Hi everyone

I've rediscovered my childhood love of goldfish thanks to my 12 year old niece and came across you good people as a result of my continuous research. I'm happy to be here, I've picked up an enormous amount.

We're both now getting carried away on the 'bigger and better' treadmill after only a month as I come to realise that we need more room for our babies.

I just bought a 250L tank as I've unwittingly over-stocked my existing tank (112L) with 5 small fancies and a Borneo Sucker. At the moment they're all small and the ammonia/nitrite readings are 0, but they're going to outgrow it soon. I do have high nitrates, my tapwater is 32ppm even before the nitrogen cycle, so I'm using Tetra Nitrate Minus while I work on a better solution.

With the background out of the way, I've been looking into filtration for the larger tank and I haven't quite got what external filters, sumps and protein skimmers can do to make my life easier and fishes' lives better, other than they're 'just better' than internal filters, despite reading a few articles.

At present money isn't as tight as it could be, so I can afford to splash on reasonable or even slightly luxurious filtration and if one of the above means significantly better water quality and less maintenance, then I'm all in.

Would somebody be willing to talk me through my options and what they mean in terms of advantages and general tank maintenance? If it can dovetail with reducing nitrates then even better :)

Happy fishkeeping.

Hello Eeyore!

If this if for a cold water Goldfish tank then i would forget about sumps and protein skimmers. Thats more for marine tanks!

External filtration would be best for you (goldies produce lots of waste so need big filters!), always better to go for the next size up on which is recommended for your tank size.

APS (all pond solutions) do decent priced external filters and lots of people recommend them here.

Hope this helps, any more questions then please ask!

Miss P

The other thing would be to consider a nitrate reduction filter (for water supply not tank) - click on the pozzani banner in members lounge to see the sort of thing, post away with any questions ...

Hi Eeyore

Firstly, well done on upgrading, your fish will be very grateful!

As a goldy keeper myself, I can only echo what Miss Pril has said about external filters, and once again, the bigger the better IMO. I use an All Pond Solutions external filter on my 330L tank, and they are great value for money and also very quiet . See link.

As Miss Pril said, as goldies are so messy it is best to go for the next size up rather than one that is rated for your tank size. I went for the 2000EF (which is rated for a tank of 1000L), as it was only ?10 more than the one rated for 600L! It has loads of room for media, which means it can support more bacteria and process more waste - all in all, great for goldies and great value for money!!

Many of the members here do use other filter brands though, I think Eheim and Rena? But I will leave it to them to recommend as I only have experience with the APS ones

I can also definitely recommend the Pozzani nitrate reducing filter mentioned by Cathie - my tap water has 40ppm Nitrates before even going in the tank so keeping levels down was always hard, and my oranda struggles with buoyancy (made worse by high nitrates!). This filter is cheap and can either be plumbed in permanently, or using a few cheap bits you can attach it temporarily to your tap as and when you need to draw water for water changes (I do this). It strips Nitrates from the water leaving you with 0-5ppm in the water you put in the tank

Good luck, happy shopping!

Brig

Thanks Miss Pril, you cleared up the confusion pretty much straight away.

I understand that I should use a filter that can filter my water capacity between 4 and 6 times per hour, so at 250L, that's around 1000-1500L per hour, at which point I'm looking at one of the 1400L filters from APS. There are two there, one UV and one L/H. UV is slightly more expensive, are there any advantages of one over the other?

The UV one says 'killing, sterilizing or otherwise irreparably damaging many micro-organisms'. What are we talking about here? Would it kill the white spot parasite for example or are we talking more generally? Is it possible I might want any of these organisms? My Borneo Sucker is grazing on the algae growth for example, I wouldn't want it to go hungry :)

I think I'll go for nitrate filter, it will do a lot of good for my now-ridiculously named friends. Can you tell me if they're electrically powered or do they rely on water pressure? I'd consider fitting it to the mains, but the one thing I'm not sure of is where the end of pipe goes for the filtered water. Does it hang loose and have a tap on the end or does it have to connect something else? My mains water is some way away from the aquarium.

Sorry for all the questions...

They are just water pressure. Mine is plumbed into the mains under the kitchen sink and has its own little tap next to the main taps. I have a dual cartridge so it can be used for drinking water as well: the first cartridge is nitrate removal and the second cartridge is chloramine/heavy metals/dissolved organics removal. This also means I don't need to use a dechlorinator, although I do test the water for chlorine/chloramine when the filter is getting towards replacement time (every 6 months) - so far it has not expired early!
It's this one
http://www.pozzani.co.uk/water-treatm ... ate-157/product_info.html
I wouldnt go so far as to say your granny could fit it, but its not advanced DIY. The most tricky bit is drilling a hole in sink to fit little tap.
Brigitte can direct you to pics of her system which she just attaches to the main tap when she wants to fill buckets for water change.

Hi Eeyore

To follow on from Cathie - my Pozzani is not plumbed in to the mains as I live-in at work and so not allowed to do anything like this. Instead I have a system to attach mine to the end of my shower hose - I have attached a pic to better illustrate this.

If you are thinking of using this system - please check first whether you have a cold water storage tank system in your house. If so, it is best to use only the kitchen cold tap as this water is drawn directly from the mains supply. All other cold taps in the house will draw water from the storage tank which is not safe for your fish. In this case my system can be modified using an inexpensive rubber 'push on' shower attachment to fit onto a kitchen tap.

If, like me, there is no water tank involved, then you can draw water straight from any cold tap, or your shower hose if the shower head unscrews from it.

Either way, a few very cheap 'bits' are all you need to get you up and running with this so let me know and I can send you the links of what you need to buy, and guide you through it

Your fish are going to be very happy

I bought a nitrate filter and a 1400L UV filter from APS. They should be here in a few days.

Yes please Brigitte, if you could tell me which bits to get that would be very helpful. My kitchen plumbing is already a little overloaded and I don't have anywhere else to plumb the nitrate filter in without it being on display.

Thanks for your advice everyone :)

Hi Eeyore

Sure no problem. You will need:

One of these

One of these

Some of this. You will need 2 colours, one for IN and one for OUT. How much of each you get depends on how far away your tap is from the container that you are filling. I find it easier to have the container very close to the tank, and use longer lengths of tubing on the filter, so I bought 5m each of the red and blue, as its not expensive and can be trimmed if needed.

Did you manage to find out if your has uses a cold water storage tank? If it does you will only be able to use the kitchen cold tap to draw water. In this case you will need a rubber push-on shower attachment - something like this - B & Q etc also does them - the exact one you need will depend on the shape and size of your taps so you may need to shop around a bit, but make sure that whichever one you get, you are able to unscrew the shower head from the hose so that you can screw the hose onto the other fittings above.

If you don't have a water storage tank, and you are lucky enough to have a shower hose with head that unscrews, then you don't need the rubber hose bit.

I will post some more pics for you tomorrow so you can see which bits fit where.

HTH

Sorry, I meant to say... To the best of my knowledge we don't have a cold water storage tank. I've been here 6 years and I've not seen one, not in the attic or elsewhere.

I live in a bungalow and as far as I understand, what is now my bathroom was originally the kitchen, so there's every chance that even if I did have a cold water storage tank that I don't know about, then the non-stored water comes out of the bathroom taps.

Thanks again for your time and effort :)