Filtration for L number plecos

[mike0605]

:re:
Is it vital for keeping plecos or the more rarer types of plecos, Panaques, hypans, baryancistrus etc to have a high turnover? for example external filter and powerhead like most of the setups have?

I am asking this as I am currently about to start work on setting up a fish house in my garden and have always been in two minds whether to keep african cichlids or plecos as my main addiction :lol:.

I currently keep african cichlids but have always had a soft spot for some of the nicely coloured plecos.

Alot of the african cichlid keepers are using hamberg matten filters with great success. Sponge either end of the tank accross the corners of the tank and basically they are airdriven. The purpose of them is that the reaction time of the water with the large surface area of the sponge is more than once an hour and less than twice (in terms of the whole of the water in the tank). this acts as biological filtration.

I currently do 50% weekly water changes and all my fish are healthy including a tank with 6 geophagus, a chunky golden nugget pleco a scoby pleco and a magnum pleco.

The plan was to set up an air ring using a large koi air filter and running all my airlines for hamberg matten filters from the air ring once my fish house is set up however, if i go for plecs or mainly plecs in the fish house the air ring may not be that useful in terms of keeping the electricity bill down if I need to use externals. Any ideas/opinions greatly appreciated. The point of using hamberg matten filters with the air ring is that all tanks can be supplied with air driven filters from one electrical device.

My thoughts are that if I was to use hamberg matten filters for the pleco tanks I would need to add a powerhead or two for flow especially for species that come from fast flowing parts of the river however, if I was to do this there would be no point using the hamberg matten filters as the majority of water would be getting pulled through the powerhead and not reacting with the sponge.

I have sort of answed my own question in that external filter an internal powerhead with sponge round it for mechanical filtration would be best?

I would be greatly appreciated for any of you expert keepers to advise. My main and only concern and again you experienced pleco keepers will be able to answer this is the expense of running so many powerful devices i.e. external powerhead and airstone and heater on every tank in the fish house im guessing the electric bill would go through the roof? :re:

Thanks guys

 

[mike0605]

any of you experienced pleco keepers got any comments that will assist?

 

[scatz]

sorry mike, must have missed your first post somehow.
good filtration and clean water will suffice for a lot of plecs, so in theory, depending on species, you could just use your original idea for the set up.
a lot of the time, 2 filters (internal and external) get used because it provides a secondary (back up) filter in case something happened to the main one.
i'm currently building a fish house too which will have a lot of plec species, cories and hopefully apistos in there, i'll be using a ring main for air driven U/G filters, but the majority of the tanks will run small internals too, not only for the bonus of the flow/ turnover, but as a safety net as all of my tanks will be run off of one air pump, and i would be totally screwed if that pump went down.

 

[mike0605]

Thanks Scats great idea about the additional filter.

Think I will go with hamberg mattern airdriven for biological (apparently these do not need cleaning or very very rarely need cleaning as any dirt stored behind them acts as part of the bio filter itself. The only time to clean is if it clogs i.e the water cant be pulled through.) SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE TO ME.

And what I am thinking is having powerhead to point at breeding caves etc with sponge on the powerhead intake.

Decided lol

Just undecided whether to go for hamberg matten or regular air uplift sponge filters as the not cleaning bit doesn't convince me and the regular sponge filters are easier to remove and clean in tank water.

 

[thegeeman]

:re:
Is it vital for keeping plecos or the more rarer types of plecos, Panaques, hypans, baryancistrus etc to have a high turnover? for example external filter and powerhead like most of the setups have?

Thats the million dollar question Mike.

I use Eheim externals on 90% of my tanks. I did look into koi pumps but the ones capable of running all my tanks sufficiently needed 50/60watts which equates to 9/10 Eheim externals...ish so didnt really see the point in going that way.
The fishroom is kept warm via a 300watt electric shed heater and most tanks contain heaters set at slightly lower than room temperature. The 2 tanks with out internal heaters sit around the 77ish mark.
There is a breeder in America (Jackster:dk that breeds hypans just using sponge filters with no problems.

Its all about preference,Water and patience IMO oh and Eheim:thumbup:

Cheers

thegeeman

 

[2wheelsx2]

All my fancy pleco tanks are overfiltered with canisters and powerheads. I prefer the quiet and minimal splashing. That's partially my preference for planted tanks. I run an extra powerhead/air pump at night when the lights are out and the plants are consuming O2. The plecs certainly seem to be very happy in there and the water quality is very good. I also perform 50%+ water changes every week. I think that's more key than any particular type of filtration, once you meet the minimum requirements, since many of them, especially the panaque, are high waste producers.

 

[FF MkII]

Im quite disgusted.....i cant get my head around the fact that you have to think about what to keep plecs or.....im sorry i cant bring myself to say it.....African cichlids. lol

Go for the plecs mate

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I have sort of answed my own question in that external filter an internal powerhead with sponge round it for mechanical filtration would be best?

I think it should work very well. You really need to split the equation into 3 bits, filtration (and by this I really mean biological filtration), water flow & oxygenation.

A lot of the african cichlid keepers are using hamburg matten filters with great success.

These are really good biological filters and as suggested used by at least one successful American plec breeder (and so much more), Brian of "Brian Tropicals", have a look at this page http://www.brianstropicals.com/basement.html and weep some tears of silent jealousy (well that is the effect it has on me). This is one of his "Zebra" tanks.

I use a powerhead and cube filter like these in all my tanks http://swisstropicals.com/Poret%20Filter%20Foam.html

Many people like a big external filter because it takes care of the detritus from Panaques etc. in a way that a HMF won't. If you don't mind a frequent siphon of the saw dust and excreta this is in many ways a better option than the external, where "out of sight can turn into out of mind", and the organic matter in the filter may be depleting the oxygen. If you do go down the external filter route, Eheim probably are worth the money for all the reasons catalogued in the many posts about them, but I try to think of them all as a "pump in a bucket", and that helps get things in perspective, this is probably also a reason for getting an Eheim classic rather than any other model.

Water flow - this helps because many plecs are "rheophilic" and also because the increased flow speed helps with the gas exchange and oxygenation of the tank water. Power heads certainly work well for this.

Personally I think oxygenation is the key feature, and it is very difficult to achieve high quality, highly oxygenated water if you don't have a lot of biological filtration and relatively frequent water changes, an air pump can also help and so do plants.

Have a look here if you want some more technical bits and bobs.
http://plecoplanet.com/?page_id=829

cheers Darrel

 

[mike0605]

thanks darrel,

that is one amazing waterchanging system wish i could set something like that up when i get my fishhouse setup its very cool