Pimp My Filter #70 - Eheim Wet and Dry Filter (2227 / 2329) Canister Filter Upgrade

Hello there, welcome back. In this video we're going to be taking a look at another canister filter which on the face of it might seem to be a little bit pointless because this particular one hasn't been manufactured for a lot of years. It's a pretty obscure one but it is actually a very very good filter. And as far as I know, there's nothing like it on the market currently. And this is an example of the Eheim wet and dry filter. And if this was stupid enough to use pronouns, its pronouns would be was and were. And this particular version, I think, was the biggest one in its range. This is the Treble 2.9. There's also one with a heater integrated into the bottom, which was the 23.2.9. I think there was maybe smaller versions available as well. I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. Information on these is pretty hard to come by now because it's such an old filter. And if you'll notice, they're a very different filter as well because they've got this strange part bolted on the side, which I'll get to in a minute. As far as the in and out pipes go, you've got your in and out on either side there. But you've also got another pipe just here, which is actually a breather pipe for air. This filter does actually breathe in and breathe out. Now hopefully you can see through the side there that this filter has got the basic structure of just a three tray system. And unlike a lot of the Eheims, this is actually a top down flow. So the water comes in, it goes through the trays and then it gets sucked back out and spat back to the tank. The flow rate is 1050 litres per hour maximum. I'll put the gallons per hour along the bottom there for you guys in the US and Eheim are good enough to actually say what this will actually produce when it's in use and sitting underneath your tank and that is approximately half of that, around about 550 litres per hour. Again, that's what it is in gallons. These filters haven't been commercially available for a lot of years but you still can pick them up second hand and because Eheim do spares for all their filters going back decades if you buy one with you know a few broken seals or maybe a few broken clips you can pick the parts up relatively cheap to fix these things up. At the time of making this video there was currently two of Two of these available on eBay. And I think they were about 75 English pounds each, which might be around about 85 to 90 US dollars. That's a pretty good price for a filter of this size. But it's an even better price when you consider what this one does. And what I mean by that is that the water doesn't just sit in here all the time. It actually drains and refills, hence the name wet and dry filter. And this thing here that you can see through the tube, So basically this float goes up and down and when it goes up that's when the canister is filling when it's all the way up the canister drains so it increases the oxygen in here by many times because it's not fully submerged all the time so that means you get the benefit of a canister filter but also the high oxygen levels of say a trickle filter or a shower filter. So this is really kind of like a shower canister filter. Now because I've put media in here already, I don't want to fill this up and set it away. So in the video description, I will put a link to a video that somebody's done on YouTube showing it in operation with the water going up and down. And you can see the cycle that it does. I've got to thank Ürten for sending me this. It is a very old filter, but it's still in pretty good condition. I can see where this little release thing on the top has been broken. It's got a little chip out of here, and the seal in here is pretty much knackered, but he has been using it, so it obviously still works well. If he wanted to replace that seal and replace this little release clasp, he could do that easily. As far as this, I don't think he's going to be bothered about replacing that, because that means buying a whole new head. It's a proper old warhorse, this thing. Let's get the top off and see how he's got it set up. We've got the normal quality Eheim clips on here. Nice sort of plastic. It's not going to break in any sort of hurry. Now you'll notice there's a tube fixed in here. That goes all the way down to the bottom so it can draw the water out of this canister. Normally you wouldn't get that in a canister filter. That's where the water comes in and that's where the water is drawn out. So our pump is here. Now just for return purposes I've put what Ürten had in here in plastic bags but we've got some kind of lava rock looking stuff in the top here, not much of it, followed by a little bit of Eheim mech, followed by a fine pad and what looks almost just like an onion bag sort of thing put in there. That will support some bacteria but obviously not much considering the size of this thing. If we take that out... You can see he's got a few balls in the bottom there. Now, you've probably got about a two inch gap in the bottom of there. So if you really wanted to, you could totally fill that up with Eheim mech or rings or something like that. So anything that gets through the filter from the top down would just collect in the bottom and that's kind of where your sludge would settle if you didn't filter it out beforehand. Just having a look at the seal that goes around the main head as well and that is cracked on all the corners so although he is actually using this those seals are going to go in the very near future. I would definitely advise them to get a new seal for here, a new seal for here. There is a little seal in here which you know you might as well get as well. Get the whole lot. So given that we've got three trays to work with I'll show you the two different methods that could be used to set this thing up. Right, I've set it up how I would normally set up a top down filter, i.e. one where the water flows from top to the bottom. So in the top we've got a coarse foam, medium foam, fine pad and then we're down to filter media and filter media. That's a very simple setup. In this particular one we've got 1.7 kilos of Biohome Ultimate in each tray. as well as our foams and as well as whatever you put underneath that in the way of rings so that's quite a lot of filtration yeah so 1.7 kilos of media in each tray that works out at roughly 3.74 3.75 pounds per tray uh or 3.4 kilos or about 7.5 pounds so if we're taking into account a normally stocked tank That would be around about a 340 litre tank for a full cycle or in US gallons, 89 US gallons for a normal stock to see a full cycle. So that's no ammonia, no nitrite and the processing of nitrate. Obviously that's based on using the biohome. Just use whatever media you've got or whatever you can get a hold of. The figures that I give out in these videos are for the bio home because that will support aerobic and anaerobic activity. Now if you've got a heavily stocked tank you can halve that. So in UK speak that would work out about 170 litres or 45 US gallons for a heavy stock. And again that is to say a full cycle. You could use that on a much bigger tank if you weren't bothered about reducing the nitrate. Now, taking into account how much media we've got in those two trays, which is kind of how you would normally set it up, the way I work things out is pretty much bang on to what Eheim say, that this tank would be suitable for 350 litres, or 92 US gallons. That's very close. However, that is the first way to set this thing up, which is the obvious way. There's a much better way, which I would actually suggest that you do if you've got one of these filters. Now if you use one of these booster filters, which is full of foam, before your canister filter, you can put all your mechanical filtration in here. And really, I would recommend just going with whatever foams come in here. They're very thick foams, and they're quite coarse, but by the time the water gets all the way through them, it does a really good job of cleaning the water. You generally don't need medium-grade foams, or ones with a higher PPI, or the fine pad. You can get away with what comes in here. This one is the 2.3 litre version. There is a 1.2 litre version. Which is only about 4 inches diameter, I think. I think this one is about 5 inches diameter. And that makes a hell of a difference because obviously the volume is much bigger in here. You can get the full amount of water flowing through it and it'll be longer between clear outs. 2.3 litre one is definitely the one to go for. I'll put the link to it in the video description. They're very cheap. And what using that will do is allow you to scrap those foams in there. Or just not even put the foams in there in the first place. And go with another 1.7 kilos of media in the top tray. So in total, you'd have three trays full of media, which would give you over five kilos of media. Five kilos is about 11 pounds in US speak. So that means instead of this filter being suitable for a tank of around about 340, 350 litres, it would be suitable for a tank of nearer 500 litres. And that's a pretty meaty tank. And 500 litres in US speak is 132 US gallons, so fill all three of those trays up and it's suitable for a tank up to 132 gallons or 500 litres. If it's a heavily stocked tank, you could halve that down to about 250 litres or 66 US gallons if you wanted a full cycle. And that's pretty good, because as I said, you can pick one of these things up pretty cheap online. All the parts are available for them so even if you picked one up that wasn't in a working condition, as long as it wasn't something major like the pump head or something or the canister itself, it was just a few fittings and a few seals, you could repair it pretty cheaply and get a really good filter at a good price. So really your only option to get one of these things now is to get one second hand but that's a lot of filter for around about 75 quid. And a lot of them are sold in full working condition, which is absolutely outstanding because I'm sure most of the ones available now will be about 20 years old. So for around about £75, for under £20, for a total of under £100 English pounds, you've got a really awesome filtration system here. Obviously, you've got to fill it with your own stuff and that can cost you pretty much anything. You know what I mean, five kilos of the BioHome at the current price is around about 80 quid, but that's still so much cheaper than even a second hand. Eheim filter from like the Pro 4 or Pro 5 series, which compared to this are utter crap. And you've seen my videos where I literally pull in what hair I've got left out about the falling quality with Eheim products. This is from a time when Eheim were absolutely awesome. It's just so well made, even the clips are well made, and you've seen the trays in here, they're pretty much bomb-proof. Compare them to what the trays are now in the Pro 4 and Pro 5 series, they're just utter crap compared to these. All the parts are still available for these, and, you know, I mean, the Pro 2 and Pro 3 series, you can pick them up for very little money. I would say go for them and if you can get one of these fellas go for one of these and I'll go into why the canister sort of shower filter hybrid thing works well. Now according to Eheim and I've got no way of proving this by the way but I can see why it would work because you're basically increasing the amount of oxygen in here so take what is said as Eheim's word and not mine. According to them the ammonia processing time is cut by two thirds and the nitrite processing time is cut by a third. Again I've got no way to verify that but because you've got kind of a very aerated environment in there I can see that that would work but that can also work in the benefit of the nitrate as well especially when you're using the bio home because inside that media the water flow through the media is going to be so slow in here you could potentially get phenomenal nitrate reduction using this system. It's something that I haven't tested so I can't verify that but I know in a slow flow shower filter you do get absolutely awesome nitrate reduction when you use that media. If you're just using something like the Eheim mech which this lad used to come with in fact I think it used to come with about four liters of Eheim mech Obviously you're not going to do anything with a nitrate but you're still going to get good ammonia and nitrite reduction because you've got wet dry. Well you've got submerged and not submerged. The cycle is not slow enough to allow it to dry out which you wouldn't actually want. But it is slow enough to allow everything to breathe in here. It's difficult for me to explain. Hopefully, you'll check out that link in the video description of one of these fellas in operation. A really unique filter. And I, for one, am gutted that Eheim don't make these now. I think, personally... they should just forget about doing Wi-Fi connectivity and making things as cheap as possible and you know marketing the hell out of them these fellas from the past did perform Eheim definitely need to take a step back this is a really innovative filter and i know that there's not many people got these who will be watching this video so i'm probably talking to a handful There's a handful of people here. But to the other folks who haven't already got one of these, if you can get one, pick one up. Thanks for watching. I shall see you in the next video.