Setting up 700 gallon can't decide on going pressurized or good old wet/dry

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Pacu mom i really want to go maintenance free on my tank other then the fact I had to put 13 bags of river pea gravel in it and universal rocks decorations for the wife several rocks and stumps looks good other then the murky water ... So my tank is roughly 700 gallons running that ultima 11 rated for 1000-2000 gallons with 40 watt Aqua uv on the reflow yellow tale high pressure 2500 gph pump ( not as quiet as they say on the website ) ,,, ️Iam wondering if I plumbed another pressurized style filter like a sand filter coupled with ultima would it polish my water ?? I thought about running another ultima but I am not sure I would get the clearity ️Iam looking for ?? I know on my 300 that wet dry with pads and charcoal in the sump it was Chrystal clear ,,, I really don't wannna spray down cartridges if I don't have too and my thoughts by adding a another sand style I could get more flow plus just back wash like the ultima ,,, or ️shouid i just do the the pentaire filters and be done ?? Thanks in advance for all ur help
 
Bottom line with the RTL filter cartridges is that they have to either be cleaned or replaced. In the last nine years, I've been lazy and chose to replace the cartridges. We actually run the RTLs too long and think about it when there are particulates in the water. By that time, the cartridges are packed with crap, and pressure washing (not recommended anyway) would take forever to clean the crud out. Overnight soaking in bleach and then washing with water would probably work. I'm sure the cartridges need to be cleaned sooner than when we take ours out.

The RTLs may not work for you. I suggest that you check out the Biowave glass filters and PM kendragon and Hulon and ask them how well they work for mechanical filtration. They purge out like Ultimas. Ask them about their water clarity.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...TIMATE-FILTRATION-AND-EVOLVING-WITH-YOUR-FISH!!!!!!

When our large tank is set up, I plan to reuse the cartridges by changing them out more frequently and doing overnight bleach soaks and then soaking in water for a week or two (rather than replacing with a new one and throwing the dirty one away). I will be cleaning mine as the 100s are $55-$75 each. The RTL-100 has 100 sq ft of filter material rated at 100 microns. When used with a big pump (Hammerhead), the RTL-25s provide extreme mechanical filtration. So I am anticipating even better things with the 100s. I just need to get in better cleaning habits. Surely I can manage to place the dirty filter cartridges in a bleach solution and then place them in a water soak the following day. I hate to admit that we go several months between changing the cartridges. I don't think these cartridges are anything like filter socks that people have to clean out every week. Since we will have redundant filtration, we will have several 5-gallon filter socks in our sump to catch any debris that might get in through the overflow boxes. Since our fish get fed sinking food, hopefully, the filter socks will be precautionary rather than necessary and hopefully, they will take a long time before becoming dirty, scuzzy and nasty, 'cause I'm not into tank maintenance either. (That's why we have poop suckers).
 
Thanks again Pacumom its cleared mostly but not 100% so i went ahead and ordered another new reeflo pump 6000gph and two RTL 50's with two extra cartridges lol ...so about 8500 gph moving water ...that way i can keep the closed loop and so what if a gotta rinse a cartridge everyonce in a while...lol i would have converted to poop suckers like you probably but the wife wanted some gravel on bottom ...i was able to run an extar suction line off the ultima / pump waste side to the top with a fitting so i could just hook up a suction hose as needed to directly take debri out on the waste setting and not filter it / very easy option,,,anyway figured i would let her decorate since shes bascially letting me park a car in the living room lol...universal rocks has some super nice decorations and i am fortunate to have them next to me so gotta a ton of stuff and it also seems my pics arent staying on the link anyway would like to post some more ...stand should be covered in about two weeks when the custom cabnet makers finishing it and should turn out real nice ..so happy with the closed loop tho and the ultima is really starting to work now and i am glad i went with the larger one ...i really came close to going with a glass meadia polisher or a uniclear after the ultima but i just think that is way to much having 12000 gallons of filtration on a 700 gallon aqurium lol also you can cut the base down on the ultima and they still stand up great and you can easily get 4-5 inches back down in clearance so you can get the larger one if clearance is an issue ... anyway be posting pics soon
 
jjb said:
Thanks again Pacumom its cleared mostly but not 100% so i went ahead and ordered another new reeflo pump 6000gph and two RTL 50's with two extra cartridges lol ...so about 8500 gph moving water ...that way i can keep the closed loop and so what if a gotta rinse a cartridge everyonce in a while...lol i would have converted to poop suckers like you probably but the wife wanted some gravel on bottom ...i was able to run an extar suction line off the ultima / pump waste side to the top with a fitting so i could just hook up a suction hose as needed to directly take debri out on the waste setting and not filter it / very easy option,,,anyway figured i would let her decorate since shes bascially letting me park a car in the living room lol...universal rocks has some super nice decorations and i am fortunate to have them next to me so gotta a ton of stuff and it also seems my pics arent staying on the link anyway would like to post some more ...stand should be covered in about two weeks when the custom cabnet makers finishing it and should turn out real nice ..so happy with the closed loop tho and the ultima is really starting to work now and i am glad i went with the larger one ...i really came close to going with a glass meadia polisher or a uniclear after the ultima but i just think that is way to much having 12000 gallons of filtration on a 700 gallon aqurium lol also you can cut the base down on the ultima and they still stand up great and you can easily get 4-5 inches back down in clearance so you can get the larger one if clearance is an issue ... anyway be posting pics soon
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I think you will really like the RTLs. With the Hammerhead pump and two RTL-25s there is a lot of aeration in our 300 gallon tank. There has never been a need for extra air pumps, etc. This old video was taken during a water change when water was being added back to the tank via the RTLs/Hammerhead. There is a swift strong current in the tank that our fish love. The system spits out air...which we also like.

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Several years ago before Universal Rocks sold large sheets of low profile rocky background, I had them make us a 15' x 4' sheet to go on the bottom of our tank. I hope that the roughness of the rocky background doesn't interfere with our six poopsuckers' cleaning ability. If it does, we'll have to aim the return nozzles toward the floor to move debris. This will be uncharted waters for us. Albertan beat us in putting a rocky background on the floor of his tank.

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http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...lon-Glass-Aquarium-(1000-Gallons-for-Dummies)
 
Ash_Thompson said:
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I run a pressurised bead filter with cyclone prefilter on my 400gallon predator comm, would definitely recommend it......
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Like the look of that cyclone filter very cool yea iam basically doing the same thing but anting a high GPH so i split the two as the RTLS can handle 100gpm or 6000GPH very nice clean set up i like it alot !!!!!thanks
 
ultimatejay said:
If your tank is new I would recommend you wait until it's fully cycled first and then look at the clarity.


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Yea i am thinking thats some of it i did save 50 gallons of my other water pluse some of the old gravel to speed it up iam also running 4 huge bags of carbon over the 4 huge airstiones you are correct tho
 
Pacu Mom
yea it looks good i love their stuff but iam not going to do thier background and i did the bottom thing too at one time but it would float up unless like youre pic (fish tank looks amamzing btw love the pbass) the rocks have to be spread out or siliconed down but my corners would come up as well and it seemed to always get stuff under and behind those sheets ...i know theres mixed debates on small pea gravel but kinda like Alex's sump and if you aerate it enogh kinda like a rolling bed iam thinking

there is a problem iam having with that new HP reeflo pump is its very loud even though i got 4 -2" lines plumbed into 1 -2" going into pump its not enough flow/backpressure volume to keep it quiet ive contacted them and they said its in the feed ...when i restrict the return line it runs soo much quieter ,,,but way to much backpressure on the ultima and thats not a good thing ,,,, so iam going to run a pair of 4" off of two 2" bulkeahds into another 4" on both pumps back down to 2" going in ..iam thinking it will incease volume and kinda hold water in the pipe like a sump and keep it quiet ...that brand new yellow tail little reeflo is no joke it will push water 36' like it says i have no doubt lol the gph is small but the pressure is extreme lol i put that thing up against any of thier higher flow low pressure pumps anyday that sucker is beast !! i almost think its too much for one ultima but its runing through a 40" UV too ,,,,But yea the RTLs will be a nice add plus the extra gph like your video gonna replumb this weeked hope i can quiet that little yellowtail its basically just cavitating like crazy it needs a ton of pre pressure,,,
 
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