75 gallon SETUP HELP

[Phishnewby]

I am starting a 75 gallon malawi cichlid tank.
Will 2 AC500 be enough filtration? Any idea's of better filters for the money?

What substrate should I use? I want something relatively cheap that wont clog my filters.

[Phishnewby]

I want a sand type substrate

[Cichlid_Fan]

I have a 75g Malawi tank with sand substrate and they love it. Just rinse the sand really well.

As for filters, the AC500 is good, but the Marineland Emporer 400 is better due to it's wet/dry abilities.

I run 2 Emporer 400's and a Magnum 350.

Good luck,
Matt

[aquaboyaquatics]

Sand is fine but beware of how close the intakes are to the sand. I highly recommend a prefilter sponge on the intake of the filter tube. If one fish kicks up a little sand and it gets sucked into the filter. You will destroy the impeller. Learned that from experiance. The ac 500 is a great filter for the money. I always keep acouple of them kicking around the fish room for emergencies. You should cosider putting a bag of crushed coral or dolamite in the filters to help with upping the ph.

[aharris]

If you can afford it, always try to make sur eyou have at least two filters on each tank. More filtration is only better, and if one of them has a problem and quits, the other will cover for a time on its own. This back-up policy has saved my b*** a couple times in the past, and the mroe into cichlids you get, the more money your livestock tends to represent (sentimental value not-withstanding). :wink:

[matt1066]

Using the 2 aquaclears are great, If you can afford to I would add a good cannister as well. I use a Eheim 2215 packed with bio-filtermedia, and Chemipure, as well as some blue-bonded filter pad. I also poped on a small sponge pre-filter on the intake. I change the cannister once every 3 months.

Use the aquaclears for mechanical filtration only, as they can be change easily, and both at the same time. You have the cannister there so you wont need to worry about bio-filtration.

Just dont change all the filters at once. I would clean the AC500's once a week. That will keep nitrates down to a minimum.

And of course, dont forget you regularly scheduled water changes.

Regards,

Matt

[Coskun]

Where do your get ur sand substrate strait from the beach????

[SGypsyMermaid]

a lot of people use pool sand which doesn't kick up as easily. if you do a 'quick search' on this site, you will come up with a bunch of discussions on 'sand'.