today we're going to begin week one of four weeks in a row where we focus entirely on
filtration we'll briefly touch on mechanical chemical in biological but we're going to save
those for later videos today we're going to talk about filtration types all-in-one
hang on the back power filters sumps canisters you name it we're going to talk about it today
hey everybody matthew here from my first fish tank in collaboration of course with marine depot
bringing you week 19 in the beginner how-to guide for saltwater aquariums and reef tanks
a filtration overview this week we're really going to focus on the styles of filtration all-in-one
systems hang on the back systems power filters canister filters sumps we're going to spend weeks
20 through 22 diving deep into mechanical chemical and biological filtration we're going to spend a
super brief moment right now giving a filtration overview and when we're talking about filtration
basically all kinds of filtration in an aquarium can boil down to mechanical filtration chemical
filtration and biological filtration and we are going to go into a huge amount of detail in the
next three weeks tackling each one of these but i think it's important to understand in a filtration
overview what those three are and how they're distinct i think the most basic way of thinking
about mechanical filtration is thinking about how a sponge works if you have a sponge filter as
part of your aquarium filtration how it works is water passes through the sponge filter and larger
pieces of particulate matter we're talking about free-floating algae fish food and fish waste will
get trapped on the top and then how do you remove them you just pull it out and you rinse it off
so mechanical filtration is any kind of filtration that removes large pieces or even small pieces
of physical matter it's the most basic kind of filtration and probably the most if not the
most essential filtration in any aquarium whether we're talking fresh water or salt water there are
many ways to accomplish mechanical filtration from sponges to filter socks to filter floss
to more advanced techniques like protein skimmers but all of them accomplish the same thing they
will remove large particulate matter fish food and fish waste that you will then pull out and
rinse off and the goal of any sort of mechanical filtration is to remove that particulate matter
before it breaks down into ammonia and adds unwanted nutrients like phosphates and nitrates to
your tank filtration type number two is chemical filtration and chemical filtration is any sort of
chemical media that you add the most common types are activated carbon granular ferric oxide and
what happens is water passes over that chemical media and usually removes things so an easy way
to understand this is think about activated carbon it's that black charcoal stuff through a process
called adsorption water will pass over and through that activated carbon removing things like colors
smells heavy metals and chlorines and chloramines there are multiple ways of doing chemical
filtration from something as simple as having a mesh bag that you put that chemical media in
to using high-end reactors that will force water through that chemical media chemical media is
often overused in this hobby but it's really important to have a good understanding of it
because when things can go wrong in your tank it's important to know what kind of chemical media can
be your friend and which kinds to stay away from and the third and last type of filtration
is biological filtration if you watched the last two videos we did in depth into the
nitrogen cycle and that's what we're talking about here we're talking about filtration that
helps move that nitrogen cycle along from n2 in the atmosphere to ammonium to nitrite to nitrate
and back to atmospheric nitrogen again this is accomplished through beneficial bacteria
and when we're talking about biological filtration we're talking about providing the home and the
food source to help those biological bacteria those beneficial bacteria grow and thrive to
help consume that ammonia consume that nitrite consume that nitrate and complete the nitrogen
cycle and we can do this through sand through rock or through more complicated measures like
vodka dosing sugar dosing carbon dosing or using a bio pellet reactor but we'll touch
more on that in a few weeks all right now on to the meat of this video aquarium filtration styles
there's really three that are really common in the saltwater aquarium hobby but will throw in
a fourth especially if you're coming over from fresh water because you may be able to repurpose
a filter style that you already have the first filtration style for an aquarium is a hang on
the back filter this is really when you get a cheap glass box from any big box aquarium store
and there's no holes drilled anywhere in it or there's no baffles in it it's just
literally a black box just think for example my 40 gallon breeder tank right here it's just a glass
box i bought from petsmart or petco hang on the back filter which is also called a power filter
is really any sort of filter that hangs on the side and what it does is it uses a pump to suck
water up into this filter the water passes through various stages of media and filtration and then it
overflows back into the tank it's a really simple filter that can work perfectly well for saltwater
aquariums and they vary in size you can get really small ones or really big ones with smaller less
powerful pumps or bigger more powerful pumps a huge pro of using a hang on the back filter or
a power filter is it's very inexpensive and you can pick it up from any big box store
not only is the power filter itself inexpensive but just picking up a glass tank during the dollar
per gallon sale at petsmart or petco means that you can build a saltwater aquarium for
an incredibly cheap amount of money but there are some obvious cons of this the first big con
is it's a relatively small area so while most power filters have space for putting in
a sponge maybe a packet of carbon or granulotheric oxide they don't have space usually for larger
reactors or protein skimmers so you're a little bit more limited the other kind of negative thing
about a power filter is it's just unsightly when you build something really beautiful that has this
infinite look top with no pipes or tubing hanging out the side and then all of a sudden you get a
huge box you have to hang on the side it just doesn't look very nice but if you're looking
to start out on a budget and not only that but if you want to have the most simple type of aquarium
filter possible then a hang on the back filter or a power filter is the perfect place to start
because one it's inexpensive but two you can't tinker too much i know my biggest problem when i
started in the hobby is i would tinker constantly because i had a big sump and i just messed around
with all sorts of things that ended up causing a lot more harm than good and if you have a simple
power filter and you only lightly stock your tank then you're just gonna have a simple sponge maybe
a carbon packet and maybe you throw some ceramic media in there to aid in the biological filtration
but that's really all you can do aquarium filtration style number two is what we call
an all-in-one system this is a total misnomer because when you're thinking oh i'm going to buy
an all-in-one system that means that i'm going to buy an all-in-one system it's going to come with
a tank it's going to come with pumps with wave makers with sand with lights with everything but
really in this hobby what we mean by an all-in-one system is a rear filtration chamber so you take
that initial tank just those four glass walls that we already talked about and you put a baffle
in somewhere the baffle is usually in the back and you separate the display portion of the tank
from the filtration now what's really cool about this is you don't need a sump you don't need any
holes drilled in it but you can hide all of your filtration gear in a rear filtration chamber so
generally speaking how this works is water will flow over the baffle you'll usually see these
slots in the baffle in the back it's called a surface skin and water will flow over into some
sort of mechanical filtration then it will go down through the mechanical filtration into a
larger chamber where you could put a refugium even you could put a protein skimmer you could
even have a small reactor in that chamber and then it will flow into a final chamber that houses a
return pump which will then pump the water back the really good thing about an all-in-one system
is it allows for a lot more filtration options now not as much as some other ones we're going
to talk about but you can put a lot more in a real filtration chamber than you can in a power filter
just because it's so much larger and not only that but an all-in-one system also does a surface skin
if you just get a power filter and put it on oftentimes what that means is you're pulling water
from below the surface and you might notice over time some sort of protein buildup it'll look kind
of off-white it'll discolor the top and that's kind of hard to get rid of but in a rear filtered
system an all-in-one system the water naturally overflows which take those proteins with it and it
gets filtered out in the rear filtration chamber definite pros to this system is it's a little bit
more expensive than getting a power filter but not nearly as expensive or complicated as involving a
sump let's say and not only that is it's also relatively beautiful you don't have to put on
there a giant power filter rather you just have this little baffle and water flows into the back
if we're looking at my two tanks back here both the sea horse tank is an all-in-one system with
a rear filtration chamber and my 24 gallon fluval mixed reef tank are all in one system the definite
cons are you don't have as many options as a sump system you can't put a ton of things in there and
typically the reactors and the protein skimmers you buy for an all-in-one system have to be really
small and often don't work as well as their larger counterparts but for beginners i always always
recommend getting an all-in-one system because it's that great middle ground between something
clunky with a small amount of filtration like a hang on the back filter and a large sump which may
just over complicate things as you're starting out the third kind of filtration is a canister
filter now especially in the united states you don't see a lot of saltwater hobbyists using a
canister filter these are much more popular in other parts of the world but if you are a
freshwater guy or gal then you might already have a large canister filter sitting around you could
use that for your salt water filtration for those of you that don't know what a canister filter is
just think of a large canister it sits outside of your tank and it has a pump inside and the pump
draws water out of your tank it passes through this canister and then that same pump pushes it
back into the tank in that canister you can put whatever you want typically you'll have forms of
mechanical chemical and biological filtration it might start out with a sponge or filter floss at
the top of the canister then below that you might put some carbon media or some gfo media and then
below that you may have some ceramic media or some plastic bio balls and it really is a decent filter
some of the negatives of a canister filter is they often don't put out quite enough flow
because on the fresh water side you don't need a lot of flow you might only have to turn over
your total water volume one to two times an hour meaning if you have a hundred gallon tank
if you had a 150 to 200 gallon pump that might be sufficient but in the salt water world we like to
turn over that water volume five to ten times so for 100 gallon tank we're looking somewhere around
500 to a thousand and i know some hobbyists that like to have even more than 10 times filtration
power so you do have to buy a larger canister filter and sometimes that can be a little bit
more expensive and a little bit harder to find not only that but with a canister filter you
do have a large canister you can often hide that in a cabinet but sometimes it just has to sit
next to your tank so it doesn't look quite as nice another issue with the canister filter is you
have to have a way to get water to and from the canister filter and usually that means you have to
have some sort of pipes and tubing that come over the back edge while it's not a huge ugly thing to
look at especially when compared with a hang on the back power filter it's not quite as clean
necessarily as something like a rear filtration chamber or a sump system but by all means you can
totally have a successful salt water or tank by using a canister filter but if you do have an old
canister filter by all means check it out see how many gallons per hour the pump is upgrade
it a little bit if you need to and you can put whatever media you need and have a perfectly well
functioning saltwater aquarium using a canister filter and the fourth and final type of aquarium
filtration style we're going to talk about today is a sump and this is probably the filtration
style par excellence that most hobbyists want because it gives you the most options a sump
is just basically a large second aquarium that usually sits directly below here let me show you
this is my clownfish harem tank up here is the display tank
and the water travels from here through pipes to tubing down to a second smaller aquarium basically
where i house all of my filtration gear sumps are awesome there are so many benefits to sumps and
if you can afford it and are up for a challenge by all means get a system with a sun first off
a sump increases the water volume of your tank whereas this might only be 40 to 50 gallons
combined down here that's a 60 gallon system and larger volumes of water typically equal more
stability for beginners and for everybody so it's easier to control your water parameters now how
sumps generally work is there are holes drilled in the bottom of your tank it can be two holes
three holes or four holes depending on what sort of filter setup you have and then you have what's
called a weir which is just a little dam and it's either inside the tank or on the back edge of the
tank and water flows over the top just like it did in the all-in-one system and it travels
down those tubes into the sump in the sump it passes through various stages into the final
stage which has a return pump and pumps that water back to the system a typical sump setup does have
various stages the first stage is going to go into some sort of mechanical filtration typically that
can be a sponge filter floss or a filter sock like i have in this system here from there it's
going to go to a main large compartment and that large compartment is meant for a protein skimmer
and a protein skimmer is probably considered the most important part of your mechanical
filtration for any large system we'll go way more into depth about how protein skimmers
work because they're a little confusing but they're quite large and they need a large chamber
from that large protein skimming chamber sometimes it goes into a second large chamber where you can
put in a refugium it travels over a little baffle into a small compartment that's a bubble trap
stops all the bubbles and into the final chamber which is the return chamber where you house
your return pump sumps are great because you don't have to look at any of your filtration gear all of
your filtration gear your heaters your skimmers your reactor your uv sterilizer whatever you have
can all be housed underneath the tank in the sump and you don't have to look at it at all which is
fantastic not only that but it increases your options dramatically if you're having a problem
and you need to add some sort of chemical media or some sort of biological media you have the space
to put it and you don't have to mess with your display tank a huge downside of having a sump is
some systems are generally more expensive because you're getting a lot more gear it's also a lot
more complicated for a beginner because unless you buy a system that comes pre-plumbed you're going
to have to figure out how to do the plumbing and even the major brands the red sea the water box
the jbj the innovative marine tanks that come with sumps they will come with pre-fabricated plumbing
but you still have to be able to figure out how to put all that together and if you're doing it
yourself it can get really complicated really fast how do you drill the holes in the glass do you
use soft plumbing and hard plumbing do you know how to plumb do you understand how the different
parts of pvc work what kind of unions what kind of adjustment valves it can get complicated but if
you're up for a challenge a sump is fantastic and as long as you don't try to over filter everything
it will give you options not only now but in the future to grow and to tackle any problems that
you might see no i get it you might be like wait but you didn't explain anything about filtration
you didn't talk about how protein skimmers work or what reactors were or what what are what's
an algae scrubber or a uv sterilizer stay tuned because the next three videos we're going to go
through first mechanical filtration then chemical filtration then biological filtration and we'll
touch on every single piece of gear you could ever think of so you understand how it works
well that's it for week 19. next week week 20 mechanical filtration if you found this
helpful please consider giving it a thumbs up subscribing to my first fish tank and to marine
depot and as always everybody happy reefing be well take care we'll see you next time you