Remove the filter? or leave it in?

[littlea8]

Hello,

I recently installed my sump about 2-3 days ago. The guy at my LFS told me that I should leave my old canister filter in my tank for about 2 weeks so that my sump will obtain a biological filter. Do I have to leave my old canister filter in there for that long or is it okay to take it out and throw it in my closet now?

 

[KahluaZzZ]

well if you have a lot of liverock/good water volume you could ditch the canister. There is the safe option to remove the bio medias like 20% every 2-3 days until there's no media left, unless your canister is very dirty and releases crap into the tank. On my first 55g tank i ditched an aquaclear 500 that pretty much equals a canister ..with no problems, but i had a lot of liverock