Filtration options

[Hevgotdat4u]

What kind of filtration should I put on a 220 gallon African Cichlid tank (Malawi)

[Ray Ritola]

I would think the easiest and cheapest would be a sump. It would also keep all the hardware (heater, filter media and pumps out of your display).

That or look at one of these inline filters like Ocean Clear (http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/p ... catid=3662)

[Hevgotdat4u]

Thank you I prefer sumps canisters just aren't an option.I've been on the Marine kick for about ten years how many tank turnovers through the sump for freshwater.

[Ray Ritola]

I feel as though that will vary for the type of freshwater. My personal thought is to try to at least turn it over 3-4 times an hour but I havent played around with freshwater in a while.

My last freshwater system was a live planted Discus tank (which IMO was more difficult to take care of than my full sw reef system). I was running a supposed 150 gallons worth of filtration on a 50 gallon system (plus an addititonal powerhead for added water movement.

Hopefully someone else with more experience with African Cichlids could pipe in and help you out more.

[Hevgotdat4u]

Do Africans need the aditional current like marine tanks.

[Ray Ritola]

I dont think so. the African Cichlids come from lakes where water currents are going to be slower that the ocean currents and rivers (like where you would find for discus for my old tank). But I dont have a whole lot of experience with them. I am pretty sure you dont need additional water movement

[Texex94]

One of the coolest tanks I've seen was an African cichlid tank with two larger canister filters that were plumbed onto a drilled tank. The owner plumbed the output to come out of various rockwork found in the tank and the intake was from the reef ready sections of the tank. None of the tubing went out the back of the tank and the rocks hid the hardware pretty well. Very cool setup! He used an inline heater to hide the hardware.

[Texex94]

Oh... he also plumbed the tubing so that he could drain the tank for a water change through the intake bulkheads. Very nicely designed and simple. He would run the tubing out of the house into the garden. Because of the size of his tanks (350G), the weight pushed the water out pretty efficiently! It took 30 minutes to drain and fill the tank.

[Hevgotdat4u]

I would love to se that setup if possible do you have a link to it.

[voss345]

i would either build the output and drain into your rockwork like mentioned before or place a powerhead so you have circulation to move detritus out of your rockwork ( if you are planning on doing something intricate). This way there wont be as much stagnant water flow and less times you will have to move rocks around to siphon all the crud out of the coral.