An incident that justifies the need for great filtration

[TimP]

As you may know I have an 125 gallon Cichlid tank that houses: 2 Oscars, 1 JD, 1 GT and 5 Silver Dollars. For filtration I have 2-Eheim 2075's and 1 Marineland Magnum 350 Pro, which brings my total filtration to 1010 GPH.

Anyways, I did my wc this Monday night and of course turned off all 3 filters off before adding new water, but when I turned back on the filters I forgot to turn one of them back on. I forgot to turn one of my Eheim's on, oops. I just noticed today (3 days later) that there was no water movement from that filters outlet. I knew enough to not just turn the filter on as it would cause huge problems if I were to let all that dead bacteria into the main water column, so instead I did a round of water testing. This is why I LOVE my currently redundant filtration setup, as the 2 other filters covered without any problems or spikes. Just to be sure I tested my water with 2 test kits, my main test kit (API Master Kit) and also with a backup kit (a Tetra master kit). My readings were as follows:

API Kit / Tetra Kit
Ammonia: 0 or barely off 0 PPM / 0 PPM
Nitrite: 0 PPM / 0 PPM
Nitrate: 10 PPM / N/A


So, the moral of the story is that having extra filtartion is never a bad thing and I personally prefer it, it just might save your tank and inhabitants some day. Of course, I took the filter apart and cleaned it like a crazy man and even flushed the hoses for that filter with tank water before restarting it again.

[OinKY]

Good tale,good moral

Could just put the filters on a digital timer. Just flip it off there...and the filters will come on automatically later.
If nothing else all that tech will at least make you look to see if the filters are on....TimP

[callen]

Thank you for sharing that

[donsfish]

Ah well, things happen. But good story and note about clearing out the filter that was off for a few days instead of just kicking it back on.
I use a plug strip. Kills power to the whole tank so it's all or nothing.....and I almost never forget to turn each strip back on for an hour or so

[JohnL]

Thanks for sharing that you can never have too much filtration.

[Gerry]

good info

[Tim]

This is why i turn everything off at the wall before a WC
been there done that.

Very good level of redundancy to be showing those numbers with a filter down!

[TimP]

I use a plug strip. Kills power to the whole tank so it's all or nothing.....and I almost never forget to turn each strip back on for an hour or so

I would do that but I have my lights as well as my canopy circulation system on timers and personally do not want to re-set those every week.

Very good level of redundancy to be showing those numbers with a filter down!

Yeah, thats exactly what I thought! Once I add my DIY sump filter to that tank, I will still plan on using 1 of the eheims for such reason.


@ALL, thanks for not picking on me too much, lol.