Canister Filter Plumbing: What am I looking at?

[Legacy]

So about 1.5 months ago I bought a used 200G and it came with 2 canister filters. A Fluval 403 and a Magnum 350. I've been looking at the plumbing and trying to figure out what I have and how it works. I'm pretty sure this isn't what came with the filter from the manufacture.

Here's the pic, Fluval 403:

I think it might be 2 of those valves that you can open and close so you can disconnect the lines w/o making a mess? The other part looks like inlet and outlet side by side.... but does that make any sense?

I want to make custom plumbing fixtures for my tank. What would be the best way for me to set this up? What I mean is what components do I need and what would be the best design and layout? My tank is a 200G(84x24x24) Mangrove Swamp Archerfish Tank that will have only 12" of water. So the setup is a little different than most traditional tanks, any ideas?

What is this supposed to look like?

 

[CGGorman]

http://www.thatpetplace.com/Product...Class/Fish+Supplies+Maintenance/Shopay00.aspx

That should suffice!

 

[TomK2]

The valves are quick disconects, so that you can disconnect a canister and take it to the sink for servicing. You need two of them per canister, one for the inflow and one for the outflow.

The two hoses connected together are whats left of a fluval or magnum u-joint that was intended to go over the top of the tank, and have an outflow nozzle and an intake downtube connected to them. In your picture, the side that was supposed to connect to the outfow nozzles and the downtube are connected to vinyl tubes, and the part that was suppose to connect to the tubing running to the canister appears to be used as an outflow nozzle. I would guess that the outflow nozzles were lost, so that the plastic parts were reversed so that they could serve as outflow nozzles. I would assume that one tube went to each canisters output, and that there were two other tubes that went one to each canister to provide the inflow to each canister. Thus, each canisters outflow came out of what you have pictured, the inflow to the canisters is not pictured.

I don't know if this makes sense to you, but since I had one each of the old fluval and magnum canisters, it is definitely not the stock setup, but a rigged use of old mis-matched parts to serve a purpose. Just rotate the threaded nut ends around so that it makes a "U", picture tubes connected to the threaded nuts goint to the canister, and picture an outflow nozzle and a downtube where the vinyl tubing is now and that is how the maunufacturer provided it.

This is why you never throw away old filter and tank parts, you never know when you can turn them into something useful, and even things you want but can't buy.