Best Inlet and Outlet Placement for a Canister Filter on Fish Tank - (with proper demonstration).

Hi there, welcome back. In this video I'm going to show you where the intake and the outlet of your canister filter really should be. Okay, so this is basically my simulation of a setup of a tank. Obviously there's nothing in it, so there's no sort of structure, no plants, no rocks, no wood, nothing. This is just purely to show you where the flow is going to go coming from this pump or the filter outlet of a canister filter. Where it's going to go and where all this muck in here, simulated by these gel balls that I've got here, which have like a neutral buoyancy, where that crap is going to end up. That's the outlet. Most people would put the inlet here. Well, about there. Let me show you why that is wrong. Just keep your eye on the muck. See where it ends up. Okay, so after a few seconds, we can see that most of it is collecting here. That is in the right hand side of the tank, same side as the outlet of our canister filter. If we have the intake here, the water is going to be passing over it very quickly. See how much faster those balls are moving compared to how quick they're moving here? So the intake of our canister filter does not want to be on this side. It wants to be on this side just below, well quite a long way below, the input. And I'll speed this footage up just so you can see it a little bit more clearly. Now having the intake down here will ensure that a lot of the muck is actually drawn out of the tank into the filter to be processed. If you have it on this side here, much of the muck that's being spat around here won't be taken into the inlet and it'll still end up over here at the opposite end to where your intake is. And if I allow this pump to draw in air, I'll show you a different problem as well. Okay, now hopefully you can see this muck in here is being stirred up a lot more when the air is allowed into the pump or into our canister filter outlet. That's moving the muck a lot better around here, but what it's also doing is pushing out little air bubbles around here and back up to the pump. I'm not sure how well this is going to come out on film, but hopefully you'll be able to see tiny little air bubbles all over the place, around here, and it kind of goes up like that. You know, by the time the water's come all the way around here, the air bubbles are starting to rise up again. So this area here doesn't have many air bubbles at all, and that's exactly where you want your intake for your canister filter. Not over this side. Where you have all these obvious air bubbles, because those air bubbles will get dragged into the pump, into your external filter, and then it's going to start farting bubbles out all the time. Your outlet, simulated by this pump, and your intake to the filter, want to be on the same side for best results. Okay, so looking from the top down, we've introduced a little bit of structure in the middle of here. That'll simulate just, you know, normal rocks or wood or whatever you choose to put in the middle of your tank. That's looking at it from the front of the tank, and we're going to keep the pump or the canister filter outlet in the back corner, firing that way. So let's see what happens to all this muck. Okay, hopefully you can see that we've got a lot of muck collecting underneath here, because we've got the water coming around. Sweeping back here and it's really concentrating a lot of muck here. There is still a decent amount here which is going to be drawn out by the filter but there's quite a lot under here as well because obviously we've got a bit of a back current. What I would suggest is instead of having the pump or the filter outlet at the back corner of the tank why not move that to the middle of the tank? Then the water is going to be firing across the middle. It's going to be getting split. 50-50 or roughly 50-50 between the left-hand side and the right-hand side or the front and the back and then it's going to be going around each side of this structure in the middle. So you've got water going along the back and you've got water going along the front. And let's see what it does to that muck that's collecting there which is nowhere near where it needs to be to get drawn up. Again, I'll just leave the pump running whilst I'm doing this. Is that in the middle? Okay, hopefully you can see the water coming across the middle at the top and these little gel balls are being pushed along each side of here. The crap that's been settling here is gradually moving towards this end where it's going to be taken out by the filter. It makes a hell of a difference. And if I pan down with the camera, you should be able to see that. Look at that. All that crap, or the majority of that crap, has moved left. and if you've got your Intake down here, that is going to be drawn into the filter. It definitely makes a difference. And just for anybody who's still unsure, I'll just introduce the air to the pump and shake things up a little bit. That's starting to move up. Whether you've just got a single pump or you've got an outlet from a canister filter and an intake on this side, all that muck is going to be drawn up there. The intake does not want to be at that side. Look how much muck's there. Nothing. And it's blasting down here. It's going across there, blasting down there. And also, obviously, you've got the problems of the air that's also integrated into the water here, which will get drawn into the filter and make it fart. Over here, you've got none of those problems. This area here is where you want your intake and your outlet. Pretty simple. So there you go. To me, that's pretty conclusive. I do give props to people who have tried to explain this, but without anything actually moving that you can see, it's not very relatable, it's not very understandable. Hopefully, by showing... This muck collecting here which is going to be taken out by the filter you can understand exactly where you need to put the intake to your canister filter. Thanks for watching I'll see you next time and if you've enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up feel free to share it anywhere you want want, even if you're arguing with somebody online and I'll see you next time.