Do I have enough filtration?

[The Abbott]

I have a juwel 240ltr tank with the standard filter in the rhs side corner, i'm also running a fluval 305 external filter with the output in the opposite back corner, is this enough filtration for a fully planted tank??? Also (probably a stupid question but I am a newbie) I dont have any air going in to the tank, is this neccessary or not? Also I have co2 on order.........

Apologies if this is a silly post but I'm still learning lol

Rich

 

[Steve Smith]

Hi Rich.

The general concesus is that you should have about 10x turn over of the water in your tank per hour (though people will happily go for 20x or higher!) This would mean on your 240 litre you would want something in the region of 2000 - 2500 litres per hour turn over. The internal powerhead that runs the juwel filter is 600lph, going by the current Juwel specifications for the Rio 240 aquarium. A fluval 305 is rated at ~700lph. That being said, stated flow rates are nearly always without media in the filters. Add media and the flow will drop a fair bit.

So, to answer your question you would definitely benefit from more flow if you are running, or plan to run a full planted setup. This being said, the main concern is distributing nutrients and, perhaps more importantly, CO2 to every area of the tank.

You can add more flow using flow pumps, as apose to buying bigger filters. It all depends on how much equipment you mind having in your tank. The Koralia range of flow pumps are highly rated around here

Take a read through this thread, which has a lot of good info about flow:

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1167

 

[Themuleous]

Yeh pretty much what Steve said, for added flow (rather that more filter capacity) you could add a powerhead into the tank, just to help with the nutrient and CO2 distribution.

Sam