wgoldfarb
Fish Fanatic
Sorry... It's just that we have both kids home from school and my mom visiting, so it's been busy at home! I will post updates soon!
Rebuilding an old abandoned 29g
- Thread starter wgoldfarb
- Start date
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MonsieurLaGrenuoille
Fish Crazy
Just to inform you mon ami that the trouble with the chocolate guramis already began, they really don't like any trouble at all with other fishes but are also quite agressive to each other, is so a provervbal fish of the most dificcult to hold, so if you want to have a happily aquarist's life don't buy any Chocoguramis for your new tank. (y sigue pasándotelo de chumichurri con la familia hombre!)
wgoldfarb
Fish Fanatic
Over the past few days I've (slowly) "reengineered" my filter as mentioned in a post above. My main goal was to do away with Eheim's media basket, which in the 2213 is just a single large basket. It's not very useful, and all it does is take away from the filter volume. There is a lot of dead space all around the basket and eliminating it increases filter capacity by over 30%.
One advantage the basket does have is that it creates a small gap between the bottom of the basket and the bottom of the canister. This is where the filter inlet is located, so the gap ensures water isn't blocked as it enters the filter and is distributed evenly throughout the media. To replicate that gap I took the basket's lid and with the help of pruning shears and some silicone I made a spacer that will sit at the bottom of the filter. Here is the basket and lid before my modifications:
And this is what I did to the lid:
That notch near the front is for the inlet. I left the plastic handle in place to make it easier to pull the spacer out during maintenance.
I also said in a previous post I wanted to change the order Eheim recommends for the media. I want all mechanical filtration before the Biohome, to keep the Biohome as clean as possible. From from bottom to top I will have Eheim's "Mech" ceramic cylinders as a first very coarse mechanical filtration, followed by 3 layers of increasingly fine poret foam (10ppi, 20ppi, 45ppi). I would have liked to add polyester batting on top, but it would have been squished flat by the Biohome on top of it, so I used a felt pad to polish the water instead. This is what it will look like once stacked inside the canister:
(I put the ceramic cylinders inside a bag of the plastic netting that supermarkets use to pack oranges and grapefruits, just to make maintenance easier).
I will put 1kg of Biohome media on top of this (also inside plastic netting) as the last step in my filtration. The good news is that the poret foam can easily take the 1kg on top of it without compressing.
This is what it looks like with all the media in the canister:
A little over half the filter volume is the biomedia. I tried this with the basket and didn't have enough space to fit everything. Without the basket I have room to spare!
Next I will hook all the hoses, filter and heater back up. I still have family in town so it will be slow going, but I will post once I do.
One advantage the basket does have is that it creates a small gap between the bottom of the basket and the bottom of the canister. This is where the filter inlet is located, so the gap ensures water isn't blocked as it enters the filter and is distributed evenly throughout the media. To replicate that gap I took the basket's lid and with the help of pruning shears and some silicone I made a spacer that will sit at the bottom of the filter. Here is the basket and lid before my modifications:
And this is what I did to the lid:
That notch near the front is for the inlet. I left the plastic handle in place to make it easier to pull the spacer out during maintenance.
I also said in a previous post I wanted to change the order Eheim recommends for the media. I want all mechanical filtration before the Biohome, to keep the Biohome as clean as possible. From from bottom to top I will have Eheim's "Mech" ceramic cylinders as a first very coarse mechanical filtration, followed by 3 layers of increasingly fine poret foam (10ppi, 20ppi, 45ppi). I would have liked to add polyester batting on top, but it would have been squished flat by the Biohome on top of it, so I used a felt pad to polish the water instead. This is what it will look like once stacked inside the canister:
(I put the ceramic cylinders inside a bag of the plastic netting that supermarkets use to pack oranges and grapefruits, just to make maintenance easier).
I will put 1kg of Biohome media on top of this (also inside plastic netting) as the last step in my filtration. The good news is that the poret foam can easily take the 1kg on top of it without compressing.
This is what it looks like with all the media in the canister:
A little over half the filter volume is the biomedia. I tried this with the basket and didn't have enough space to fit everything. Without the basket I have room to spare!
Next I will hook all the hoses, filter and heater back up. I still have family in town so it will be slow going, but I will post once I do.
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