Pimp My Filter #46 - Aquael Ultra 1400 Canister Filter

Right, I'm just putting this in at the start of the video because this filter that we're going to be taking a look at today is going to be given away, but it won't be given away on my channel, it'll be given away on Mark's Aquatics channel. A link to that is in the video description, anything else relevant to the filter and what we've talked about in this video will be in the video description as well, and Mark will be giving this away on his channel in the near future. Now the reason that I'm doing that is because, well, because of the nature of my business being crazy and me being absolutely hopeless at any sort of social media sort of things. I just can't seem to organise myself on there. Social media just isn't for me, you know. And that's the place to run a competition, so I'm handing it over to Mark. So check out Mark's channel, as I say, the link's in the video description. His videos and his channel are better than mine. I'm not too proud to admit it. So I've got no problem sending people there. And one of you who goes there and enters the competition will win this. Obviously, it's only available for people in the UK because of the weight of it. This would cost 60, 70 quid to send to the likes of Australia, US, Canada. So it's just a competition for the UK, just a way of me giving something back to you guys for watching the channel. Now let's get on with it. The Aqua-L Ultra 1400. Now the flow rate on this one is approximately 1400 litres an hour. Obviously that is at zero head. By the time you get everything in it, all your pipes attached, the pipes lift up and into the tank, it's probably pushing a little over half that, maybe 60% of that in most situations. For you guys in the US, 1400 litres is approximately 370 US gallons. Now the actual size of the filter container on this is approximately 16 litres which is roughly 4.2 US gallons and if I spin this box around it'll give you just a quick indication of what's in the filter and how it works, although I will show you by taking it apart. So we've basically got five trays inside the filter, water comes down the middle of them, Into the bottom, rises up through the trays and then is drawn out by the pump and spat back to the tank. And Aquael recommend this filter for tanks up to 500 litres, which considering the size of it is actually quite conservative as you'll see. Let's get it opened up and I'll show you what's in it. Okay so this size-wise and function-wise is pretty much the same as the Ultramax 2000 that we took a look at in a previous video except this one hasn't got the pre-filter with the little flip flippy up lid and all the extra clips, and everything this one is more is a simplified version of that and what that means is there's really only one major seal in it and that runs The head of the pump. That's good because what a lot of people found with the Ultramax 2000 is that if they were servicing it to get into the pre-filter and the seal that went round there became dislodged, misaligned, unattached, when it got clamped back down it would nip it and it would possibly cause a leak there. So that has been eliminated with this model. So on the top we've got in and out. We've got the lever to remove that. And here we've got the priming mechanism. Feel air coming out of that. So that's obviously doing something and it sits nice and flush on the top there. And that's a nice strong shaft on there as well. So that's not gonna snap off. Around the sides, we've got four nice big clips. When they are unclipped, that allows us to get this head off and access the trays. So remember what I said before, the water goes down the middle. So it heads down that pipe and then it rises back up. This is centrally located which is really really good because it doesn't matter which way round you put these trays the head will still fit. You find with the ones that are off centre sometimes the trays don't go in properly and it's right far on getting it in. It doesn't really matter which way the head goes on here it doesn't matter which way the trays go in it will fit. Okay so in the top tray we've got some What looks like pretty good quality sintered glass rings. Probably is enough to half fill that tray once they're taken out of the packaging. Next one down, we've got some filter floss. Again, needs to come out of the packaging. Probably enough to half fill that. Next one down, same thing. Next one down, same thing. And in the bottom one, we've got one big coarse block of foam. Okay, so this is how it's set out now. Water comes up through the pad, through the floss. through the rings that's it. For a very light stock on a 500 litre tank it's probably going to be fine but we want to maximise what will fit inside this filter and make it work a lot harder and that's a really simple job. All we need to do is take our bottom tray put a coarse foam in there so water Water hits that first. Medium density pad or foam. Water hits that second, then a fine pad. Water hits that third, so in essence that is our mechanical filtration done. Trays above that filled with media. Each one of these trays, or should I say each one of these four upper trays, will take approximately 1.5 kilos of BioHome Ultimate. Obviously that's what I'm using, you can use whatever you want. So it'll in total take A good five and a half to six kilos of media, possibly a little bit more if you pack it in neatly, and that's a lot of media in quite a small space, but it's square, it's very efficient, there's no wasted space in there really, so it is a good design. Eagle-eyed viewers may notice that I haven't fully filled this top tray. That's because this doesn't come with a plastic grid that goes over the top. If you notice, that's where the water's drawn out into the pump. And what I don't want to happen is any little particles that may be broken off any sort of media and find their way into there and possibly knock the pump. So therefore, I've cut a piece of coarse sponge. As you can see, more or less see through it, so the water's going to go easily through there. And bear in mind, this is our cleanest part of the filter. So you can go bumps down or bumps up. I'm actually going to put it bumps up, and I know that is not facing the flowing water. But with the pump head going on, it'll just gently push against here and it'll be able to draw water from all the way around here. Whereas if I had it that way, it possibly wouldn't get, it would have to pull it through the foam a lot more. So we're going with it that way. That is our filter complete. Mechanical filtration. Biological filtration. More biological filtration. And notice, it doesn't matter which way these trays go in, they still fit together. You still have places. for the handles to fit on every one of the trays. Biological, followed by more biological, followed by a bit more biological and our coarse pad to protect the pump. Then the head goes on, as I say, it doesn't matter which way around that goes, you know, just pick a position at random, drop it in, one, two, three, four, and we're done. Okay, so this is quite a substantial filter. So we've managed to get the best part of six kilos of meat here in here. And that is, what's that in pounds, 13, just over 13 pounds of media in there. Really, when you compare this to the Eheim Pro 4s and certainly the Pro 5s, this is quite basic. But if you've watched my previous videos, you'll know that I like basic. Maybe it's not quite as basic as the classic range from Eheim, which is basically, well... They don't come with much. Really this has pretty much everything that you could want from a filter. It's got a decent pump that'll lift to just short of six foot or 1.7 meters. It has plenty of space for media, you know, gets almost six kilos of the Biohome Ultimate in there. It's got a good size contact surface area for the foams, pads, it holds plenty of those. It comes with a two-year guarantee, it's made from good materials, the clips are solid and there's four of them so it really clamps it down nicely. The actual footprint of it isn't that much, you know, certainly not the same as a FX6 which is a monstrous thing and actually the FX6 only holds five kilos of media, this will hold six so if you're looking for something that'll actually They process more fish waste. This will do it because it holds more media, therefore it holds more bacteria, and the bacteria do the work. And because we've got six kilos of media in here, that enables this filter to be suitable for tanks of up to 600 litres. That's a normally stocked tropical tank. If it's heavily stocked, you can halve that down to about 300 litres. And 600 litres for you guys in the US is... Approximately 158 US gallons. 300 litres is approximately half that, so about 79 US gallons. What I would class a heavily stocked tank as being is African cichlids, goldfish, predators, marine as well. I would class that as heavily stocked whether it have been a saltwater environment, you need more media for the bacteria to grow and all that sort of stuff. And those figures that I've given you are relating to a full cycle so that's ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. It's the nitrate that requires the Quite a large amount of media, because roughly for every one part of ammonia that's produced in your tank, there's three parts of nitrate produced through the biological process. If you set this up without any good quality media, you know, if you just use plastic balls or cheap ceramic rings, then you're only catering for aerobic bacteria. That means that you probably won't have any problems with ammonia and nitrite, but this will be a nitrate factory. By putting the good quality porous media in here, you're allowing it to also support the anaerobic bacteria right in the middle of the media. So it doesn't matter how fast the water's flying over it, by the time it gets right into the media, by the time the aerobic bacteria's worked on it down all those tunnels, it becomes anaerobic, Anaerobic, supports anaerobic bacteria. Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate will be gone. Pretty simple. We're basically just using nature in here to sort the water out. And you notice there's no sort of chemical filtration. If you did want to put chemical filtration in, again, it's not a problem. Just put it in the top tray. That's where it's operating in the cleanest water, so it'll last the longest. So it goes mechanical, biological, then chemical. What I will say regarding chemical filtration, just avoid anything that claims that it will reduce ammonia, nitrite and nitrate because it tends to have a starving effect on the bacteria. If the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate aren't present or aren't in a form that can be used by the bacteria, instead of this supporting, you know, 90 to 100% effective bacteria, it might support 20, 30% on a starvation diet. So you've got to be careful with your chemical medias. Carbon, activated charcoal, that sort of thing is fine. Just check that it doesn't say it will reduce ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. They're the ones that have the starving effect and they're the ones where people really struggle to set up just a basic initial cycle. You know, I've heard of some people saying it takes seven to eight weeks just to get rid of the ammonia and nitrite and that's ridiculous. It should be done in two or three when you're using good quality media. Okay, so if you've enjoyed this video, give it a thumbs up, share it wherever you want. Comment on it but I won't get time to check the comments. I am stupidly busy with my work and I really just want to concentrate on just trying to put the videos out with the relevant information. By all means ask questions in the comments. I know you guys watching are good enough to be able to help people out so please just help each other out. Treat the comment section This section just has some sort of forum, you know, but my participation there will be minimal at best. Likewise, if you're in the UK, just ring me. Don't send me texts, WhatsApp messages or... God, what's that thing with the pictures? Instagram messages. I get at least five or six. I've got notifications from Instagram saying somebody wants to send me a message and I can never find the blummin' things. I can't fanny round on the phone and work at the same time, but I can multitask when I'm wearing my wireless headphones and I can answer a million questions when somebody just phones, so just phone me up if you want to get a hold of me. But obviously if you're outside the UK that might cost a canny bit, so you guys outside the UK, just send me an email. I do try and get to all the emails. Again, I get so many that it can sometimes be a long time. So people in the UK, please phone. US and beyond, please just send me an email.