Reply With QuoteHi Goalkeeper,
My filter has, from bottom to top, ceramic rings, plastic mesh sponge, cotton sponge and activated charcoal. I've personally never used coral chips as a media as there wasn't a need for it.
Am curious what media you guys have? Not sure bio balls work as I believe they go better with overhead filter that give them wet and dry. I currently have ceramic rings, coral chips and sponge. One tray each. Is it common to use coral chips for canister? I like these in my Goldfish keeping days as they keep the PH stable. Thanks.
Hi Goalkeeper,
My filter has, from bottom to top, ceramic rings, plastic mesh sponge, cotton sponge and activated charcoal. I've personally never used coral chips as a media as there wasn't a need for it.
For my canister filters, i usually position in order of flow = coarse sponge > seachem matrix > fine filter wool > purigen.
Coral chips raise pH and hardness so they are more suitable for keeping fishes and shrimps that require higher pH conditions... on the other-hand, they are usually not used in planted tanks with livestock that prefer lower pH and softer water conditions. So it just depends on the tank's intended flora and fauna.Originally Posted by Goalkeeper
Last edited by Urban Aquaria; 28th Jun 2014 at 23:50.
Purigen? Isn't that bad for fertilisers? Nitrate and nitrite absorbing and all that.
Mine is the same as Urban Aquaria's except for the purigen
Well, Purigen is designed to mainly absorb excess organic nitrogenous compounds (removing dissolved organic waste before they get converted to ammonia)... but it doesn't remove much fertilizers as they are chemical compounds.
I use purigen in my tanks as i dose fertilizers so it doesn't affect the nutrient supply for the plants.
It basically provides a buffer to absorb any "excess" in my tanks... for example, when i shift livestock around and the bio-load increases, or if i feed abit too much or when i'm too busy (or lazy) and skip water changes.
On the otherhand, Purigen probably wouldn't be as ideal for low-tech planted tanks which don't dose ferts and only rely totally on the waste production from livestock to generate nutrients (ie. Walstad style natural planted tanks), so in a sense its applications are abit more specific to certain types of tank setups.
Last edited by Urban Aquaria; 29th Jun 2014 at 15:50.
Bro UA, any reason why purigen is placed in last tray? Also where can we get the bag to contain this? Normal laundry bag ok? Matrix n purigen can be used immediately without rinsing? Description of the products looks good so maybe want to try out. If we have shrimps (Yamato) and tetra in tank should we still retain the coral chips based on your earlier comments? Thanks.
It's in the last tray because you don't want solid waste to come into contact with it and clog it up and reduce its efficiency. That's why it's always coarse sponge before ceramic rings/etc.
Matrix can be used before rinsing, but I wash it out anyway. Not sure about Purigen. I keep my Purigen in lady stockings.
As what |squee| mentioned, purigen is put on the last layer to prevent it getting clogged up by larger debris... purigen is very fine and only absorbs dissolved organic compounds, its not designed to perform mechanical filtration and trap larger particles. The last layer in a canister filter would usually have all the debris and particles filtered out by the previous sponges and fine filter wool layers, so the water should be free of particles, only left with excess dissolved organic compounds remaining to be absorbed by the purigen.
Normal laundry bags may have holes too large that the tiny purigen granules may leak out easily, the recommended mesh size for holding purigen is 180 micron (which is the spec of their official mesh bag), any larger and the granules will escape, any smaller and it will restrict flow through the bag and limit the purigen's overall efficiency, so you'll have to try various types of bags to find the ideal ones. You can order the original purigen mesh bag from online sites like Amazon.com, as well as the 100ml versions that already come pre-packed in the their own original mesh bag.
One important point to note when using purigen is to allow some extra free space for it in the compartment its kept (don't pack until its too full), this is so that water can flow freely through the purigen granules and they can tumble around the bag easily, the more surface area of the granules that are in contact with the water the better their absorption efficiency. Water should not be allowed to encounter resistance and then bypass the purigen. When purigen is removed from a filter after some time, it should be a uniformly brown color throughout all the granules, not just some of them or just a section of it (which means not all of the granules are being exposed to the water flow, therefore have to adjust its configuration).
Both matrix and purigen are recommended to be rinsed briefly before usage (as mentioned on the packaging), its mainly just to wash away any residual dust from the manufacturing and packing process.
Coral chips are meant to raise and maintain a higher pH and hardness level, for yamato shrimps its okay because they are originally from brackish water environments which have higher pH/harder water parameters. On the other hand, tetras are from low pH/soft water habitats, so although they may be able to adapt to higher pH parameters, their overall condition over the longer term may not be as optimal.
Do note that if you are using good quality active soil substrates (ie. ADA amazonia aquasoil), they are designed to automatically buffer the pH and kH for you. If you also put coral chips in the same tank system, both will play a "tug-of-war" between each other, one wants to maintain lower pH, one wants to maintain higher pH, so what will happen is the active soil substrate's buffering ability will exhaust much more quickly and eventually the pH will rise higher (in some cases it can happen very quickly causing a large swing in parameters)... this can change the dynamics of a tank, especially if its a tank with plants and livestock that prefer lower pH/soft water conditions.
I have a pre-filter (canister type) with course wool, fine wool, a bag of purigen. Water then goes into the main canister filled only with 3 trays of biohome media.
Pre-filter wool is replaced monthly. Main canister is cleaned perhaps once every 6 months.
Correct me if i'm wrong. Coral chips does a great job buffering pH. It also has the effect of increasing gH/hardness.
Hence, it is more often used in bare bottom tanks. And less in planted tanks since aquatic soil already acts as a buffer. Plants in general (not all of course), do better in softer water.
If water hardness is vastly different from the level the breed of fish requires, from what i read, the 2 main effects are :
- Fish will survive but not live as long as it could.
- Incorrect conditions - fish will not breed.
Seachem Equlibrium can be used if you want to raise your gH. It contains stuff that's good for plants too.
Good info about Seachem Purigen requiring some space to "swirl" around. Learnt something today.
From bottom to top, I use course sponge -> fine sponge -> seachem matrix and then biohome plus.
No activated carbon because I don't want my nutrients being sucked up. Haha.
"If you have a dream, you gotta protect it. Period. When other people can't do something,
they'll want you to believe you can't do it too. You gotta have an answer for yourself."
Thank you all for the great comments. Bro UA very detailed and useful explanation. My next dumb question is should the course sponge be in top or last tray? I may have misinterpreted the above wrongly but seems some place on top while others bottom (I.e. Last tray)??
It depends. Most filters draw water upwards. So starting from the bottom, you'd generally want to filter out big particles first, then small particles, then pass through the biomedia. You can mix things up if you like.
The following diagram can be a reference.
It depends on the direction of filtration flow in the filter design. Some filters flow from top to bottom, others flow from bottom to top.
For either design, the coarse sponge is usually placed as the first layer in the filter that comes in contact with the incoming water, so that it can trap the larger debris.
Thank you all. Now I need to figure out the flow direction of my Atman DF1300 filter. Hate to plug/unplug as water tend to spill out each time. Was thinking of getting those open/close valves to install on the hose but saw one store selling $20 a pair...for just two small plastic pieces!!
Your filter is most likely drawing water upwards.
Those valves are very useful and are money well spent.
Thanks bro squee.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks