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Which media?

howardish

Member
Joined
1 Sep 2008
Messages
63
Location
Southend On Sea, Essex
Hi,

I am currently setting up a 4ft (Juwel Rio300) planted tank. I have most of the equipment i need. but before i start i need some advice of what to put in my filter.

I have removed the internal and currently have a Tetratec ex1200 ready to go when i fill up and plant the tank. I will then...after a few months....move my tetratec ex600 onto the tank also, at an opposite end to supplement the flow etc.

Only advice i need is what media do i fill these 2 filters with? and what would be the best to start with on the 1200 as i will be running that solely until i transfer fish and filter over from my other tank.

Hope that doesnt confuse anyone too much :?

Thanks in advance.

Howard
 
I have an ex1200 and have removed all the foam pads except one and replaced them with a small pouch of 'sintered glass media'

This is touted to have the highest surface area of any media, therefore it can sustain a larger bacteria colony than other media.

The remaining single piece of foam is for mechanical filtration.

The filter is then half empty which is intentional to improve flow rates.

I also swapped the fine filter media for cheap polyester stuffing (a la ebay) as I wanted to remove any fine particles and didn't want to pay the exhorbitant prices for 'official' filter wool.

I can recommend this approach :D
 
I forgot to address the 'Best to start with' bit of your question...

If you have any established media form another setup\filter then that is the best to start with. That way your bacteria colony is not starting from scratch.

I started with a combo of an old internal filters media, plus all the media that came with the ex1200. If I had the sintered glass I would have put that in at the start along with the 'seeded' old media.

hth :)
 
I keep the media minimal too, just to keep flow rates up. I have in line gear already reducing the flow. Fish loads are generally low in my tanks, so minimal media isn`t really a problem.

My two Tetratec 1200 filters contain one stage of floss, one stage of foam, one stage of ceramic noodles, Zeolite and Purigen in that order. Both were seeded with bacteria from another filter. I have the floss first to prevent the noodles from becoming clogged. I do tend to find that I never need to clean my filters, apart from changing the Purigen, and the floss.

I guess the fact that I tend to stick to small, shoaling fish in understocked tanks helps a lot. if I was to stock heavily, or with bigger waste producers, I would change the media layout and quantities accordingly.

Dave.
 
Thanks guys,

Starting with colonised media isnt a problem, ima run the tank on plants only for as long as i need 2 anyway, my other tank can stay where it is for now.

I will be running solely on a ex1200 during this as the 600 is on the other tank...i have got a spare 600lph powerhead to help circulation until i move everything over and even then i will be minimally stocked.

So... if i were to go for....1 foam pad at the bottom and a sintered glass media bag, with cheapo floss on top to prevent clogging, this sound viable?
Also, do you leave the baskets in the filter?

Cor, so much effort :lol:

Thanks,
Howard

edit: wheres the best place for sintered media?

Also, while im back here - could i possibly simply use 2 baskets of filter foams instead? my budget is slowly depleting :(

edit #2: iv just searched and apparantly the media that i got with the 1200 is sintered glass media :) is that suitable?
 
howardish said:
Thanks guys,

Starting with colonised media isnt a problem, ima run the tank on plants only for as long as i need 2 anyway, my other tank can stay where it is for now.

I will be running solely on a ex1200 during this as the 600 is on the other tank...i have got a spare 600lph powerhead to help circulation until i move everything over and even then i will be minimally stocked.

So... if i were to go for....1 foam pad at the bottom and a sintered glass media bag, with cheapo floss on top to prevent clogging, this sound viable?
Also, do you leave the baskets in the filter?

Cor, so much effort :lol:

Thanks,
Howard

edit: wheres the best place for sintered media?

Also, while im back here - could i possibly simply use 2 baskets of filter foams instead? my budget is slowly depleting :(

edit #2: iv just searched and apparantly the media that i got with the 1200 is sintered glass media :) is that suitable?

Your options sound good. The fact you can seed the filter is great and I don't think you can go wrong even with a 'straight out of the box, follow the manual' setup. SO the rest of this post may be insightful or just plain old waffle!....


I leave the baskets in the filter even if they are empty. I would imagine that it would mess up the path the water takes through the canister if you took them out. I am only guessing though! If you wanted to try it with and without baskets then now would be the time to do it (as opposed to when you have a tank full of critters to keep alive ;) )

I got my sintered glass media from ebay - I'd be curious to see what other sintered media people have used. Considering the variables (I'm thinking mainly the time it takes to establish bacterial colonies) I think it is really hard to compare different sintered media types when shopping. I'd be interested to hear other opinions on this. I didn't even realise the ceramic media in the ex1200 are sintered :oops: thats good news :)

I forgot to mention in my first post that I removed the carbon pouches that came with it when I first set up the filter. So other than that it was set up as recommended. This worked fine, and bearing this in mind I don't think you can go wrong with any combination really. Just weigh up the pros and cons of different media in different orders. e.g. filter floss - putting it first means it will get clogged up quicker, as it will catch all the muck cominginto the filter....but that will keep the other media cleaner longer. More filter floss will remove more fine matter, but will reduce flow more than other media might. No filter floss will improve the flow but you probably won't get crystal clear water. etc, etc.

I hope that helps and is not just a rant. :D



EDIT: On a similar note - I am going to try adding a filter sock to my filter in the near future (ordered one of ebay a few days ago and now just have to wait 3 weeks for it to arrive from HK). It is placed over the inlet. I'll then see how it works at removing fine particles - I expect I will need to clean it weekly or I will crucify my flow rate as it gets clogged. Its main use is in preparation for 'going shrimp' as it will stop baby shrimp getting sucked up into the filter.
 
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