I still haven't set up my tank. I need a filter still. I have the sand and stand. Being out of work has been pressing on my finances . . .
Cad, what specific brand of filter do you use? size?
how many and what kind of filter is recommended for a 40 gallon tank?
First off, I feel for you brother, being out of work at the holiday season. I had one or two years where I was jobless and I had to go pawn my stuff and sell work at art shows to have a nice Christmas for the family. You'll pull it together but of course it will be stressfull. That's americanism 101.
I am not very experienced with cichlids. I only know what I read in the funny papers. I've managed to kill off every angelfish I ever had, because I did not understand them well enough. They are not twice as sensitive as my other fish. They are ten times as sensitive.
Felix seems to be much more robust.
Other than undergravel filters, I only have used
one real commercially made filter, which is an Aqueon hang-on canister.
I have the Aqueon 75 in that picture on the 55 gal tank, and I have an Aqueon 10 which is a miniature version of the same thing on my 16 gallon tank.
If you have a 40 gallon, you might get the Aqueon 50. Even the 75 would not be too much.
They work pretty well but they do make some noise as there is water falling. They're easy to clean,
but I don't like the whole idea of hang on filters.
Structurally, they add stress to the most stressed part of the whole tank, which is the top edge of the long glass. Also I think it's overpriced for the filtering capacity although perhaps not considering the convenience, IF you have extra money to play with.
Right now all of my filters are do-it-yourself stuff made up out of various power heads, pool pumps, canisters and bottles, foam and filter floss.
Some are more successful than others.
On the 30 gallon Oscar tank I am currently running an AquaClear 50 powerhead in reverse flow mode with a big input filter at the top of the tank and the discharge down to an undergravel filter.
This blows up all the Oscar poop up out of the gravel bed. (
Cichlids make a big mess and they like clean water and live food. This means they are are a bit more work to take care of in general)
Then at the bottom there is a small pool pump in a canister filter made from a plastic box that it came in. Two kinds of foam and filter floss. This sucks up any low floating stuff and discharges up to agitate the surface. I buried it under lava rock so you can't see it.
Then I unsnap the powerhead from the Aqueon 75 and turned it upside down. I cut up a plastic bottle to make a skimmer and attached it to the input. I stuck in a couple plastic pot scrubbers and some floss and this catches up the floating stuff on the surface and blows clean water to the bottom of the tank, which is mostly where
Felix and Morton live.
There are also two air stones in the tank.
What filters you choose depends a lot on the
fish are that you intend to keep. Since Oscars are notoriously messy I used 3x as much filtration as the average person. I also put Morton, the big pleco, in there to police up the mess.
For little submersible pumps, you can get an excellent one at Harbor Freight for $8.99. It is as as powerful as the Aqueon 75 pump at a fraction of the price.
Skimmers and intank cartridge filters can all be made out of various plastic boxes & bottles.
Filter foam is an expensive deal but I found some big chunks designed to go in your rain gutters for 7 Bucks. It's like 10 PPI, and perfect for your coarse pre-filter. 30ppi I am buying at the pet store
If you have the place to run an external sump it is a neat thing to do because it gets everything out of your tank and all you need to build one is your old 10 gallon tank and some new silicone. A few bits of plastic or glass in a little time with the skill saw and we can build a sump better than anything you can buy for hundreds of dollars.
If you've never watched his videos, go look up UaruJoey on YouTube. He's also known as the do-it-yourself fishkeeper or the King of DIY. His homemade tanks are impressive.
He will show you how to build all kinds of neat stuff at a fraction of what you would pay at the fish store.
(Edited for several typos and grammatical errors.)