Socks or no socks, that is the question.

As the title states, what is everyones opinion on using them? Ones that do use them, do you use mesh or felt, and what micron? I am in the process of setting up my 75 gallon FOWLR and am on the fence as to whether or not to use them.

 

I dont have any specifics on mine right now but i do use it pretty regularly now. I cant say that i ever did before but i find them to be usefull in catching debris and stopping micro bubbles. I clean it up once a week with my water change.

 

If you won't have any corals as you say, I"d use them.

I use them quite a bit with my corals anyways. I also don't feed my corals though.

I use a 200 micron sock, and may start to go to mesh that allows more food thru.

 

None for me and don't want any.

 

Filter socks are like underwear... They catch a lot of crap but you have to change them often.

Im running felt socks now in my FOWLR 125, but when I start adding corals or clams, the socks are coming out. The only reason I have felt ones is because they came with my sump.

 

I use socks, they are cotton, not sure of the mircon.
I'll be using them less as the temperature continues to rise in the coming months.

 

Love my mesh socks from BRS !

 

Love socks. I forget the micron.... something like 1 or 200, I believe? It's kind of one of those "no right answer" questions. You just find what works for you.

 

Boo, extra pointless maintenance that catches all the expensive perfectly good food I just added to the water column.


In all seriousness, I don't get the point of running them 24/7. I keep a few around so when I go stirring up garbage It catches some of the excess, but past that I don't see any benefit. Even detritus is food for the reef. As long as you have effective processes keeping your N and P at 0, you want to leave as much food in as possible. These days there are quite a few effective ways to maintain low nitrate and phospate; carbon dosing, solid carbon (biopellets,) algae scrubbers, all will leave you with 0 nitrate and near 0 or 0 phosphate (gfo mops up the rest)... So why remove perfectly good food?


EDIT: I just reread and noticed the FOWLR part... That was more for a reef tank. With a simpler set up and less filtration, as long as you keep them maintained, they help keep the water column cleaner between water changes. Just make sure you swap them 2 times a week, imo.

 

On a FOWLR I would use them just too keep the water cleaner. Im too lazy to clean them every week or so plus I like my corals to have plenty of food. I also run an algae turf scrubber though.