 75g rimless tank and it is ideal. Built-in heater and removable prefilter.
Be sure to plan your layout to allow circular return flow across the back of your tank.
The prefilter is very useful for returning adventurous neo shrimp back to the tank unharmed. They seem to think that my lily pipe surface skimmer is a water slide
I use an Inkbird heater controller as a failsafe guard for the heater.
I also use a Twinstar SA light with a dimmer/timer and it is a great setup that you can adjust to meet pretty much any needs.

 

[brohawk]

Was thinking that running two filters may not be such a bad idea after all. Seems like 2x fluval 307’s would get me 412gph total which seems close to the gph recommendation for my 60g tank. Having the exact same filter would help in terms of spare parts (unless the 407 uses the same parts in which case that might be a better idea). Would think having 2 intakes/outlets would help with water movement in the tank as well? Not overly keen on having 4 sets of hoses in the tank but I plan on running glass lily pipes so hoping it won’t take too much away from the aquascape.

Thoughts?

I'd recommend 2 filters myself. You'll have more consistent flow throughout the tank, vs heavy flow on one side and calmer on the other. I run two Eheims, 2215 and 2217, on my 57 gallon and flow is good throughout. I don't find the extra set of lily pipes to be too distracting either.