What do you keep in your Canister?

[KaiserFish]

Out of curiousity, as the topic states, what do you keep in your Fluval, Eheim, etc? In the variety of baskets.

So far I've used the media that came with the Fluval 404 that I have, and the media that came with the Eheim II Pro 2028 that I have. I have slowly been cutting back on the amount of carbon used as I have tried not using it, and not noticed any difference with my tanks clarity, etc.

 

[KaiserFish]

On that note, what do you keep in your extra media 'baskets' in an Emperor 400?

I've thought of just putting some media in there similar to the ceramic types found in the canister filter baskets.

 

[kukerdan]

i have a fluval 404............ ive kept the standard medium in untill today, i cleaned everything off.... very nasty, lol, replaced 2 of the 4 foam insterts, and in one half basket i added activated carbon, and in another i added a ammonia chip bag, i have a over stocked tank, so it helps.


As far as carbon... i higly higly reccomend it.. you wouldnt believe how much crab came out of the carbon bags, and how little made it to the ceramic rings after them... and the carbon bags washed out easy, and are good as new.

 

[penpitt]

I never run carbon in my canisters. In my 404 the first basket I put polyfill as an extra trap for finer particles, then ceramic media, then peat. The fourth basket is sometimes empty otherwise I'll run a little more ceramic media or polyfill

 

[QTOFFER]

I have the ceramic noodles in one basket and the Ehfisubstrat in the other. I also have course and fine filter pads. The only time I ever used the carbon pad was over a year ago to remove medications.

 

[Orca]

In my 404 I have polyfil in the bottom basket to catch the fine stuffl that the sponge filters miss. Then I have carbon in the next basket. And finally bio-rings in the top two.

For the 2nd question: in my HOB Penguin 330 baskets I sometimes have Peat, but I always have an extra piece of sponge filter material in there so that I can use it to quickly cycle an empty tank when needed.

 

[joedarat]

fluval 204 - rings(bot) , rings(mid) , fliter floss(top)

 

[tiptoptank]

Here is a great addition you can do to make any fluval canister alot better.

First off I found that the fluval has alot of bypass. This isn't cool. I also thought the bin setup wasted alot of great media space. So a made an insert to go inside the filter that solves the bypass and removes the bin setup,leaving alot more space. In fact it left enough space to fill the media side with 1 bin on the bottom and almost a gallon of bioballs.

Here is a post I made about a month ago that explains how to make it and how to install it. It is actually really easy to make and setup.

Look for the post by Sadist (this is my forum name)
http://aquahobby.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=17945&highlight=

I hope this helps. 8)

 

[TomK2]

Pre filter sponge, then ceramic noodle mechanical, then filter floss, then 2 baskets of media, one with the ceramic that came with the fluval, and one with seachem media (cheaper than fluval and eheim). I havent seen much need for charcoal.