# how much filter media I need per liter aquarium water ?



## unisubzero (12 Jan 2009)

Hello,

Could someone tell me how much filter media I need per liter aquarium water ? I think too much media will reduce my filter output.
I think  I saw something about it on this forum or maybe somewhere else â€¦
Thanks


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## ceg4048 (14 Jan 2009)

Hi,
   Unfortunately flow rate reduction is a fact of life. To work your way around this you will simply need to use a stronger filter to compensate. There is no way to correlate a "normalized" water quantity to filter media. The reasons include the fact that not all media are created equally, so that some media have more surface area than others and can support higher bacteria populations, thereby doing more nitrification than a lesser media. Another factor is that filtration requirement is also highly dependent of organic waste production within the tank therefore, two tanks of exactly the same water content can have vastly different loads if one is heavily stocked with plants and animals while the other is lightly stocked.

Any liter(media) per liter(H20) calculation therefore would be completely irrelevant.

If you follow the 10X turnover rule of thumb you can then fill your filter with high quality media and forget about trying to balance media volume as a function of tank volume. Ergo, multiply your tank volume by 10 and this should be the turnover rating of your filter.

If the resultant filter size is beyond your means then the flow rating can be supplemented by adding lower cost powerheads.

Cheers,


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## unisubzero (15 Jan 2009)

Yeah, sounds logic but itâ€™s kind of hard to get 10 x turnovers for a 400liter tank in bedroom â€¦ I guess I need to find a balance between turnovers and the noise of the filters.   

Thanks for reply


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## ceg4048 (15 Jan 2009)

Hi,
   It's really not that difficult to find quiet filters, however you will have to pay. The Eheim Pro III series are renowned for their quietness but they do come at a premium price. A 400L highly lit (2wpg or higher T5 ) CO2 injected tank would optimally have 4000LPH of turnover rating. Two model 2080, each having a rating of 1700LPH would be ideal and have sufficient accoustic treatment to render them innocuous in any living space. Alternatively, a single unit supplemented with several well placed popular powerhead brands to total at or near 4000LPH would work fine. :idea: 

Cheers,


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## unisubzero (15 Jan 2009)

Hi ceg,

Right now I have one Eheim Pro III 2078, Eheim 2217 Classic (for CO2 injection) and one AquaClear 70. For lighting 4 x 54W   T5 and still fighting some algae :S
Pomp output of Eheim 2217 was really disappointing â€¦ around 600lph w/o media.   

I was thinking about Eheim 2080 but then I saw info about 2074e. Not sure which one is better. 
 :?


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## ceg4048 (16 Jan 2009)

Hi,
    I would suggest that if cabinet space allows, you just get the 2080 and get on with it. All that "e" enabled propaganda doesn't help you grow better plants, fight algae or filter the water any better. It just makes you feel as if you're the star in a Stanly Kubric Sci-Fi movie.  

Post your algae difficulties in the algae section with some photos and we can perform further analysis.

Cheers,


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