About the throw in the towl

[Madreefer]

I used to run a cannister when I first started as well. Who has'nt? If you do plan on running your tank with what you have than I recommend you do this. Take everything out of the cannister and just use live rock rubble instead. You can also put a bag of carbon in as well. Just like others have said, "it's just a nitrate trap."

[outacontrol]

+10 on getting rid of the fluval, when I started out I was running a fluval 404 and after about a year I started having big algae problems, ditched the filter added a few mexican turbo snails and things turned around completely.