Opinions on these Power Filters

[wooddood]

listen to the advice given to you here it will pay off big time in the long run.as travis said reshearch first thats the best advice.

[JennM]

LOL so many opinions, so much anti-store rhetoric.

Nobody here could possibly have a "financial interest" in steering somebody to or away from a product if the interested person is hundreds of miles away....

FYI "Top Fin" is Petsmart's house brand. I believe that their power filters are made by Tetra, so those choices are one and the same.

Any power filter will do the job of mechanical filtration. Those who are saying you do not need one at all, are neglecting to suggest alternative ways of moving the water in your tank. Yes the live rock is Mother Nature's filter, and a good and natural way to clean the water of biological waste. A good skimmer, like a CPR BakPak will fractionate foam and remove dissolved organics. However it might not be enough to move a sufficient volume of water. You can achieve this several ways... powerheads can be used to agitate the water, but if you want to run carbon, this won't do. Ditto if you need to run a phosphate sponge or polyfilter for any reason. A power filter can be run with or without the biological wheel, grid, bag or whatever device it uses. It won't become a "nitrate factory" if there is an adequate balance of aerobic surface area (bio-wheel etc., AND live rock) and anaerobic and anoxic surface area (dense live rock, sand bed etc). With a power filter you have more options open - to simply use it to recirculate water, to use it as biological filtration or not, to use it as mechanical filtration or not, and to use it as chemical filtration or not.

The brand really doesn't matter - they all contain a pump, a biological device and a mechanical/chemical device. Pick one that moves the most gallons-per-hour for your buck, and one that you can easily get cartridges for if and when you need them.

I'm partial to Marineland (Emperor) for marine use, but really it doesn't matter which one you get, as long as it's appropriately sized.

I don't recommend canisters for marine tanks, they do not allow the water to de-gas carbon dioxide, as there is no contact with the atmosphere within the canister. I do use a canister occasionally to polish the water, pick up particulate or for emergency detox (tank disaster!), but I wouldn't run one all the time - they tend to promote nitrate build-up if they are allowed to go biological. If you run a canister, change the media often.

HTH

Jenn

[newsalt]

Thanks for all those great replies. Right now I have a 15 gallon high tank. It is FOWLR. This is my first SW tank. If all goes well, I plan on moving up to a 30 gallon. So that's why I initially asked about Power Filters. If I go to 30g I wanted a good HOB Power Filter. However, after reading these responses, I started to look into the Berlin Method of filtration. I developed the sketch which is attached on how I was planning to do it. Any thoughts on my ideas? My main question when you look at my sketch is this:

Do you thing the powerhead in the the aquarium that's rated for 295 gph will be powerful enough to bring water from the aquarium through the skimmer into the sump (or filter box) and back into the aquarium and provide enough movement in the aquarium?

Also, how big and what brand air pump would you recommend?

I'm open to thoughts on what I'm planning on doing. If there are links you could point me to that would be great too? I'm going to post this also as a new post on this forum to try and get as many replies as possible. The subject will be "Berlin Method Plans".

Thanks.

[wooddood]

personally no on the powerhead jmo though.im gonna follow that thread and will try and help you out if i can along with everyone else.