vauxhallmark
Member
- Joined
- 29 Jan 2008
- Messages
- 569
How much and what mechanical media do people use?
I've been running a Tetratec EX600. When I set it up in September I used what they gave me, which was (bottom to top, the flow direction (I think!)) ceramic tubes, coarse foam || bioballs || coarse foam, carbon in a bag, thin floss sheet.
I've changed that a bit since - I got rid of the carbon and put in 100g purigen, and today I replaced half the balls with ehfisubstrat (I hated them, they floated, made maintenance a pain). I'll replace the other half in a month.
But both setups seem to have absolutely minimal mechanical filtration. The ceramic tubes wouldn't trap anything much smaller than a crypt leaf (which wouldn't get through the strainer on the intake anyway), the two bits of foam are incredibly coarse, wouldn't stop much smaller than a grain of rice, and the little floss sheet at the top is only 5mm thick - it obviously does work though, but it's very fragile - seems I'm meant to buy new ones all the time which I'm not too keen on.
When I do a water change I do try and fluff things up a bit, and do figures of eight with a fine net to try and capture what particles I can, but with ADA aquasoil I don't want to stir it up too much (or uproot the plants).
The tank looks fine, it has a minimal amount of small fish (nothing bigger than the two ottos) in it, and unless I really swoosh things up (as above) it doesn't look at all dirty. The shrimp get in all the nooks and crannies and help it to look good. But it's only 7 weeks old, and as it matures, I want to avoid a build up of stuff that could decay in the tank.
So what do you do? Does the current filter setup sound OK? Or do people like to have more mech media (eg I could put the purigen down a basket into the biological basket, ditch the coarse foam from the top one and fill it and with floss, or try and cut a finer sponge)? Or are people using filters with these kinds of media longer term happy with them?
Any thoughts/ideas welcome!
Cheers,
Mark
I've been running a Tetratec EX600. When I set it up in September I used what they gave me, which was (bottom to top, the flow direction (I think!)) ceramic tubes, coarse foam || bioballs || coarse foam, carbon in a bag, thin floss sheet.
I've changed that a bit since - I got rid of the carbon and put in 100g purigen, and today I replaced half the balls with ehfisubstrat (I hated them, they floated, made maintenance a pain). I'll replace the other half in a month.
But both setups seem to have absolutely minimal mechanical filtration. The ceramic tubes wouldn't trap anything much smaller than a crypt leaf (which wouldn't get through the strainer on the intake anyway), the two bits of foam are incredibly coarse, wouldn't stop much smaller than a grain of rice, and the little floss sheet at the top is only 5mm thick - it obviously does work though, but it's very fragile - seems I'm meant to buy new ones all the time which I'm not too keen on.
When I do a water change I do try and fluff things up a bit, and do figures of eight with a fine net to try and capture what particles I can, but with ADA aquasoil I don't want to stir it up too much (or uproot the plants).
The tank looks fine, it has a minimal amount of small fish (nothing bigger than the two ottos) in it, and unless I really swoosh things up (as above) it doesn't look at all dirty. The shrimp get in all the nooks and crannies and help it to look good. But it's only 7 weeks old, and as it matures, I want to avoid a build up of stuff that could decay in the tank.
So what do you do? Does the current filter setup sound OK? Or do people like to have more mech media (eg I could put the purigen down a basket into the biological basket, ditch the coarse foam from the top one and fill it and with floss, or try and cut a finer sponge)? Or are people using filters with these kinds of media longer term happy with them?
Any thoughts/ideas welcome!
Cheers,
Mark