Improving A Juwel Filter For A Planted Tank

[chrisf]

I have to say that I have come across a lot of bad press concerning the effectiveness of the Juwel internal filter. So I have started a small experiment...smile.gif

I took away both of the "trays" used to hold the sponges, I felt the gap they created to be excessive and a waste of good media space.

I took away the carbon and nitrate sponge (I have a planted Discus tank).

I bought a large Sera media bag and put in a very large amount of bio filter media (ceramic/lava stuff) This gave me a large bio media mass the size of a large coke bottle. This bag sits at the bottom of the filter chamber.

Above this is one Juwel sponge then the fine filter floss pad and lastly another sponge on top. Sandwiching the floss keeps it away from large debris, giving a longer lifespan in the tank. It has always struck me as a little odd that Juwel put the floss pad at the top as the first line of filter defence.

Now here comes the wild bit.

Juwel internal filters draw water using a powerhead. This draws up the water through a tube which runs the full height of the filter chamber. There is a large hole in the tube halfway down and a smaller one at the base.

The middle hole was blocked by placing a piece of plastic against it, kept there by the wieght of the filter media. This meant all the water drawn out of the filter by the powerhead must travel down the full length of the filter chamber, top to bottom.

So what did all this work result in?

> A very much larger amount of biological filter mass = nver a bad thing for many reasons
> better mechanical filtration = cleaner water
> longer life of the floss filter pad = saving money
> a slight reduction in flow rate = plants loved it
> surprisingle, a quieter filter pump = wife loved it

I was amazed at the capacity of the filter chamber, it easily held all of the filter media from an old external filter (SECAM Marathon 400). The slightly reduced flow rate does the tank no harm as the powerhead is rated at 1000l/h anyway.

If I get a chance I will post some images.

I would very much like to hear from anyone else what they think of this appraoch and thier own attempts at improving this type of filter.

Chris

 

[Majjie]

I think a lot of people on this forum replace the internal filter entirely and add an external one. Far too much trouble for me though.

I haven't gone as far as you but I do have a big bag of ceramic noodles at the bottom of my Rekord 70 filter and I don't use nitrate or carbon sponges - just two coarse and two fine blue sponges (it's crammed full). For the floss pad, though, I just rinse it thoroughly every time I do a water change - seems to last for months. I direct the filter outlet upwards and towards the back of the tank, rather than downwards.

I think that for plants it's the lighting in these complete systems that is lacking - I'm quite happy with my low tech set ups but I can't grow low growing plants (except for Anubias nana and smaller cryptocorynes).

It always amazes me how well the Juwel tank performs. I have two similarly sized (but more expensive!) Tropiquarium 68 tanks - with Fluval Biolife internal filters with trickle chambers - and two T8 lights instead of one - but I can't say that they perform any better. I only keep relatively small community fish though, no big poopers.

 

[nry]

The filter wool being at the top of the sponge stack keeps the sponges themselves free of small and large particles: inmy mind this lets them function for longer before they blocked up: having a sponge as the first layer means it will itself get blocked quickly and reduce water flow.

I took out the carbon and wool layer from my Juwel filter and replaced them both with a decent amount of filter wool. In the 7 months the tank has been running I have never had to clean the sponges and change the filter wool on a weekly/every two weeks basis when it gets clogged. I have a Juwel Rekord60 so my filter is different to yours, all I have done is the above and I also took off the outlet tube from the filter so there is less surface agitation (helps with noise and reduces CO2 dissipation).

 

[George Farmer]

My daughter's Juwel Rio 125 Compact H internal filter is simply 2 fine sponges topped with 3 coarse sponges. I siphon the accumulation of debris etc. from the top coarse sponge every week with the water change, and clean the other sponges alternately every few weeks.

The sponges are almost four years old now.

Still works perfectly well.

 

[Themuleous]

The sponges are almost four years old now. Still works perfectly well.

Sorry cant say I have time to read this whole thread, but I'll add to Georges comments and say that IME there is no need to change the sponges as often as the shops and manufactures would have use believe. The only reason IMO is if they literally wear out due to being cleaned.

And I'm not a believe in these ceramic disk things either. What can they do that a sponge cant? Given that it's generally best to over-filter a tank there should be more than enough room for sponge to take the bioload with ease. IF you are getting to the point where you need the extra surface area ceramic disks are claimed to have, then you're massively over stocked.

Sorry if that's completely off topic!

Sam

 

[Dave Spencer]

I recently removed my Juwel internal filter, but my decision was based solely on the desire to have as little hardware and as much extra space in the tank as possible.

Under any other circumstances I would have stuck with the Juwel.

 

[JamieH]

I recently removed my Juwel internal filter, but my decision was based solely on the desire to have as little hardware and as much extra space in the tank as possible.

Under any other circumstances I would have stuck with the Juwel.

I took mine out too... my tank looks loads bigger since I did.