Canister filters and the use of peat in a South American tank

I am setting up a planted tank and have a question about canister filters.
The tank is 29 gallons, and will be planted with South American species
including Echinodorus amazonicus, Alternanthera reineckii, and Cabomba
caroliniana. Fish will include German blue rams, cardinal tetras, and
corydoras catfish. The cardinals require soft, slightly acidic water. My tap
water is hard and alkaline. Since I do not plan to buy a reverse osmosis
filter I will need a filter for the tank to soften the water. I know that
peat and driftwood soften and acidify the water. I plan to but driftwood in
the tank. I may use peat, depending on the type of canister filter I buy --
some brands don't offer peat medium.

My first questions concern peat. Do I need it if I use driftwood? Will it
darken the water to the point that the plants will lack for light? Will
carbon remove the darkness?

What experience have you had with the following canister filters: Fluval 04
series, FilStar XP series, Eheim ECCO series, Magnum series? I read a review
of the Fluval filter that said it had cheap parts and was hard to clean. I
have heard good things about the FilStar filter, but the manufacturer does
not make peat medium for it. Both the Eheim and the Magnum are on the
expensive side. Given the type of tank I am creating, what canister filter
would you recommend?

Birru

Birru Morgan birrumorgan wrote in message
...
I am setting up a planted tank and have a question about canister filters.
The tank is 29 gallons, and will be planted with South American species
including Echinodorus amazonicus, Alternanthera reineckii, and Cabomba
caroliniana. Fish will include German blue rams, cardinal tetras, and
corydoras catfish. The cardinals require soft, slightly acidic water. My
tap
water is hard and alkaline. Since I do not plan to buy a reverse osmosis
filter I will need a filter for the tank to soften the water. I know that
peat and driftwood soften and acidify the water. I plan to but driftwood
in
the tank. I may use peat, depending on the type of canister filter I
buy --
some brands don't offer peat medium.

My first questions concern peat. Do I need it if I use driftwood? Will it
darken the water to the point that the plants will lack for light? Will
carbon remove the darkness?

What experience have you had with the following canister filters: Fluval
04
series, FilStar XP series, Eheim ECCO series, Magnum series? I read a
review
of the Fluval filter that said it had cheap parts and was hard to clean. I
have heard good things about the FilStar filter, but the manufacturer does
not make peat medium for it. Both the Eheim and the Magnum are on the
expensive side. Given the type of tank I am creating, what canister filter
would you recommend?

You can stuff peat into media bags and just jam it into your canister filter
along with everything/anything else. Get an oversized canister filter with
lots of compartments - I have a Via Aqua - and don't clean it more than two
or three times a year (unless the water stops flowing!). Yes, the peat will
reduce light penetration but a 29-gallon isn't deep enough to make too big a
difference... maybe between ¼ and ½ wpg?

If your water is fairly hard, the driftwood won't be enough. Some
woods will leach more acid than others. I haven't tried enough to
know which is the best, but Welaby wood (or Mopani) is the best I've
tried.

The peat will need to be changed in the filter every week or two - it
loses it's acids pretty quickly. If you leave it in for too long it
will rot. Peat is very messy to use - that's why a lot of people
filter their water with peat in a bucket, not directly in the
aquarium. You could also boil the peat to essentially make blackwater
extract.

When wood and peat are leaching the most acids, they darken the water
quite a bit. The plants will suffer. Alternathera and cabomba
caroliniana are both high light plants that won't last with even a
little darkening of the water. The sword plant might be ok if the
water isn't too dark. You'll do best with low light plants like
anubias, java fern, java moss, anacharis, limnophilia. Floating
plants will do well like frogbit, duckweed (but you may not want
this), hornwort, watersprite, but of course, they will block even more
light from plants below.

If you have compact flourescent light you'll do a lot better than with
flourescent bulbs.

Cris


On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 21:41:24 -0700, "Birru Morgan" birrumorgan
wrote:

I am setting up a planted tank and have a question about canister filters.
The tank is 29 gallons, and will be planted with South American species
including Echinodorus amazonicus, Alternanthera reineckii, and Cabomba
caroliniana. Fish will include German blue rams, cardinal tetras, and
corydoras catfish. The cardinals require soft, slightly acidic water. My tap
water is hard and alkaline. Since I do not plan to buy a reverse osmosis
filter I will need a filter for the tank to soften the water. I know that
peat and driftwood soften and acidify the water. I plan to but driftwood in
the tank. I may use peat, depending on the type of canister filter I buy --
some brands don't offer peat medium.

My first questions concern peat. Do I need it if I use driftwood? Will it
darken the water to the point that the plants will lack for light? Will
carbon remove the darkness?

What experience have you had with the following canister filters: Fluval 04
series, FilStar XP series, Eheim ECCO series, Magnum series? I read a review
of the Fluval filter that said it had cheap parts and was hard to clean. I
have heard good things about the FilStar filter, but the manufacturer does
not make peat medium for it. Both the Eheim and the Magnum are on the
expensive side. Given the type of tank I am creating, what canister filter
would you recommend?

Birru