Can I use a wet dry filter for freshwater aquarium?
If you have a freshwater aquarium with live plants, a wet/dry filter will over-produce oxygen and push out the CO2 necessary for your plants to thrive. In a reef aquarium, the bio-balls will over-produce nitrates and can cause harm to your corals and other invertebrate animals.
What type of filter is best for saltwater aquarium?
The most popular type of biological aquarium filter is live rock. The rock is used inside the tank and colonized by beneficial bacteria that helps to filter the water. The very best saltwater aquarium filtration system is a sump based system.
What is a Berlin sump?
Basically, it is any method of filtration that utilizes a protein skimmer, liverock and should have a means for mechanical filtration as well. The system utilizes a sump, which is a tank separate from the display that contains all the equipment out of view. Typically, the sump is located below the tank.
What’s a wet/dry filter?
A wet/dry filter also referred to as a trickle filter or a bio-tower, is an anaerobic filtration method. The clean filtered water is then deposited back into the aquarium either directly, or first into a sump or some type of water containment area and then returned.
How does wet dry filter work?
A wet/dry filter is essentially a sump with biological filter media. The media is stored in a container above the water inside the wet/dry filter so water can trickle over it (instead of having it submerged).
Is trickle filter good?
Trickle filters provide excellent biological filtration, but do not do much for mechanical or chemical filtration.
Can a wet trickle filter be used in a reef tank?
However, as the technology in aquarium keeping has advanced and the desire to attain a “natural” reef tank system becomes popular, controversy surrounds this choice. Often referred to as nitrate factories, many aquarists believe that wet/dry trickle filters are suitable for fish-only tanks, but not reef systems.
How does a wet / dry trickle filter work?
A wet/dry filter also referred to as a trickle filter or a bio-tower, is an anaerobic filtration method. For those of you that may not understand the term aerobic, it means occurring or living ONLY in the presence of oxygen. In other words, it can only work when oxygen is present.
Why do you need a pre filter in a water tank?
The Importance of a Pre-Filter Set-Up. A pre-filter (mechanical filter) set up allows the tank water to be cleaned of excess debris, particulates and other unwanted organics (DOCs or dissolved organic compounds) before it passes through the bio-media in the wet/dry chamber.