Rena Xp Issue

[speedyz]

Hi,

Need some advice please on a rena XP filter. Have recently set up a juwel trigon 190 and have installed a second hand xp2 of the internet. The tank was running for a couple of weeks but there has been no bio transfer from Ammonia to Nitrite yet. So, spoke to local fish shop and have bought new internals consisting of : 2 x new filter membrane, positioned in the bottom tray, then bio stars and white bio ceramic in mid tray followed by the white filter sack with dark internals(sorry for not knowing the name) then the white filter at the top.

Have again run this for 10 days and I am still not seeing any bio transfer fro ammo to nitrite.

The flow is good.

What I am thinking is could the water be re-entering from the top an not filtering from the bottom and through the filter trays. I have just opened up the unit and there is fish waist build up at the bottom of the filter but nothing that I can see in the bottom filter. There is however some discoloration to the top white filter.

I am only using this external filter.

Am changing the water every couple of days to keep the ammo down.

Should I wait much longer or buy a new external? should I remove the bottom filters to increase flow though the bottom?

Any help or advise appreciated. Any one else had the same issues etc?

Thanks.

 

[Bazza57]

Hi,

Need some advice please on a rena XP filter. Have recently set up a juwel trigon 190 and have installed a second hand xp2 of the internet. The tank was running for a couple of weeks but there has been no bio transfer from Ammonia to Nitrite yet. So, spoke to local fish shop and have bought new internals consisting of : 2 x new filter membrane, positioned in the bottom tray, then bio stars and white bio ceramic in mid tray followed by the white filter sack with dark internals(sorry for not knowing the name) then the white filter at the top.

Have again run this for 10 days and I am still not seeing any bio transfer fro ammo to nitrite.

The flow is good.

What I am thinking is could the water be re-entering from the top an not filtering from the bottom and through the filter trays. I have just opened up the unit and there is fish waist build up at the bottom of the filter but nothing that I can see in the bottom filter. There is however some discoloration to the top white filter.

I am only using this external filter.

Am changing the water every couple of days to keep the ammo down.

Should I wait much longer or buy a new external? should I remove the bottom filters to increase flow though the bottom?

Any help or advise appreciated. Any one else had the same issues etc?

Thanks.

From what you describe, it sounds like your filter is running ok, you just have to be patient until the filter media matures. It is normal for gunk to accumilate at the bottom of the chamber, if your top chamber is discoloured, it shows your have got water flowing through it -so it is doing its job.

I would put the ceramic tubes at the bottom to filter out heavy waste, followed by the "white sack" which sounds like it is filled with carbon, finally foam pads to "polish" the water & remove any fine waste.
it takes time, to get the filter to maturiny - please remember, when cleaning this out rinse your filter media in used tank water (& not tap water)- this is best done when doing a water change.
Finally, you did not say how much water you removed during your water changes - 10 -15% is adequate.
If you are new to this type of filtration, read-up as much as you can & learn of the different filter medias available to you, you will find sound advice in these forums for a start..
P.S. be careful of the carbon - as well as removing ammonia, it will remove any medications & water treatments, & can be unstable when mature. I would replace this if you can.

 

[speedyz]

Thanks for the reply. Patients, just worry about the few fish I have, will wait it out.

Also, will move the ceramics down.

Just checked the water level which is just above the top filter tray, is this right or should the chamber be nearly full?

Cheers for your help and quick reply.

Paul

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with Bazza57. If you are worried about why you haven't seen the transient little blips of nitrite(NO2) that indicate, in a fish-in cycle, that your cycle process may have moved from the first stage to the second stage, it is probably because you are just inexperienced with how slow the various stages of creating a biofilter can be (as expected, lol, since there aren't too many of us nut-cases who bother to -watch- hundreds of them them!)

Often the tap water contains only a few individual cells of the two specific species of beneficial bacteria you want. Since ammonia is the toxin initially in abundance, the "A-Bacs" (ammonia oxidizing bacteria) get started first and multiply at a greater rate. This eventually results in them producing more nitrite(NO2) than the lesser-multiplying "N-Bacs" (nitrite oxidizing bacteria) can process (not to mention that each 1ppm of ammonia gets basically tripled (to 2.7ppm nitrite.) So you are correct in expecting eventually to see this excess nitrite, but we sometimes see several weeks, even a month before it clearly moves to this stage (some cycles take two months or a bit more to complete.)

The other thing you are experiencing is the very vague nature of the feedback from a fish-in cycle. Many, if not most, of us now cycle our filters -prior- to exposing fish to the unprepared environment, mostly to save the work of all the water changing but also out of respect for the permanent gill and nerve damage that the scientists have now helped us understand happens to the fish used in this way (we used to think this only happened to them when we saw symptoms but now know it happens at many levels and we only see the worst of it.) Over in our beginners section (the "your new freshwater tank" subforum) we assist in hundreds of "fishless cycling logs" to prepare new biofilters and also help with the many "fish-in cycling situations" that happen when beginners follow the biased LFS advice and get themselves into some trouble.

By the way, I agree with the media advice. In nice cannisters like that you want the large ceramic rings to help slow and randomize the water flow, allowing larger debris to be caught and stopped by a rough sponge, then some form of biomedia that has much higher surface area (sponges and ceramic gravels are popular) follows, to perform both medium mechanical filtration and the majority of the biological filtration. Then finally there is usually something for fine mechanical. Chemical filtration (carbon is an example) is optional and normally left out except for times of removing medicines, tannins or a few other things.

Hope this helps a bit - there are writeups in the BRC in the top section of our beginner subforum. (I call it beginner, but many of us with years of experience have learned great stuff here, it's a really fun forum, TFF!)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Your filter sounds like it is running just fine. By changing all of your media after 2 weeks, you basically started all over again on cycling your filter. If the water level in the filter gets too low for some reason, the filter can become quite noisy so you will know it right away. The neck in the top of the filter, the one you can see in this picture of an XP3, prevents the water level being totally full ever.