Jaide Posted December 15, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 15, 2012 sintered glass is a media that has extreme surface area for bacteria to colonise (last time I looked it up it was 10-15000 square feet per liter compared to 5-7000 ft per liter) peat is only if you want to play with your pH, activated carbon is a waste of time unless yo have other problems which should be sorted by good fish keeping instead of chemicals. just remember that the manual is made by a company that wants to make as much money as possible. my canister filters contain (in order of inlet to outlet) coarse sponge, ceramic noodles, medium sponge, sintered glass (or more ceramic if budget does not stretch) fine sponge, filter wool. only additive I use is TLC live bacteria and carbon if im using wundertonic. (or major tannin problem) tried a few and imo most chemical filtration is just a crutch for lack of BASIC fish keeping skills. just remember they were keeping rather nice tanks over 100 years ago without all of this crap Thank you Carine, I will try to buy some from my LFS tomorrow but bear in mind, I live in Upper Hutt - nuff said...... so an alternative to the sintered glass would be good I'd love to see tanks from 100 years ago :bounce: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F15hguy Posted December 15, 2012 Report Share Posted December 15, 2012 over 200 years ago???? http://www.miapg.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1812 wow, just learnt that undergravels were that new..... still personally run undergravels and corner filters due to cost reasons, works fine if your not worried about aesthetics. btw not offering help to get money, just sick of bad LFS's so try to do my best Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrienne Posted December 15, 2012 Report Share Posted December 15, 2012 Okay, Agreed you biff the black stuff which does look to be carbon. One more question, was the layer of what to be filter wool which is sitting under the carbon there when you first got the filter? I use the sintered glass, causes a lesser flow to what you would get using two baskets of the ceramic noodles. Fish guy, The sponge around the outside of the baskets is the stock standard sponge the filter comes with and is not the issue. I believe the problem lies with whatever other wool pads are in the baskets and that they are blocking and slowing the flow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ally07 Posted December 15, 2012 Report Share Posted December 15, 2012 I know that the previous owner recommended that you fill the bottom basket with filter wool, but that's actually the opposite. When I got my FX-5, the advice I got from the FX-5 guru (see: Henward; fish geek) was to fill up the bottom 2 trays with media and the top with filter wool. Since I didn't want to waste a basket of media, I 3/4 filled the top basket with media and left 1/4 space for wool to catch the fine particles. My FX-5 runs like a rocket, as it were. I would also tend to side with Godly3vil's hpothesis. Based on the photo, it looks like there's quite a distance between the floor and the top of the tank - i.e. the pump has to work very hard to overcome gravity. When you do get the media clogging sorted, might still be a good idea to boost it a little bit to get the pump working at a higher efficiency. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaide Posted December 15, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 15, 2012 Okay, Agreed you biff the black stuff which does look to be carbon. One more question, was the layer of what to be filter wool which is sitting under the carbon there when you first got the filter? I use the sintered glass, causes a lesser flow to what you would get using two baskets of the ceramic noodles. Fish guy, The sponge around the outside of the baskets is the stock standard sponge the filter comes with and is not the issue. I believe the problem lies with whatever other wool pads are in the baskets and that they are blocking and slowing the flow. Yes, the layer of filter wool sitting under the carbon was there when I got it - whether it came with the filter, or the previous owner added it, I don't know. Sintered glass slows the flow more? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaide Posted December 15, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 15, 2012 I know that the previous owner recommended that you fill the bottom basket with filter wool, but that's actually the opposite. When I got my FX-5, the advice I got from the FX-5 guru (see: Henward; fish geek) was to fill up the bottom 2 trays with media and the top with filter wool. Since I didn't want to waste a basket of media, I 3/4 filled the top basket with media and left 1/4 space for wool to catch the fine particles. My FX-5 runs like a rocket, as it were. I would also tend to side with Godly3vil's hpothesis. Based on the photo, it looks like there's quite a distance between the floor and the top of the tank - i.e. the pump has to work very hard to overcome gravity. When you do get the media clogging sorted, might still be a good idea to boost it a little bit to get the pump working at a higher efficiency. I followed the instructions for the filter, it says wool on the bottom and noodles on top. It also says the filter should be sitting under the tank "for best performance". ....I followed the instructions! :nilly: OK, I'll put the filter up higher, I have just the base for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ally07 Posted December 15, 2012 Report Share Posted December 15, 2012 I followed the instructions for the filter, it says wool on the bottom and noodles on top. It also says the filter should be sitting under the tank "for best performance". ....I followed the instructions! :nilly: OK, I'll put the filter up higher, I have just the base for it. Haha, I meant raise the FX-5, but yes, it should still sit at a level lower than the tank. The FX-5 is a gravity-driven canister, so it needs to sit under the tank. I was just worried about the distance going UP rather than DOWN - the water might be slowed by the height of the tank. Your case does sound strange though. I've never tried, but I reckon if I filled all 3 baskets with filter wool, the FX-5 would still go strong - it's the biggest, baddest canister I've ever used lol. At the moment, all the media inside mine is Ceramisub, which finer than sintered glass/ ceramic noodles but I don't have trouble with poor flow. So play around with the type of filter wool you're using before determining if it's a fault with the motor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaide Posted December 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 16, 2012 The shops didn't have sintered glass - just wool, carbon and noodles. So I bought some more wool and replaced the carbon with it. So the baskets line up with wool on the bottom, noodles in the middle and wool on top - a compromise! :cr12: And the tank seems to be running like a rocket again so I'm rapt- thanks once again for your help everyone :cr9: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ally07 Posted December 16, 2012 Report Share Posted December 16, 2012 Good to hear, but I reckon it would be better if you had 2 trays of media and 1 tray of wool - maybe try it out and see if it still goes? Otherwise, it's just a waste of valuable bio-media capacity since filter wool doesn't hold much bacteria. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henward Posted December 16, 2012 Report Share Posted December 16, 2012 dont use polishing pads this is my configuration for a more 'mechanical filtration orientated set up' top tray, coars sponge middle tray, 3 layers of filter wood (not the polish pads by fluval but standard polyester wool, 3rd tray i have bio media IF you want more bio, heavy stocked tank i do top tray wool, middle and bottom bio media. shouldnt have issues with this configuration. any filter, flow will slightly decrease when its run in i found, BUT the cheaper the quality, the more it slows down when run in Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David R Posted December 17, 2012 Report Share Posted December 17, 2012 I was just worried about the distance going UP rather than DOWN - the water might be slowed by the height of the tank. Shouldn't matter unless the intake is coming out of a lower than than the return... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaide Posted January 15, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 15, 2013 Blardy thing has stopped again :env: I have an airline on stand-by and plugged that in so the fish can breathe at least until this weekend when I have the time to investigate what's what, THIS time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaide Posted March 3, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2013 STILL trying to get this thing sorted and am sick of cleaning it out to find it's not that dirty - the flow is strong for about 2 weeks then it slows right down. I just cleaned it out again today and the flow isn't that great already. I'm at a loss what to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted March 3, 2013 Report Share Posted March 3, 2013 STILL trying to get this thing sorted and am sick of cleaning it out to find it's not that dirty - the flow is strong for about 2 weeks then it slows right down. I just cleaned it out again today and the flow isn't that great already. I'm at a loss what to do. I'll trade you a perfectly functioning CF1200 for your faulty FX5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaide Posted March 4, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2013 I'll trade you a perfectly functioning CF1200 for your faulty FX5. Well I'm sorely tempted! :fshi: I've had Eheim classics that didn't behave like this - the flow slowed when they were very gunged up and had been going for months. They also had wool in one of their trays so I can't understand why basic wool is being such a problem for a filter which has a much stronger motor. I've tried to find less compact wool to use but it all seems to be a problem. I looked into sintered glass and think it only comes as noodles? I'm tring to remember what other media the eheims had besides ceramic noodles and filter wool..... :dunno: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted March 4, 2013 Report Share Posted March 4, 2013 They also had wool in one of their trays so I can't understand why basic wool is being such a problem for a filter which has a much stronger motor. Bigger motor=more flow. More flow=more crap caught in the filter wool. More crap=clogs faster. Clogs faster=loses flow faster. Have you tried removing the filter wool? It's not a necessity. And it could be that the eheim filter or the difference in how you've put it in also means that the water in the eheim just bypassed the clogged up filter wool while the fluval still has to push through it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaide Posted March 4, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2013 Bigger motor=more flow. More flow=more crap caught in the filter wool. More crap=clogs faster. Clogs faster=loses flow faster. But that's just it, the filter isn't very dirty - in fact one of the tray's of wool is still completely clean and white. Have you tried removing the filter wool? It's not a necessity. And it could be that the eheim filter or the difference in how you've put it in also means that the water in the eheim just bypassed the clogged up filter wool while the fluval still has to push through it. Good idea, I'll try an experiment and only run it with the one tray of noodles and see how that goes :thup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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