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Moving from interal filter to external

Dave Y

Member
Joined
26 Jul 2019
Messages
28
Location
Poole, Dorset. UK
Hi all,

I'm finally swapping out my internal fluval u4 for an external 407. The tank is currently low tech, fairly well planted, fish stocking is pretty low for a 200l tank - its been running for a couple years with the internal filter.
Am I OK to put the biomedia from the old filter into one of the 407 trays and just swap the filters?
Im thinking it should be fine as the tank is well established, but could that cause any issues?

Thanks.
 
Hi all,

I'm finally swapping out my internal fluval u4 for an external 407. The tank is currently low tech, fairly well planted, fish stocking is pretty low for a 200l tank - its been running for a couple years with the internal filter.
Am I OK to put the biomedia from the old filter into one of the 407 trays and just swap the filters?
Yes, you can do that - just make sure its not drying up in the process etc., and you probably need to add more (new) media as the canister is quite a bit bigger.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Last edited:
Thanks, will go for it.
All the other trays have new media, just the top one will have the old media in.
 
Im thinking it should be fine as the tank is well established, but could that cause any issues?
I would very highly doubt any issues would happen from this. Your tank has been up and running for "a couple of years", so it will be an established mature tank. There will be beneficial bacteria deep in the substrate, all over the plants and hardscape etc. Tbh in a planted tank, I actually wonder how much of the bacteria is even in the filter. The plants do a fantastic job of improving water quality as it is.

But anyway, if you're swapping the media to the new one, then no, you have nothing to fear :)
 
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