[dustin.owens6]

I'm setting up a 4ft, 75g peacock tank. Would 2 ac110's be enough filtration?

 

[Aussieman57]

Yes. AC 110's push a good deal of water and should be fine with proper fish stocking and water changes. It's also nice to have the duplicity of 2 filters should one filter go down. Alternating the cleaning of the filters is also a good idea.

 

[dustin.owens6]

Yes. AC 110's push a good deal of water and should be fine with proper fish stocking and water changes. It's also nice to have the duplicity of 2 filters should one filter go down. Alternating the cleaning of the filters is also a good idea.

Thank you! If I ever wanted to swap out one of the ac110's for a canister, what would you recommend? I've never ran a canister filter before. Every tank I have in the house has an ACsomething on it lol

 

[Aussieman57]

I like the AC 110's for their ease of maintenance. Great HOB filter. The only thing I dont like about the 100's is they can be noisy. On my 90 gallon which is comparable to a 75 footprint wise I use 2 Eheim 2217 filters. This tank is in my living room and you cannot hear these filters running. I've always been an Eheim guy but the Fluval canisters are also good. The only thing I don't like about the Fluvals is the corrugated tubing they use but that is a small gripe.
Quite frankly if you don't mind the sound level of the 110's & you use them on other tanks I would just stick with those for ease of maintenance. You could have spare parts and filter pads, sponge, media just for those and not have to start stocking other filter equipment. Why complicate things. The Aquaclear 100 is a little powerhouse that you can do a lot with. You can leave the cover off & grow Pothos plants out of the top. On mine I use the sponge filter that comes with it and put pot scrubbies on top of the sponge. Then plant Pothos between the pot scrubbies. Helps remove some nitrates.

 

[Auballagh]

Total +1 to all AC110 info, from @Aussieman57 !
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Now, on to those foam pre-filters. These are filter INTAKE, foam pre-filters.

Pictured are the cylindrical type. I prefer the even larger, square-shaped ones offered for purchase by Mag-Drive. To use, these foamy things just simply slip over the end of the intake for your filter. Easy! Over time, the additional surface area provided by that foam pre-filter will be colonized by even more beneficial bacteria - boosting up your biological filtration capacity a bit. Once in operation, it's recommended that you pull a pre-filter off of the intake and squeeze it out once per week or so in a bucket with some tank water. This will keep the water flow rate going well through the filter and help in removing trapped organic matter (fish waste, uneaten food and 'funk') from the water of the tank, before it turns into dissolved organics.

 

[Bleekeri]

So I'm trying to get my sump setup better but the style of sump it is makes it hard. I have 4 compartments with the first 2 being bio ball compartments with overflow lines coming in top flowing over cotton style pads on top of carbon coated pad. Water runs through the bio balls and exits the bottom through egg crate. The next compartment I have a plant refugium. The last compartment is the return water with pump separated by coarse sponge from refugium. The problem with this setup is the bottoms of all dividers are open so it's basically flow though. anyone ever messed with one like this? Suggestions? I'm thinking of replacing bio balls with Poret Layers.

 

[Auballagh]

I'm not personally familiar with that kind of sump. But your multi-compartment sump, is a now popular type. Configured with these various compartments, it gives the aquarist all of these filtration options to set up the sump. And yes, I personally would replace the bio-balls in that sump. Those will work best in a true wet-dry, 'trickling' filter type setup.
Submerged? Mehhh....
However, I would NOT just take all of the bio-balls out 'willy-nilly' and replace them with new Pouret layers (or any other new media). To do this the safest way possible, go one compartment at a time and get the new media well-established with beneficial bacteria in the 1'st compartment, before replacing the next/second compartment full of bio-balls.
Oh, and you could fill one of those compartments in your sump with Fluidized, K1 Media. It will take a while to colonize properly, but THAT stuff will ultimately out-perform pretty much anything else in biological filtration capacity, you could fit into one of those compartments.