Should I use a 60 gallon filter for a 30 gallon fish tank? what are the effects?

Question

i have a lot of fish and i fill up my 30 gallon tank with tap water and the petco person said tapwater will kill your fish, so i put tapwater in and wait 20-40 hours for my 30 gallon filter to clean all of the chemicals in the tapwater, and i keep my 13 fish in a tiny bowl and 4 already died and I want to do something about my filter that will make it cleaner, i have 2 plecos that I heard will die unless I don't give them a proper habitat so I am forced to put them in the tank with the tapwater right away and hope nothing bad happens to them, so can I put a stronger filter in so I don't have to wait as long to put my fish in because I don't want them dying. What will happen if i do that?

Answer 1

why not just buy some drops to clear out the chlorine and hard water? also if your tank is too clean the plecos will die. 2 is going to be too much for one tank anyways. if you use a bigger filter than you need it should be fine but i would buy some algae food for the plecos.

Answer 2

Unfortunately overfiltration is just as bas as underfiltering a tank.

First tap water doesn't kill fish when a water conditioner / dechlor is used.  Waiting 40 hours with no water conditioner in the water DOES NOT remove the chlorene or the chloramates or the heavy metals.  There are many factors in chlorene evaporation such as concentrations in the water, temperature of the water and surrounding air, humidity, surface area, air movement with the water Hypochlorite ions (NaOc1) does not evaporate from the water, water evaporates from it.  Leaving your water sit out only lowers the "other" chlorimates.

13 fish in one bowl you have a serious ammonia problem which is why your fish are dieing.  Get a dechlor.  This is way too many fish to be adding all at one time to any tank or "bowl"

Filters will not remove much of the ammonia or the nitrites that will soon follow.  you need a test kit and dechlor drops.  Keep the filter running to help with the dissolved oxygen in the tank.  Test the water daily when you see the ammonia spiking, change the water (no more than 25% unless your ammonia is up around 2 then do a 50)

Filters won't change the cycle process (speed it up or slow it down)

Here is one of the best sites for understanding and explaining the cycle process:

http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/biolog...

Answer 3

you definitely can put a larger filter

over filtration is always better then not enough filtration

your tank needs to go through he cycling process either way

and just letting it sit for a few hours or a bigger filter won't help

you need to put water conditioner into your water either way as well

to learn more about the cycling process, please read this article here

http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/...