mechanical filtration - to use or not?

I have been running my tank for about 1 1/2 years and have set it up in various configurations. About 3 months ago I starting thinking that although the mechanical filtration, sponges, filter material, etc. may catch some stuff it also stops things from traveling throughout the system that may be beneficial to the tank as well as the refug/sump and so I thought I would test my theory and took all filters out of it. I have not seen any real difference in water quality or clarity but it has only been 3 months and the effects may not have shown up yet.

I do run a protein skimmer, a TLF with carbon and have 100lbs of live rock with 20lbs of live rock and cheato in the refug.

My question is do you use mechanical filtration or not and why? Is my taking them out a bad idea?

 

I do not run mechanical filtration as far as canisters and such. The only mechanical item I run is the protien skimmer. I just prefer a more biological filtration myself; others that run mechanical like them but if you dont keep up with the maintenace they can turn into nitrate factories. Then again it all comes down to maintenance with anything just depends on how much maintenance you prefer to do.

 

I used to run the water coming from a 40 gallon reef aquarium through a loose woven flat pad. I was very enthusiastic back then and would change the pad every week, or even more often. It was also a time when I measured many water parameters and did many experiments.

I also ran a protein skimmer.

What I found was that the 'weekly changed pad' raised my redox and lower my dissolved organics.

It was also a very convenient place to sprinkle a little bit of washed activated carbon (instead of leaving a larger amount of carbon in some bag for a longer amount of time).

It was also a nice thing to have when cleaning. Sometimes before changing the pad, I'd blow debris off of the rocks in the reef. Wait for the water to clear, then change the pad.

I was never bothered by the objection that it filters out coral food because I fed my corals anyway.

I also wasn't bothered by the objection that it is a place where water can flow through to accumulate organics because I changed it weekly, and about an hour after coral feedings, and because my experiments on water quality indicated otherwise. I theorize that the pouring of water on a flat pad isn't as 'forceful' as something like a canister forcing water through a pad. As the flat pad (with water pouring on it) gets full of debris, the water diverts to less used areas of the pad with less debris. Actually, when the pad is full the water pours out of the bypass without going through the pad much.

Oh, and it really polished the water.

All around, for a lot of reasons, it was pretty nice.

I'm thinking making some room in my cabinet and going back to using one.

 

I only use LR and a skimmer.

 

i removed my canister filter a couple months ago, then removed the bio-wheel from my hang on filter shortly after. Just removed the hang on filter last week, leaving only my skimmer and LR/DSB. havent noticed any negative affects yet, only thing i have noticed is a drop in nitrates .
And i was pretty good about maintenece with the filters. The water seems to be fine, and its a lot less work now. Once my sump/fuge is installed this weekend i will probably run carbon aggressively once a month or so, and maybe some chemi-pure.

 

The only reason we run the Rena is because i dont have room a fuge/sump. I mean literally the stand we have only has enough room the filter, power strips, and some of the tank cleaning stuff. I also like how the filter output tube has multiple holes drilled and i can rotate them to get a nice current going through out the tank. Besides we got the damn thing for $20 so it was a steal and only needed a few parts to get working right.

 

clarify:

i do not have a sump/fuge either. my skimmer is HOB.

 

I think I am going to up my cleaner crew but other then that i will use a filter bag every once in a while to catch stuff but go without filter media for the majority of the time.

blazin, I run Carbon 24/7 and have seen no bad side effects and it helps keep oders down.

 

I filtered pretty agressively. Finally took it all out. The skimmer just caught more of it. A skimmer is a mechanical skimmer. It will just pull more. The rest of the tank benefits from what is in the water column. The real decision came down to the fact that I hate spending money and doing filter maintenance. I clean my skimmer once a week and it does not cost a penny.

 

+1 sums it pretty well