[fishyfishyfish]

Is there a rule of thumb for how big a filter to have?

I have a 180 litre tank with a eheim 2234 (up to 200 litre) cannister filter and the fitted (Juwel) internal filter it came with so i'm guessing i had more than enough filterage, and i've always had crystal clear water.

However i now have taken out the internal filter (as it fell off the glass - the silicone gave up the ghost)

So i'm left with a 200 litre cannister for my 180 litre tank.

Is this enough??? as my local garden centre says i should upgrade to a filter that will handle 400 litres?

I have 1 fish a Jaguar cichlid (11") which due to it's fussy nature eats 3 times a week so there isnt a lot of mess but also on monday i will be swapping the jag for a breeding pair of Green terrors (7 & 5 inches approx)

I dont mind forking out the money for a second cannister but i'd rather not if i dont have to..

Thanks

 

[WakinAZ]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It is nice to have some redundancy/additional capacity though.

Perhaps an additional smaller canister. I won't recommend a power filter, since it seems they are not that common over there, which has always been a mystery to me.

Be aware the manufacturer's stated capacities are
*optimistic
*designed to sell filters, not maximize your potential for success
*usually overrated
I use overfiltering the manufacturer's guidelines by 2x as a rule of thumb, especially with large fish, even relatively neat ones. So if I had a 200L tank, I would put *2* "200L" rated filters on it. ---->>>"Belt and suspenders".

Splitting the filtering over two filters spreads the risk of breakdown and gives you more options.

Eric