Bradders
Member
In part, this will do with your loading and DO. When you say "well-stocked", what levels of fish load or you actually looking at?
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JohnCooke
Member
You got me spending time trying to do an up-to-date census! Difficult of course with dense planting. I think I have the following:
80-85 fishes in total
all small tetras, apart from 12 corydoras, and perhaps 8-9 octoclinus [impossible to count them!]
Apart from the Oase 600, I have a nocturnal airstone flow, powered by an Eheim 400 airpump. Being retired, I have the luxury of being able to do 25-40% water changes weekly. Does that answer your question?
Bradders
Member
Ah, the great fish census of 2024! 😀
Does your bio media get gunky when you are using the 45PPI foam?
JohnCooke
Member
No, the 45 ppi is very effective at collecting gunk, albeit at the cost of quickly reduced flow. I haven't yet seen how my coarser prefilter foams affect the interior biomedical.
FWIW, I used a 10ppi foam in the pre filter for a good 4 weeks and it resulted in the foams in the actual filter clogging more quickly. I've gone back to the Oase orange pre filters, and also have a coarser one on the filter intake (mainly to stop shrimplets from being sucked up) and now find that my main filter stays nice and clean.
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Aqua sobriquet
Member
My experience so far is that personally I’d rather rinse out a fine inlet foam once every two weeks. I’m pretty sure I could then leave the main filter for at least 6 and maybe even 12 months before maintenance. Except for regeneration of the Purigen.
Aqua sobriquet
Member
I decided to check on the Purigen today. Whilst regenerating it I cleaned the rest of the filter. Since fitting the foam on the inlet pipe the filter is, as expected, very much cleaner inside. I decided to clean a portion (about 25-30%) of the Siporax in H2O2 to see how clean it stays with the new inlet sponge?
Here’s a picture of the existing Siporax with the freshly cleaned stuff.
Here’s a picture of the existing Siporax with the freshly cleaned stuff.
Bradders
Member
I have recently set up a new aquarium, using an 850 as the filtration + supplied foam (10 PPI pre-filter), and it's been maturing for around seven weeks. A couple of shrimp and three nanofish were added two weeks ago. i.e. the load (from livestock) is absolutely tiny. I opened up the canister yesterday and had a look. There was a lot more brown gunk on the 20PPI foam than I expected, and the HELX-13 was a very dark colour, similar to @Aqua sobriquet above - maybe even darker.
This interested me. So, a 100L aquarium with lots of fish and 18 months old [not so gunky in the Oase] versus a 250L aquarium with next to no fish and 7 weeks old [significant gunk]. The main difference in the two tanks is that the plant bioload is much heavier in the 250L - and there is aqua soil rather than inert gravel.
@Aqua sobriquet - in your 'not dirty' verse 'very dirty' filter media over your two tanks, is there a difference in planting and soil between the tanks etc?
Aqua sobriquet
Member
Both tanks have only a sand substrate and have a large amount of moss plus other plants. The Biomaster is on a tank with some Corydoras in it though. The other only has shrimp.
As mentioned in another thread, as I’ve fitted a 40ppi foam to the inlet I’m wondering about removing the pre-filter foams from the Biomaster?
As mentioned in another thread, as I’ve fitted a 40ppi foam to the inlet I’m wondering about removing the pre-filter foams from the Biomaster?
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Bradders
Member
Interesting. I don't think my observations and your observations have got to the nub of it.
My view is threefold really:
- There is a case for not having a pre-filter in over-filtered (tonnes of biomedia) aquariums. But this is not popular, and I can understand why. So you could remove any pre-filtering IF that is the case.
- If you want pre-filtering, it's either a) on the intake within your aquarium or b) within the Biomaster itself. This is a minor aesthetic decision point, and you also have the same problem as you do cleaning a sponge filter. (If you look in the tube housing the pre-filter when cleaning, you can see how much detritus it holds, which could get released into the water column).
- Tests removing the pre-filter media and throughput show little gain, so there is no rationale for doing it for flow gains.
Aqua sobriquet
Member
In effect I’m pre filtering twice. One on the inlet pipe 40ppi and again on the Biomaster 30ppi. I’m not sure I really need both and I can’t see the internal one is doing much. The reason for the in-tank pre filter is to protect baby shrimp.
Bradders
Member
Yeah, it does seem somewhat overkill.
The Oase pumps water into the pre-filter chamber and then sucks through the pre-filter media into the pipe which leads to the temp chambre. I cannot think of a reason removing the media would be a bad thing to do. What I am humming over is whether you can also remove the pipe. Not sure how important that pipe is at drawing water if you are not using the pre-filter function.
Maf 2500
Member
If I had a foam pre-filter in the tank, I'd probably just switch the internal pre-filter foams for the new 10ppi ones.
Bradders
Member
I think that is a pretty good suggestion!
