External Aquarium Filters
What is better for a tropical aquarium, an external filter system, or an internal filter system?

I'm thinking of changing my tank to a tank 60ltr of 120ltr. By the time they have a type of internal filter cartridge, but I think distrubs my fish when I have to take to clean. Snails also had a lot egg around the sides of the filter. An external filter would cause less disruption and that its benefits are to use one.

Definitely an external filter. This because they have a large area of biomedia (media often as Biomax ceramic white "tubes" called or similar) which is where the beneficial bacteria can live and function efficiently. Most internal filters just a sponge, it offers only "mechanical" filtration, ie all chunks of mud stuck to the sponge. Problems with this is that bacteria in the sponge filter only have to live and when this gets all covered with mud (at about 5-7 days) can not get enough oxygen to function properly. Therefore, you should clean the internal filter once a week (and only clean the sponge in the tank of dirty water under the tap). In an external filter, you still get a sponge to collect most of the large masses of mud, but also obtain other types of media filter, such as chemical and biological to provide more efficient filtration. Often there is carbon in the filter, but I would change it biomedia additional. This is because the carbon must be changed every month. It is useful for cleaning the murky water in the tank of new assemblies and for the disposal of chemicals such as treatment of disease after a period of medication, but otherwise the space would be better to use extra Biomax filled or similar. The area largest biodiversity of filtration the more efficient the filter. A tank with an external filter needs cleaning once a month, at which time also clean the filter tank of dirty water and not tap water. Good luck! By the way … have tested the tank water for nitrates? Just because you snails mentioned and these are often a symptom of poor water quality. If you wish, to get a fish that eats snails to keep the population down – About the size of your tank I suggest 2 or 3 zebra loaches (Botia striata) will do the job. (Loch clown do the same job, but too big for your tank).

DIY external aquarium filter


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