Big G
Member
Doubt any of this will be of interest to non-owners or most other owners but thought I would put it out there. There’s probably a better fix than the one I’ve used below.
Noticed that despite doing the fairly standard modification of blocking the two sump chamber bypasses ( in my case with silicon sealant), I was still getting very turbid water and an accumulation of mulm at the base of the filter chamber. Some of that was potentially being drawn into the pump (mine was gunged after just a week or two) and spat back into the main chamber
I can rule out filter media for the most part as I have upgraded my mechanical media to a three stage/density sponge which traps well.
When once again I drained down the filter/ pump chamber water to about a millimetre I noticed the water level creep back up to about 1 cm within 5 minutes. There’s no water bleed from either of the bypass mods. It’s got to be the seal on the chamber divider base. For now I’ve stuffed some medium foam in the settlement area below the filter rack lip and removed some medium foam at the top of the filter stack to compensate for loss of flow. Net output is fine.
The long term answer is probably to superglue or silicon seal a reinforcing bead along the existing seal joints but I haven’t got a clue how I would get one of my big paws down there to do that without breaking down the ‘scape.
Practically, it’s just a more frequent rinsing of media, which adds an extra few minutes to weekly maintenance .
If you’re finding you’re getting more turbidity than you were or than you want it might be worth a look at this as a source.
I’m sure it’s something I’ve done wrong. Maybe too much messing around in the sump area with replacement media nudged a seal. This isn’t pro-grade, customisable gear and to be fair, it isn’t designed to be.
Guess the lesson for myself is, the designers and engineers know what they’re doing. Not all mods are upgrades.
It’s a great starter and all-in-one tank for a beginner such as I am and is serving me well as I find my feet with this hobby. Allowed me to focus more on plants and shrimp when some of the hardware choices seemed overwhelming. Light imho is plenty to grow low- medium demand plants.No regrets.
Upside is that it starts to focus my thinking on a larger, more modular rig to replace that tank to in due course.
All the best
Bg
Noticed that despite doing the fairly standard modification of blocking the two sump chamber bypasses ( in my case with silicon sealant), I was still getting very turbid water and an accumulation of mulm at the base of the filter chamber. Some of that was potentially being drawn into the pump (mine was gunged after just a week or two) and spat back into the main chamber
I can rule out filter media for the most part as I have upgraded my mechanical media to a three stage/density sponge which traps well.
When once again I drained down the filter/ pump chamber water to about a millimetre I noticed the water level creep back up to about 1 cm within 5 minutes. There’s no water bleed from either of the bypass mods. It’s got to be the seal on the chamber divider base. For now I’ve stuffed some medium foam in the settlement area below the filter rack lip and removed some medium foam at the top of the filter stack to compensate for loss of flow. Net output is fine.
The long term answer is probably to superglue or silicon seal a reinforcing bead along the existing seal joints but I haven’t got a clue how I would get one of my big paws down there to do that without breaking down the ‘scape.
Practically, it’s just a more frequent rinsing of media, which adds an extra few minutes to weekly maintenance .
If you’re finding you’re getting more turbidity than you were or than you want it might be worth a look at this as a source.
I’m sure it’s something I’ve done wrong. Maybe too much messing around in the sump area with replacement media nudged a seal. This isn’t pro-grade, customisable gear and to be fair, it isn’t designed to be.
Guess the lesson for myself is, the designers and engineers know what they’re doing. Not all mods are upgrades.
It’s a great starter and all-in-one tank for a beginner such as I am and is serving me well as I find my feet with this hobby. Allowed me to focus more on plants and shrimp when some of the hardware choices seemed overwhelming. Light imho is plenty to grow low- medium demand plants.No regrets.
Upside is that it starts to focus my thinking on a larger, more modular rig to replace that tank to in due course.
All the best
Bg
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