For what it is worth, you should also have the bacterial colonies living
down in your substrate if you have rock, sand, etc.

I would say to go ahead and remove the over-the-back filter and just stick
with the canister filter. Over time, the canister will start a bacteria
colony pretty quickly especially if there already is some on the substrate.

Brian S.

"Dave" wrote in message
...
Hello folks,

I've got a 35 gallon established planted tank (various swords and anubias)
with a bunch of cardinal tetras, a zebra pleco, 4 clown loaches, and black
rubber eel. I've also got an undergravel plate running with 2 mini
powerheads. It's been set up for 2 years now along with an aquaclear 300
power filter hanging off the back. Well...the aquaclear has become quite
noisy over time so I've decided to upgrade to an eheim cansiter filter
(2213
model) which I bought 2 days ago. Since wednesday I've had the eheim set
up
and I've kept the aquaclear also running so as to keep bacterial buildup
present throughout the switchover process. I've got the eheim running
with
a layer of ceramic rings, a sponge from the aquaclear, followed by 3 new
circular eheim sponges and 1 polish sponge. I figured by using one of my
aquaclear sponges (I wuz running my aq 300 with 2 sponges and nothing
else).....that would kick start bacteria buildup in the eheim. My
question
now is...how long should I keep the aquaclear running?? Is 2 days enough
time for the eheim to get enough bacteria buildup in order to hold the
tank
on it's own??

Any and all pointers appreciated...
thx...
Dave