Looking For Help With My Juwel 96

[bushbrother]

Hi All,

I am in the process of setting up my 2nd hand Juwel 96 aquarium and I am just about to start the fishless cycling process. However I have a couple of questions about the internal filter. The guy who sold it to me changed them for new before I collected it, getting it home i looked at it and there are 2 "baskets" with blue, green and black sponges.

My questions are what are the different colours? When should I change/clean them? and do i also need filter wool which I have read about?

Also I wanted to know if anyone out there has a PDF copy of the instruction manual, the Juwel websites links are all broken and I cannot find it anywhere.

Any help appreciated

 

[bushbrother]

OK, found the manual

http/www.seapets.co.uk/custom-content/pd...s/Rekord_96.pdf

Anyone offer some help on when to change various filter media, there are guidelines in the manual, are these OK? Also the output from the power head is not as fast as I expected, it only just moves the surface of the water, is this what I should be expecting?

 

[glolite]

Anyone offer some help on when to change various filter media, there are guidelines in the manual, are these OK? Also the output from the power head is not as fast as I expected, it only just moves the surface of the water, is this what I should be expecting?


[/quote]

Hi there

As far as the filter media goes, you shouldn't have to change it at all. Three months after cycling has finished, just rinse one sponge per month in used aquarium water. This way you don't lose too much beneficial bacteria.

Personally I don't bother with the black (carbon) filter, as it becomes used up and therefor useless after a few days. Just put it in if you want to rid the water of traces of any medications you may use. Simply replace with an extra blue sponge.

Is the impeller moving freely within the power head as this can cause a sluggish water flow. Switch off and remove from housing, then remove power head from base (I think) anyway, refer to your manual. Then dry carefully and run it for a few seconds, if not running freely, remove the impeller and run it under the tap then replace and try again.

Hope this helps

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with "the glow" there.. the black and green sponge things are just something by the sales guys for novices. Searches will find you many, many posts on TFF about the types of media and their functions and relative usefulness. In the filter you have, the only things of significance are sponges and the sponges being of different densities. I assume their instructions end up having the input water passing through the more coarse sponge first and finer ones later, which would be normal. I'd just choose whichever sponges are the cheapest (probably the blue ones?) if I needed to replace any. The sponges are serving dual purposes: they catch debris, thus serving a "mechanical filtration" function and the also serve as an excellent "high surface area" biomedia on which lots of our two species of beneficial bacteria can begin building their new biofilm homes!

I'm not sure what the general UK member consensus is on these jewel filters.. seems like some have replaced them with Fluval internals and of course there will be those who have replaced them with external cannister filters too probably. But there may be members who are doing fine with them too!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[bushbrother]

Thanks for the replies guys, very helpful, I will take your advice and just put the blue ones (2 coarse followed by 2 fine) topped with some filter wool