I have a 55 gallon tank that my Oscar is in. I have a Fluval 404 on it. Now i know that sump filters dont use carbon. If im correct they just have a huge bio filter. Can i just put the biomax in all the chambers? Do i really need the the carbon? Can anyone shed some light on this for me. Thanks.

carbon is used to remove med and chemicals from the water. and basically thats the only time you really neeed it. i run without carbon in my tanks and im sure most of the experienced people here probably dont use it either. its one of those things that you can use it if you want but really its not necessary. if you do decided to use it dont forget to change it on a regular basis.

hopes this helps.

welcome to oscarfishlover

The biggest advantage of using a sump filter is you can literally pack huge amounts of media into it. whereas the canister and other types have filters have a set volume,a stamped filter is very flexible. If you want to use carbon in a sump filter then there's nothing stopping you from doing so.however, you may have to use If you do use a sump filter, I would actually suggest using media that pond filters use such as bac balls and a alfagrog, both of which have superb surfaces for bacteria to live on.

Having said this, you have only got a 55 gallon tank, there is absolutely no point in you having a sump filter. If you have a tank in excess of 100 gallons them a sump filter is certainly worth considering

Ok thanks. That in mind, how about on my 20 gallon with a hang on the back bio-wheel. Could i just put some foam pad or something where the carbon media pads go?

thats what i do with my penguin 150 on the 20 gallon tropical tank i have it works fine for me.

necromancer4 wrote:


Necro has brought top an extremely important point here. As he has already said, carbon is used to remove impurities from the water, people normally use it after they have medicated a tank. However, the problem with carbon is it retains these impurities, at some stage, the carbon will not be able to hold any more and all what the carbon has absorbed may start leeching back into your water which could be extremely serious. And all so as he states, change it every few weeks. Even better, don't even bother putting it in your filter unless you need it at some stage.

all ways use carbon for safey it will prevent ill ness of the fish in your tank

Ok in my 55 im going to put bio mass in all the chambers. In my 20 im going to replace the carbon inserts with foam, ill do that in my 10 gallon with the baby convict/parrot too. Thanks for the help.

You are better off putting as much biological filtration in as you can. Mechanical filtration is important as it catches all solid waste, however I wouldn't put too much of this in because it just takes up space that you could use for biological. Some people like to put polishing pads in, however these need changing on a weekly basis, they get absolutely filthy with Oscars. Personally, I wouldn't bother, you don't need them. One 2 inch mechanical pad is all you really need. This is what I put in my two canister filters, three trays of biological and one sponge pad. I have got two canister filters which are rated to 130 gallons each on my 125 gallon tank so this obviously makes one heck of a difference to how clean the filters stay.

Ok i was thinking about putting the bio stuff in all 4 chambers. It already had 4 foam pads to filter out the debris. I was talking about the 20 and 10 gallons about replacing the carbon inserts with foam. Could i use something better than foam?

Surrey, what filter you talking about? if you are talking about a hob filter, they are not commonly used data here in the UK.

OFL wrote:


The 55 has a Fluval 404 canister thats rated for a 100 gallon tank, it has my Oscar. The 20 gallon has a penguin bio wheel 150 hob, and a beautiful Blood Red Parrot. It has 2 carbon media inserts. The 10 gallon has a hob. Im not sure what make but its not a bio wheel. It has some weird mesh thing for the bio filter and a carbon insert pad.