On Oct 8, 5:17 pm, "jd" wrote:
I think you misread my post - the water quality stayed the same when the
canister filter failed. When the airpump failed (another time), the water
quality crashed. That would indicate that the UG filter was doing a lot more
of the cleaning (at least bio) than the canister, and would even suggest
that it is the canister filter that is not needed.

The tank is very heavily planted, so there probably wasn't a huge drop in
disolved oxygen - the fish certainly didn't seem to mind. I would expect the
fish to react to lower disolved oxygen way before bacteria populations would
crash - unless of course, the failure of hte airpump also stopped the flow
of water through the gravel, which would cause localized lowered disolved
oxygen in the gravel bed - which is what I think happened. The death of
bacteria doesn't significantly change the water chemistry - what causes the
change is the loss of the bacteria's metabolic processing. So this is
another argument FOR an UG filter (and a spare airpump...).

What is interesting is that the canister was running when the airpump
failed, and still didn't keep the tank stable. When the canister failed, the
UG had no problem maintaining water quality. I've never had both fail at the
same time.....
-JD

"Tynk" wrote in message

ps.com...



On Oct 5, 7:44?am, "jd" wrote:
. As a matter of fact, at one point
the canister filter failed, and I didn't get around to rebuilding it for
about 3 weeks - no change in water quality. However, when I had an
airpump
fail, and the UG filters flow was drastically reduced, the water quality
started deteriorating in almost immediately - there were noticable
changes
within 2 days.

IMO, the water quality deteriorated because your airpump failed, and
bacteria were dying off. A cess pool was starting.
That had nothing to do with the canister no wroking right or good
enough.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Listen up old man.........its not nice to argue iwth our miss know it
all TYNK..........you got that? If not perhaps its best for you to
take a hike and decide who yuo really are JD or John Deedumbass or
just a crotchety old fart...I think its time for your fleet enema and
some geritol and maybe someone will make you a cup of warm milk and
tuck your decrepit ass into the bed. Oh yea don;t forget to take your
teeth out since you seem to be into and very knowledgeable about
"hummers" as I would hate to hear that you choked on them.............