ill have to keep an eye on it. im upgrading from a HOB filter. my tank has had hair algae since i got it.... bought an algae blenny and he's been doing a good job eating it up

If your going to run a canister filter remove all the sponge media and simply run activated carbon and either live rock or live rock rubble ( I'd use small pieces of liverock) there is no need for a canister filter per say in a filter sense but you can use it where a sump isn't available or for a refuge when a sump is small.

Filters aren't gonna really help with algae unfortunately your algae gets it's food before it hits any filter and those filters even filled with carbon aren't gonna get rid of your excess nutrients.

To really get rid of your algae you need to starve it and starve it severly, the best solution is ro water watch what you feed like frozen food and keep a regular light pattern with new bulbs every year. There are lots of ways to keep your phosphates and nitrates low, in my little tank I'm running a dual media reactor with carbon and gfo and in my new tank I'm aiming for low nutrient tank so ro/do water and work up to full zeovit system.

Read up on reducing your phosphates and nitrates and your algae problems will dissappear with a little manual removal it won't come back:)

thanks for the advice. but why should there be no sponge? shouldnt there be something to catch the debris that gets sucked in?

the g6 filter also came with a phosphate filter thing that i put in there.

not needed your system is perfectly capable of breaking it down with a cuc ( clean up crew) like crabs,worms,snails,urchns,pods ......you can leave the sponge but it would need to be rinsed very frequently or it ruins the risk of hosting ditrius and thus creating nitrates which in turn fuels yoiur algae:):)

I ran a canister for 4 years before upgrading my tank, and as long as you do regular maintenance on your filter, as Denny said - clean the sponge, it should be fine.

I NEVER had nitrates/nitrites present in my 20 gallon while running my canister. I am a believer in some sort of filter to catch large particulates (poop, etc). I even run a large sponge in my sump now and would never do any different. It helps keep my sump looking pretty (not that a sump needs to look good - hahaa)... but I would not worry too much about it.

If you start having an issue with NO2/NO3 then perhaps you can address whether or not the sponge is the problem. Just clean it regularly.

completely removed the sponge filter cartridge. and put a bag of carbon in there. so im running carbon now in both cartridge slots.

anyone have any tips on catching damsels? im now trying the inverter bottle trick.

Tip. Remove rock. Scoop with net. Ha ha! They are fast. You won't have a lot of luck otherwise.

Good luck!

lol thats exactly the first thing i tried..... i take the rock out, and they're inside it and dont come out.

they'd rather die than be captured

lol finally got them out. wow what a hassle