new to hobby filter conversion?

[Trigger Happy]

I want to convert my freshwater to reef. I'm not drilling my tank or using a sump. I do have a large ehime canister filter. I don't know what to put in the filter. I understand "nitrate trap" Live rock rubble ? I will also be using a turbofloater 1000 Aquamedic skimmer. tank will be 150 g and I plan to eventually get some live rock.

[Black Phantom]

Unless your bio load is quite small then one cannister filter isn't going to cut it. Thats a big tank. You will probably start to see a build up of ammonia and nitrates. That being said, if you keep the bio load low then it should work just fine until you get some rock in there.
Just remember that if you add the rock after the fish it will cycle. This will raise ammonia, raise nitrates and then probably kill the fish.
Most people do the rock thing first, get your tank stabilized, and then start to add the fish.

[superduperwesman]

Just drill it and get a sump before you fill it with water and regret not doing it properly when it was empty

[dabandit]

Get one of those overflows where the tank doesnt need to be drilled and run a sump. I used to run a conversion full of live rock,carbon and phosphate media it worked as well if not better than my phosbans but it needs to be cleaned every week. Dont fear the sump a properlly designed system cant possiblly fail,worse case scenario you might burn out a pump.

[Trigger Happy]

The canister is about the same size as a 5G bucket I think it's the biggest ehime makes. Eventually I was going to add a gravity fed refugium, with the canister pumping from the tank to the refugium then back to the main. I'm just wondering what would be the best thing too put in the large canister Carbon and nothing?

[dabandit]

why do i bother

[Trigger Happy]

Sorry Dabandit, I'm not planning on that much maintenance. I thought you you were thinking I had a smaller canister. I've seen O.C.D.'s tank and he has ran this type of set up for 8 years, His tank is crazy. He runs like 500lbs of life rock. But all he said in the canister was nitrate reducing media. I'm just wondering would live rock be better? or something else? I don't know his maintenance schedule. But really isn't the sump a place for equipment and the skimmer does all the work. So with enough live rock would the canister be better empty? Confused

[fkshiu]

Your only feasible choice for using the Eheim canister on a reef tank would be to fill it with live rock rubble and/or chemical filtration media of some sort like carbon or GFO.

Personally, I think having a big expensive Eheim canister to do these tasks is a big waste. With enough live rock in the tank, any in the filter would add very little filtration capacity. Further, a reef is all about flow and canister filters don't do a very good job of that compared to even inexpensive propellor driven powerheads like Hydor Korallias. Lastly, a $40 Phosban media reactor would get more out of chemical media than having sit in a bag in a canister filter.

I'd sell the Eheim and invest that money some proper reef equipment.

[superduperwesman]

I say sump

[dabandit]

Not that much maintainance LMAO if your worried about rinsing a filter once a week then maybe reef keeping isnt your bag,hell I clean and dump my skimmer twice a week.