[Doug]

Hi Funloven,

Sorry about the late response.

I am curious as to what is causing the particulate in your water.

Is it possible that something, such as fish or other critter could be stirring up your sand? I used to have a crazy tomato clown that loved to stir up my sand and aggravate me. Is the particulate always visible?

Using the micron pads in the sump would catch a lot of particulate matter but there are a couple things to consider:

If the filter pad gets plugged with waste, is there a way for the water to bypass it without flooding your basement? The reason I bring this up, a friend of mine had a very large fishonly system and he used micron filter socks in his overflow drains, but the way the drain was setup, it had no way to bypass the filter when they became plugged and he came home to wet basement and a very large pump sucking in air.

Also, depending upon your flow rate and the amount of particulate in your tank, the filters would have to be cleaned fairly often, sometimes every couple days.

As far as a canister filter goes, when I ran one on my 75 gallon tank, with just a sponge and not a micro filter at the time, I had to clean it every 2 -3 days. It was more trouble than it was worth and after about a month, I pulled it off completely.

As far as cleaning flat filter pads, like those that sit under the wet/dry drip plate, I ran them under the sink and gently ringed them out.

I have heard people suggest cleaning the filter pads in diluted bleach but I was always too afraid of poisoning my tank.

I would suggest replacing the filter pads when they get severely stained, thinned out or if they begin to fall apart.

One thing that I do to reduce particulate in my tank is, I still use the sponges in my overflows. For my tank, they are easy to clean every few days and while they do not work anywhere near as well as a micron filter, they do collect a lot of floating particles.