Juwel Jumbo Filter System

[CruX]

I have a Juwel Trigon 350 with the Jumbo filter system. I also use an internal filter to suppliment this for two reasons. One> it creates a nice flow at the top of the tank some fish like to play in, and two> When I upgraded from two smaller tanks I had this two of these filters in each tank and moved them when I got the big tank, incidentally one cannister fits onto the other.

Anyway. In the Juwel filter I have all the sponges in except the black carbon, since October I have only ever changed the white filter wool as it gets manky, and I alternate filter maintainence between the Juwel and the cannister. When I maintain the Juwel I just clean it in tankwater and I haven't seen a need to change the blue or green filter pads. I have decided to stock up on spares and while browsing the Juwel site I came accross this info about the green sponge. It lists it as a nitrAte removal sponge. Have I gone bonkers or does it actually remove the nitrate if you replace it every 6 weeks as described? I struggle to keep my nitrates down. Worryingly my tap water when I have tested it can have up to 10ppm nitrates. From memory it has been higher. I struggle to keep my nitrates down to 20ppm with frequent and large water changes, would changing this green pad as reccomended help or is it a gimmick?

 

[nmonks]

The Jewel filters are very very good biological filters. I'm very impressed by them. Being low-pressure filters they don't do much to remove solid waste, so you still need to spend some quality time with a siphon and bucket if you have messy fish, but in terms of removing nitrite and ammonia they are first rate.

The nitrate sponge is kind of a gimmick. It is very difficult for one these sponges to make a big difference if you have nitrates around the 50 mg/l mark (as is the case in much of England). Not going to happen. Especially if you have fish in the aquarium as well. If you have a zero nitrate system, like a reef tank or a discus aquarium, then perhaps they'd be useful. But otherwise treat them like a biological filter sponge and be done with it.

Freshwater fish are largely indifferent to nitrate level. Lab experiments on trout (if I recall correctly) established the toxicity of nitrate as being 1000x less than nitrite or ammonia. Nitrate can be a factor in algae problems, but other issues, like a lack of plants or the presence of direct sunlight are bigger factors. I've had tanks with lots of plants, 50+ mg/l nitrate, and virtually no algae. So anyway, nitrate isn't something to get too hung up on unless you have species (marines, discus, mollies, Tanganyikans, Apistogramma, etc.) that are known to be nitrate intolerant. Ordinary water changes should keep the nitrate in the safe zone. Anything less than 50 mg/l is fine, and 20 mg/l or less is very good.

My Rio 180 now has two of the internal Jewel filters plus an external Fluval canister for water turnover around 9x per hour. I've connected the Fluval to suck water in from one Jewel filter (sliding the inlet pipe into the slot inside the filter box) and then out into the other Jewel filter (putting the outlet hose into the slot inside the other filter box). So far this has worked really well, creating a stronger current at the lower level of the aquarium. It's worth playing around with those little plastic "elbow" tubes that come with the Jewel filters to get a nice circulation of water at all levels.

Cheers, Neale