Thank you all sooooo much for responding! This is how I love to learn--from others experiences and knowledge. I DO have a skimmer, but I only run it three nights a week, as it seems my one male horse keeps getting pouch emphysema if I run it longer or more than that. The skimmer is an in sump skimmer and it says it is a Marineland MSPS100--this is what manager of Big Al's suggested for my 55g tank. My tank was aquired last November, so the tank pumps and hoses and such were already wired up. I can't find any info on the pumps (brand, size, etc
. I will try my best to describe my tank set-up. Here goes......My sump has two pumps with hoses going up into my tank--these hoses bring the water up into the tank. I have a hanging filter on the back of my tank going most of the way into the tank water. I have a filter in this that I clean weekly. The water is cycled from this filter down into the top of the sump and drains into the four tray filters. As the water drains through the trays, it pours over and turns the aeration wheel. On the other side of this is where I have the two pumps, my skimmer and my heater. I do realize that this is a more primitive set up but I still love it and it's what I know. So far. By looking at Marc's AMAZING tank set up, I have a loooong way to go, lol. One day at a time, eh? At the risk of sounding totally inept, is this tray style filter system called "mechanical filter"? The top three trays have a stiffer pourous kind of batton that I cut to fit the trays, and the bottom tray is perforated to allow the water to fall over the aeration wheel. (God, I hope this makes sense to anyone besides me). And how often should I be changing these filters, and do I change them all at once or do I do one per week to keep the media going? I was told it was not good to change these tray filters all at the same time, correct or no? I can't think of what other info to give as it is getting quite late and I keep nodding off, lol. Thanks to all!
