i am planning to set up a 300 liter tank, i would like to know which filter do i use? i have heard that an external canister filter is quite good.
also i wanted to know about some good tank setups!!

1 zebra loach ( 2 inches)
3 goldfish
2 angel fish
2 silver dollars (small)
1 sulvanian
1 irridescent shark (small)
5 golden planchax (1 inch each)

thank you,
nikita

hi nikitanain welcome to the site hope to see you around the place
firstly external fillters are a good fillter (but then so can internal fllters) there are many good ones on the market such as ehim & fluval as well as a few more, have you got the fish you mention allready or is that what you are thinking of getting ?

hi nikita, welcome to the site.

300ltr is a fairly big tank (66 gallon UK, call it 60 taking off 10% for furniture). as a new tank it could roughly hold about 60 inches of fish, when it's mature (running for 6 months) u can double that to about 120 inches of fish, so it will hold a lot of fish. it is often best to under stock though as u suffer less problems this way. plus u need to remember when u calculate how many fish u can put in u need to count the adult size of the fish not the current size. for example although the silver dollars are quite small now they can grow a lot bigger.

there is one thing that stands out about ur fish list that concerns me a bit in that u mention gold fish. personaly i wouldnt include them as they are 'cold' water fish and all the others as far as i know are 'tropical' hence the water temp u keep the tank at(on average about 26c/80f) might be too high for the goldies.

i am not sure about the other fish, i am not familiar with the last 4 types u list. they might be ok together but i'd suggest u do a lot fo research to make sure they are compatible. some fish make good community tank fish where as others are too agressive and/or territorial.

regarding filters, if u can afford it, i would sugest u go for external filter/s if possible. they are easier to maintain than internals. they generally hold more media too. plus externals dont take up room in the tank like internals do. there are a few filters to choose from. from my experience, clunkster suggests two good makes, eheim and fluval are nice reliable filters and easy to use and maintain.

the size of filter u use depends on the size of the tank and how 'clean' u want the water to be. for a basic low stocked tank i would suggest that u want a filter that will filter the tank's volume twice an hour (600 ltrs per hr/ 120g per hr). if the tank is too be high stocked and especialy if u are keepiong chiclids like angels u might want to even consider a turn over rate of between 5 and 10 times the tank volume per hour. personally instead of going for one very large filter i think it's a good idea to use 2 medium size ones instead. this is good because if one dies then the tank is still being filtered at half the normal rate till the broken filter can be fixed or replaced. also it makes cleaning and changing filter material a little easier as u can alternate between cleaning out filters and hence not effect the chemical balance as much as u might do when u clean a single filter.

as an example a fluval 304 circulates 710 ltrs per hr and is recommended for a 300 ltr tank. i would say this is ok for a basic low stocked tank but for a tank that is a bit more heavily stocked or is to house chiclids i would consider using 2 x 304's instead. 2 x 710 = 1420 ltrs per hr, this would turn over nearly 5 times the tanks volume per hr and be a lot better.

i am not sure what u mean about tank set ups. if u elaborate more i'm sure we will all try to offer as much advice as we can.

that was the reason i asked about the fish as it is not a good combination.
for an adult sized irridescent shark ( pangasius hypophthalmus/sutchi) you would need a tank of 72"x24"x24" as they get very big 52"+ and weigh in at 44kg so be advised your small fish gets big

We must have scared 'em off, with all that info ?

I might shoot off an e-mail as follow-up. Couldn't hurt ?!

You could but try

She has some very nice pictures there Looks good glad she got her filtration sorted Do you know if she will be posting any updates ?

hi..i finally found this post thanks to kana3..thanks
i had lost it

i did manage to get a 75 g tank 75 days ago......
its got a reverse ugf and a huge sponge filter...i change 25% of the water every 5 days......
the tank is overcrowded but am planning to get a 55g tank in 6 months and will be transfering half of the fish to that....

3 redcaps (small sized)
1 calico (medium sized)
1 moor (medium sized)
2 orandos (small sized)
2 silver dollars (medium sized)
2 loaches (medium sized)
1 iridescent shark (small sized)
4 peacock eels (medium sized)

i also set 2 more tanks

a 3.5 gallon betta tank with a crowntail betta

a 10 gallon betta and cory tank ( 1 betta and 4 cories...)

the pics r in the photo forum