# doing away with filters.



## Mark Evans (24 Jan 2009)

heres my question,

i'm running 2 filters on my 120cm. 2028 and rena xp2. i want a korolia power head for a dead spot or just to speed up flow in the front of my tank.

 now this got me thinking....if i got rid of one of my filters and run just one, could i buy say,.... 2 korolias and place them strategicly  and still be ok for filter bacteria in just the 2028? 

so then i'd be running 1 x 2028 and 2 korolias which could be hidden better than a filter  in and out

mark


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## aaronnorth (24 Jan 2009)

It depends on the stocking, lightly stocking the tank will mean less ammonia being produced so the beacteria in the filter along with the plants will be able to help keep the levels down.


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## Mark Evans (24 Jan 2009)

aaronnorth said:
			
		

> It depends on the stocking, lightly stocking the tank will mean less ammonia being produced so the beacteria in the filter along with the plants will be able to help keep the levels down.



good point, but it is do-able? surely 1 2028 would keep up with a shoal of tetras


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## aaronnorth (24 Jan 2009)

saintly said:
			
		

> aaronnorth said:
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Yes.


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## Ed Seeley (24 Jan 2009)

I have my Rio running on just the Juwel filter for filtration and that has about half the amount of sintered glass media in it that 1 basket of my 2128 has in it and the filter works great.  Bacterial colonies in most of our tanks are almost certainly limited by the waste that is produced rather than space on the decor, pipes and filter media.

BTW my other 180l tank with the 2128 has only 2 baskets filled with media (1 sintered glass and one ceramic prefilter hoops), 1 is completely empty and it deals with all the waste perfectly (and that includes a couple of pretty large wild angels, 8 cories, medium sized tetras and a couple of dwarf cichlids!  I think we really do overdo the amount of media needed in filtering our tanks.

My only other question Mark is why 2 koralias?  Wouldn't it be better to run one larger one?  It should be more efficient and there'd be less gear in the tank.


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## Mark Evans (24 Jan 2009)

Ed Seeley said:
			
		

> My only other question Mark is why 2 koralias? Wouldn't it be better to run one larger one? It should be more efficient and there'd be less gear in the tank.



well i dont actually know. just so i could place them in different parts of the tank. do you think one bigger one would be ok? is the korolia 4 too much with the 2028? the tank is 260 L 120cm long

i'm not sure how these korolia things work.


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## Ed Seeley (24 Jan 2009)

They're really diffuse flow; totally unlike a normal powerhead.  That means you can go way over a flow rate and the fish don't mind the flow at all.  Even my Apistogrammas, which prefer slow flowing backwaters, cope with the flow fine.  I've got 1 koralia 1 on my rio 180 and the flow is good but I think I could have got away with the 2 and the Juwel filter with no real issues.  That tank is 1m long so not too much shorter than yours.  I reckon the 3 might be enough but I know you like your high flow!  The three alone will give you a turnover of 12.3 times the tank's volume whereas the four will give you 17.7 times on it's own!  Add in the 2028 with a rating of 750lph for the filter's turnover and you'll have 15.2 times and 20.6 times respectively!

Looking at the website (http://www.hydor.it/en/products/show/27) it seems that each 1 pump uses 4.5W of power for 400gph of flow, whereas the 3 uses 5.5W of power for 850gph of flow!  The 4 uses 11W for it's 1,200gph.

I think I'd stick with the 3 as it's far more efficient and will still give you 15 times turnover with the filter!


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## Mark Evans (24 Jan 2009)

brilliant Ed, thanks very much for the info. i may just go with the 3


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## Garuf (25 Jan 2009)

Rather than get rid of a filter I'd try the spray bars vertically and see if that makes any difference, I normally find it's by far the best way of getting the whole water column moving.


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## GreenNeedle (25 Jan 2009)

My filter is there purely to filter now and the Koralia1 for the flow.  When you think that a powerhead is internal with virtually no flow reduction (mine is 1500lph) compared to the filter with its limitations and restriction (mine is 700lph x 50% average = 350lph) then the filter is providing hardly any of the flow.

However the filter does its job filtering still and with higher circulation it can only be good as it will keep particles in suspension longer.

I think 5-6x filtration is fine for a planted tank.  Remember fish only tank owners tend to say 2-3x!!!  Therefore you should easily be coping with a decent fishload and then some extra capacity for plant waste too.

The 10x suggestion on filtration was mainly for flow really.

AC


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## jay (2 Feb 2009)

This thread is right up my alley  

Anyway, I've been looking into a Hydor for my 120cm too. I have just a Fluval 405 external filter and it just isn't enough. 
Reckon the 3 circulation pump. I believe this would be fine for a 4 ft planted set up.


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## Mark Evans (2 Feb 2009)

i added 2 x 2 korolias just the job.for something like a iwagumi with low growing plants 1 would be enough.

i've added a no.1 to my MA scape along with a 405 thats in a 3 footer


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## Garuf (2 Feb 2009)

I'm against the koralia's I think they're hideous, I'd advocate an external pump with a co2 diffuser everytime, this takes 2 pieces of equipment out and you can use lilys or spray bars mounted vertically to really get the flow going.


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## jay (2 Feb 2009)

They are a bit rank but all you'd really see in my tank is the lead.
Just not sure about what single external filter would be enough to circulate in my 4ft.
Was looking at a Superfish 4sp Pro filter but I dont think thats enough flow, and all the eheim filter codes give me a headache.


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## Ed Seeley (2 Feb 2009)

You can always take them out for photos if you feel that much against them!

IMHO they are perfect, apart from their appearance.  They provide a high volume, low velocity current of water for tiny wattages so you get a lot of movement for the watt.  The fish are also not blown around all over the place as the velocity isn't too high!


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## Garuf (2 Feb 2009)

How many litres are we talking? It might be worth looking at Sam (themulous) thread and seeing what he did to get some good circulation.


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## Mark Evans (2 Feb 2009)

korolia 2 is 2300L per hour i got 2   theres not one dead spot everything sways....everything.

i tried the 405 on its own in my MA scape. no flow in the foreground. i switched the korolia 1 on and hey presto! forground movement. they are brilliant things. 

like ed says, just  take them out for pics. disguise them behind well trimmed stems too


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## jay (2 Feb 2009)

My tanks just over 200l


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## Simon D (2 Feb 2009)

Ed Seeley said:
			
		

> They provide a high volume, low velocity current of water for tiny wattages so you get a lot of movement for the watt.  The fish are also not blown around all over the place as the velocity isn't too high!



I'm deffinately with Ed on this one! I've got a Koralia 1 (1,500 lph) in a 60 ltr which gives 25 x turnover on it own without the 550lph internal Eheim Aquaball. 

The "high volume, low velocity" that Ed refers to is spot on, I thought the fish would be pinned to the glass and the plants uprooted, but it's perfect. All the plants sway gently and the fish, general community types, enjoy playing in the flow. It's hard to beleive it is actually 1,500 lph. 

I did want the Koralia nano (1.000lph??) but my lfs didn't have one in stock and I didn't want to wait or have to go back three days later as it's a 30 mile round trip (I live in the middle of nowhere) So I went with my usual compulsive purchase instinct and got the 1, no regrets at all, two months down the line.


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## Mark Evans (2 Feb 2009)

heres the MA scape with a no.1 in the corner. not too obtrusive 

ignore the WB


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## Garuf (2 Feb 2009)

is that an astronaughts helmet as a fishtank?!


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## Mark Evans (2 Feb 2009)

Garuf said:
			
		

> is that an astronaughts helmet as a fishtank?!



 genius don't you think?


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## Ed Seeley (2 Feb 2009)

Mine's in the back rear corner, right at the top and it's even less obtrusive, but I'm not hung up on things being in the tank really.  I even have a Juwel corner filter in mine!!!!


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## vauxhallmark (3 Feb 2009)

saintly said:
			
		

> heres the MA scape with a no.1 in the corner. not too obtrusive
> 
> ignore the WB



What's a WB   ?


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## LondonDragon (3 Feb 2009)

vauxhallmark said:
			
		

> What's a WB   ?


White Balance of the photo I suspect.


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## vauxhallmark (3 Feb 2009)

LondonDragon said:
			
		

> vauxhallmark said:
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Yer, see what you mean!

Mark


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## Ray (3 Feb 2009)

I'm baffled by all this flow.  I have a 2028 on mine giving 4x real turnover stright down the tank 3" under the surface.  Then I have a 400lph internal filter outputting through a spraybar right down the tank along the surface.  Nice water circulation and gentle waving of crypts etc. down the whole tank.

Then I bought a Koralia nano to replace the internal.  It gives super good flow because it creates a sort of perpetual motion maelstrom circling the whole tank, the extra current from the water pulled into the wake of the the 900lph ouput from the Koralia must be 2 or 3 times the extra output - giving me 8 or 12x flow + 4x = maybe 16x.  Its too much - I chomp through CO2 at twice the speed and the fish are blown all over.  The Koralia went back into a drawer.

Is this just that crypts don't block so much flow as stems do?  Is my positioning wierd?  What are you all doing with these massive Koralias?

Re. filter media - 3 weeks after I doubled my sintered glass from 2l to 4l my tank suddenly went stable and all my cloudy water issues and algae on sand issues vanished, not even algae on the glass to speak of.  Co-incidence or not, I'd always stuff my filter with sintered glass media.


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## GreenNeedle (3 Feb 2009)

I would suggest it is the other way around in that Crypts probably block the flow more than stems do.  My tank is full of crypts.  I have my Koralia1 near the surface though and pointing straight across the tank.  I have no problems with fish being blown about nor plants being bent over.

AC


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## jay (7 Feb 2009)

Well I got a Hydor 2 pump..... awesome.
A little bit of staghorn which was starting to come back due to unstable Co2 went within a day!!
Everything is waving gently and the fish love it.


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## planter (7 Feb 2009)

Ive used the koralias to good effect in the past. After a blackout a koralia was installed to add more circulation, end of Cyno problems!

as for loosing filters - I have a 60 x 30 x 30 runnning with no filter at present, It happened quite by accident as I discovered it had been unplugged by my daughter (9) turns out it had been off for a week! So i left it off, some weeks later and my Wild green neons seem unaffected! an unintentional experiment that I wont suggest you all rush out and try but interesting all the same!

Cant help thinking of all those reefkeepers who have long ago ditched their biologiocal filters and increased flow rates with internal pumps. Fair enough they have copious amounts of live rock (biological surface area) to fall back on. In a heavily planted tank are the surfaces of our plants providing a home for bacteria to colonise? Think of pond filter brushes and then look at Myriophylums and cabombas - living filter brushes?


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## jay (7 Feb 2009)

Wow! But I suppose if you think about it, in a well established planted tank, there must be copious amounts of good bacteria in the substrate, and if you have enough flow (circulation pumps) then the bacteria ridden substrate will get enough oxygen to survive much the same way as the bacteria in our filter canisters.


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## GreenNeedle (7 Feb 2009)

Established plants' roots put enough oxygen into the substrate for this to happen.  Not sure on how effective the substrate is compared to filters though.  Thinking more of removing particles from the water etc.

AC


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