I currently have a 75 gallon aquarium with a single red Oscar and Trinidad pleco filtered by a fluval fx4. And a 55 gallon with a green terror and 2 top fin 50s both of which are about to break and have gotten insanely noisy I usually unplug 1 at night to sleep. Anyways my plans are to upgrade to a 125 for Christmas and put the Oscar and GT in the 125 I’d like to add a jack Dempsey in with them but wasn’t sure if that would be overstocked I will have the 75 and 55 open as back up tanks as well if any aggression starts to appear. Any help or advice is greatly appreciated and I’m open to other stocking suggestions as well. Thank you!
125 gallon stocking and filtration advice?
- Thread starter Maryjaneandfish
- Start date
The stocking seems OK if the pair or trio will tolerate each other. I keep an oscar and a green severum together in a 75gal. I've had the pair in this same 75gal setup since 2013. In reality, it isn't enough tank for just an oscar by themselves, but in terms of water quality and care, I make it work. I have a Seachem Tidal 110 hang-on-back (which I would not recommend) and a Marineland C-360 canister on this tank.
As far as filtration for a 6 foot 125gal, You could go with a Penn Plax Cascade 1500 + an Aquaclear 110. or go with twin Cascade 1500s. Chewy has them for $137 shipped and AC 110's are reasonable. The 1500s are a large 5-tray canister. I have one on a 55gal. It moves a LOT of water, and is easy to maintain. I keep sponge in each tray.
If you want the Cadillac of canisters, I'd go with an Oase Biomaster. They look awesome and have a super nice, simple to clean pre-filter. They are expensive.
As far as filtration for a 6 foot 125gal, You could go with a Penn Plax Cascade 1500 + an Aquaclear 110. or go with twin Cascade 1500s. Chewy has them for $137 shipped and AC 110's are reasonable. The 1500s are a large 5-tray canister. I have one on a 55gal. It moves a LOT of water, and is easy to maintain. I keep sponge in each tray.
If you want the Cadillac of canisters, I'd go with an Oase Biomaster. They look awesome and have a super nice, simple to clean pre-filter. They are expensive.
What follows is what I have come to believe as I head into my 22nd year in the hobby. This is not all that long nor are my 20 tanks all that many compared to a lot of folks in the hobby who I know. However, what matters in the end is that one has a sytem that does what it is supoposed- keeps one's tank healthy for the inhabitants.
What makes an Oase any better than an Eheim? Personally, I would never use a canister with a built in heater. My Eheim Po 2s offered that design as well as one without that and I always chose to use an inline heater with my canisters not one inside the filter.
I also would never use foam with the ppi as high as they suggest. It will clog way to fast. That ppi is OK for an intank foam used in shrimp or fry tanks. My one canister loaded with 100% 20 ppi Poret foam runs great and needs cleaning way less then my other two canisters. All three are the same model. I am a bit put off by the internal set-up shown for the Oase. I believe in the KISS theory and the OASA (nor the current Eheim) do not seem to follow this.
I also just took a look at the current models of Eheim canisters and discovered that I will never ever buy one of these.
-They incorporate an internal pre-filter same as the OASE. No thanks, it makes more work and potential problems plus it uses space that could hold other media I prefer to have inside a filter.
-They have built in heaters. Nope- not on my watch ever. Harder to replace it they break and they waste internal space.
- They do not come with media supplies, this is extra. Yep- I prefer to choose my media. I use very little Eheim media in my Eheim Canisters and they work great. I would not want the OASE media either.
The current descriptions of Eheim canisters are very similar to those for the OASE. I clean the pre-filters on my canisters every week during maint. It takes me about 60 seconds, maybe 90 if I get distracted. Telling me that the Eheim, or any other internal pre-filter, is easy to clean means you must think I am a fool.
Most folks have the wrong impression as to what a filter really does. What is does not do is to filter anything. It is a pump in a container which can hold a variety of media. But the media does not filter much of anything either. What the media does is to provide a home for the actual filter, the living microorganisms that do the actual filtering. These live on the surfaces of the media inside the filter. The filter is like a giant hotel. The pores in the media are like the rooms, hallways and elevators. But the people are the things inside that all the hotel parts exist to accommodate. The pump is like room service delivering food to the guests ?
So the job of a filter is to circulate water through media which houses the actual living filtration.The more jobs you add to this, the greater the potential for something to go wrong. I consider heaters to be the least reliable piece of equipment in any tank. I do not care what brand one uses, all of them can fail and do so sooner or later. So to protect my fish I use heater controllers. These can prevent boiling one's fish if the heater gets stuck full on but not from freezing them if the heater stops working.
In a small tank a single filter is given multiple jobs- hold the media, circulate the water and aerate the water via the return. As one moves into larger tank sizes these jobs are often best served by more equipment specifically designed to heat or move water.
Consider this re filtration. The best filter ever invented is a properly configured undergravel system. The reason is simple, it offers the greatest media surface possible inside a tank. The only way I know to have more media than this is with an external sump of decent size.
Two of the most important features about any of the equipment I have in or for tanks is durability and reliability. How long will it work well? My oldest running Eheim Pro 2 has been going nonstop for over 17 or more years. For the first 10 years is doubled as the reactor for pressurizes CO2. My oldest AquaClear ia going on 20 years and has been running the whole time. I have thrown out more heaters than I can count. Today on 20 tanks I have about 38 heaters. The 5.5 and 15 gal, are the lone single heater tanks. The same applies to filtration. Only the 5.5 has a single filter.
What makes an Oase any better than an Eheim? Personally, I would never use a canister with a built in heater. My Eheim Po 2s offered that design as well as one without that and I always chose to use an inline heater with my canisters not one inside the filter.
I also would never use foam with the ppi as high as they suggest. It will clog way to fast. That ppi is OK for an intank foam used in shrimp or fry tanks. My one canister loaded with 100% 20 ppi Poret foam runs great and needs cleaning way less then my other two canisters. All three are the same model. I am a bit put off by the internal set-up shown for the Oase. I believe in the KISS theory and the OASA (nor the current Eheim) do not seem to follow this.
I also just took a look at the current models of Eheim canisters and discovered that I will never ever buy one of these.
-They incorporate an internal pre-filter same as the OASE. No thanks, it makes more work and potential problems plus it uses space that could hold other media I prefer to have inside a filter.
-They have built in heaters. Nope- not on my watch ever. Harder to replace it they break and they waste internal space.
- They do not come with media supplies, this is extra. Yep- I prefer to choose my media. I use very little Eheim media in my Eheim Canisters and they work great. I would not want the OASE media either.
The current descriptions of Eheim canisters are very similar to those for the OASE. I clean the pre-filters on my canisters every week during maint. It takes me about 60 seconds, maybe 90 if I get distracted. Telling me that the Eheim, or any other internal pre-filter, is easy to clean means you must think I am a fool.
Most folks have the wrong impression as to what a filter really does. What is does not do is to filter anything. It is a pump in a container which can hold a variety of media. But the media does not filter much of anything either. What the media does is to provide a home for the actual filter, the living microorganisms that do the actual filtering. These live on the surfaces of the media inside the filter. The filter is like a giant hotel. The pores in the media are like the rooms, hallways and elevators. But the people are the things inside that all the hotel parts exist to accommodate. The pump is like room service delivering food to the guests ?
So the job of a filter is to circulate water through media which houses the actual living filtration.The more jobs you add to this, the greater the potential for something to go wrong. I consider heaters to be the least reliable piece of equipment in any tank. I do not care what brand one uses, all of them can fail and do so sooner or later. So to protect my fish I use heater controllers. These can prevent boiling one's fish if the heater gets stuck full on but not from freezing them if the heater stops working.
In a small tank a single filter is given multiple jobs- hold the media, circulate the water and aerate the water via the return. As one moves into larger tank sizes these jobs are often best served by more equipment specifically designed to heat or move water.
Consider this re filtration. The best filter ever invented is a properly configured undergravel system. The reason is simple, it offers the greatest media surface possible inside a tank. The only way I know to have more media than this is with an external sump of decent size.
Two of the most important features about any of the equipment I have in or for tanks is durability and reliability. How long will it work well? My oldest running Eheim Pro 2 has been going nonstop for over 17 or more years. For the first 10 years is doubled as the reactor for pressurizes CO2. My oldest AquaClear ia going on 20 years and has been running the whole time. I have thrown out more heaters than I can count. Today on 20 tanks I have about 38 heaters. The 5.5 and 15 gal, are the lone single heater tanks. The same applies to filtration. Only the 5.5 has a single filter.
