Pimp My Filter #19 - Aquael Unimax 700 Canister Filter

Hello there, welcome back to another edition of Pimp My Filter and in this episode we're going to take a look at another big canister filter. Now when you see the size of that you think this thing is going to be absolutely gigantic. But when I took the filter out of this box it's not quite as big as I thought. This is the Unimax 700 from Aquael, or Aquael, Aquael, Aquael, Aquael, yeah. I've been wanting to take a look at these for a long time. They have been asked about on a few of my previous videos. As a lot of people have said, when are you going to do the Aquael, Aquael 700 or the smaller version, which is a 500. And to be honest, I'd never heard of them. I've heard of the company that makes them, but I thought they just did small internal filters. And to find out that they really, you know, put everything into making a big canister filter. It was quite a surprise, so I'm looking forward to this one. Now, Aquael do have a very good video on YouTube of this exact filter, so I'll put a link to that in the video description. That one shows you exactly how the water goes through all the trays. It shows you the inlets and the outlets. It's a very, very good descriptive video, so that one is definitely worth looking at if you're interested in this. So click that link, check their video out at the end of this video. By then, you should know whether you fancy one of these or not. I don't know how good this is going to be until I actually finish the video, because I haven't even taken the trays out of here. I'll basically... Pull it apart. You'll see it as I see it. I'll explain how the water goes through it because I have looked that up online and then we'll find out if that is the correct way. Could it be improved? Can we alter anything about it to make it more efficient? That's our filter there. And just look at the design at the top of that. That's unlike anything I've ever seen before. Now I've got quite small hands and I can barely get my hand around that handle. It is a monstrously solid construction and at this top you may notice there we've got four attachments for hose. Two of those are inlets, two are outlets. Now at this point I kind of wish that I'd researched this one before I told Johnny to send it up because I always ask for people just to send up the bare filter with whatever it's got in it with no pipes and no inlets or outlets. This one has... Good inlets and good outlets, so please check out the video from Aquael at the end of this video because it'll explain about the inlets and the outlets. Basically you've got two inlets, so you've got your standard downcomer with your sieve sort of attachment on the bottom, that's what most canister filters have, but you've also got something like a plate, not a plate, it's like a perforated plate I suppose, foam in it, so you've got a little bit of pre-filter in there as well, and when the water comes back out to your tank, You can have it going through a spray bar and going through a oxygenating jet as well. So you're well covered there. So you can draw from the top of the tank and the bottom of the tank. You've got a bit of pre-filtering and you've got oxygenation. You've got water disturbance. They really thought about what's going to happen in and out with regard to the water. And to remove the pipe attachments you actually twist the handle that just lifts out. And the seals on this particular filter are really, really good as well. You know, you can't hear any sort of grinding or anything. It's just so smooth. Lovely big O-ring in there, well greased up. So that's going to provide an excellent seal. But the most important thing is what's going to happen inside of here. So let's get the top off and take a look. Okay, so this is just a close-up of what I was explaining before. Look at that, absolutely silent. Big, solid O-ring in there, nicely greased up. Solid. And to lift the top off we've got eight clips. These are all plastic and if any of them smash off you literally just buy new ones. That's a spare part. I like that idea. So that's our top off and it's coming off with one of the trays. You'll notice that the tray actually sticks up above the level of the canister. And in here we've got four different holes. We've got two inlets so that's where our water actually comes in from our tank. Drops straight on top of here so obviously our trays work top to bottom and then here we've got two pumps that sit in here and both of those draw from this big cavity here. This one can be attached to a UV unit which slots in here and that actually slots in from the bottom and you'll get a good description of exactly how that works in the Aqua-L video. So we've got two pumps that is unusual and this one on the intake has got a small piece of airline. And that actually draws water from this cavity up here. So it ensures that you don't get any air bubbles stuck in the filter. That's good because that's going to ensure that it stays quiet. If you get air bubbles in here and they're constantly getting drawn in and chopped up, you're going to have a noisy filter. So that alleviates that problem. Right, let's put that out of the way and we'll have a look at the trays. Coarse foam, that's good. That's what our water is going to hit first. Followed by more coarse foam. Followed by more coarse foam. This stuff is almost exactly the same as I use when I'm upgrading filters. So you've got a huge surface area, good contact surface area there. So they're doing that right. Next tray, one, two, three more coarse foams. Next tray is a really, really plasticky feeling filter floss. I've never felt anything like it, have a close look at that. It doesn't feel like fabric, it just feels plasticky. Trying to spread that out in there will be a nightmare so I can safely say we will not be using that. Okay so that was the third tray. Fourth tray we've got pretty much, I don't know, kilo and a half, two kilos of zeolite. Zeolite is used to draw in ammonia basically just to make the water safe. To be honest if you've got a properly sized filter well set up you should never ever I need zeolite. Okay, and then the last tray, which is tray number five, has got some ceramic rings in there. I'm not sure whether the camera's going to focus, but that is rock hard. It's almost entirely sealed, and any cavities in there are gonna be really, really tiny. So we definitely won't be using that. Let's get that out of the way. Okay, so that's the bottom of our filter. In here is where our UV would go, and that would be an Aqua-L UV. It would slot in here and fill this space here. And if you've noticed, we've got a little bit of free space down the bottom here, but unfortunately, as our trays work top to bottom, there's no point filling that with anything. Okay, so we've got five trays that work top to bottom, and when it's come out the bottom of the bottom tray, it then goes up through a big cavity where the UV would normally sit. Now, the UV in here is an optional extra, and really, it doesn't matter whether you have a UV first or a UV last. As long as the UV is in line somewhere, It will do a good job of killing algae and killing parasites and also killing bacteria. If the UV in a filter is first, the likes of the SunSun or the All Pond Solution filters, it comes down over the UV which kills the algae and the bacteria and so on and then it goes up through the trays. So if you've got the UV first, When you're setting a new filter up just leave that UV switched off for two or three weeks just to give all the bacteria that you're trying to seed the filter with time to flow right around the system. When the UV is after the filtration that's not as important but I would still advise leaving it off easily for, yeah, easily for two or three weeks as well. Just again to give that That bacteria time to go all the way through the system. Once a decent amount of it has settled in the filter media, that UV can stay on 24-7, no problem at all. I have heard of a lot of people just having their UV on for like 12 hours a day or whatever. That is pointless. It may as well be on 24-7 after that two to three week setup. Okay, so we can get the main body of the canister out of the way. We can get the top out of the way. Because we're not going to be doing anything with that. And that allows us to concentrate on the trays, which are very big. I'm really looking forward to filling these with media. Although it's going to cost me a fortune. Because I know that they're going to hold a lot of media. We really only need one or possibly two. Yeah, we'll get two coarse pads in there. Take the rest out. Gives us four spare coarse pads. Right, so what does that give us? This is going to be an expensive one to set up. It's going to give us four trays full of media. But before we fill that with media, which will be Biohome Ultimate, I may as well run through a few facts and figures from the manufacturer. Actually, I'll give you a close-up of these as I'm reading them out, because they're very detailed, which makes a hell of a change from most manufacturers. This is the sort of thing that I want to see printed on boxes for filters. Right, just look at that. I've got the filter, it's got an exploded diagram showing exactly how it should be set up. It tells you exactly what comes with it. That's your two intakes, so you've got your ordinary one, you've got your plate sort of thing with the foams in. I wish I'd had that, but you will see that in the Aqua-L video. Shows you all the sorts of media that they sell that could go in it. Shows you that the UV can slot in the bottom. That's the UV to buy. And here, we've got all the relevant information. So, our model is the 700. And that's going to be operating at somewhere between 38 and 40 watts depending on our voltage. Right, we're just going to skip this next line and go on to this one. We'll come back to that. This is how much the filter pumps. So the pump will pump a maximum 2250 liters per hour, which is 495 UK gallons or 600 US gallons. Very good. It even tells you how many liters How many UK gallons and how many US gallons each tray holds. So each tray in this particular model holds three litres, 0.66 cubic UK gallons. I don't know who the hell works in those sort of figures, but someone might, and the information's there. And I know you guys in the US do work in cubic gallons, so each tray is 0.8 cubic gallons. This information is good. And the next one is one I would like to see expanded, but it does have the bare details. This is for a tank between 500 to 700 litres, or 110 to 154 UK gallons, or 132 to 185 US gallons. Now I would love to see this lot expanded to, say, a planted tank, and what it would treat. A normally stocked tank and a heavily stocked tank. Now that would be absolutely perfect because that's basically what pond filter manufacturers would do. They'd have a light stock, a medium stock and a heavy stock. A filter suitable for X amount for each one of these, you know. That's all that's missing from here. And at the bottom here we've got the entire volume of the canister. So it's 24 cubic litres. 5.27 cubic UK gallons or 6.33 cubic US gallons and the optional UV sterilizer would be that one 11 watt. All right let's just jump back up to here. This is something that I have never seen on a box before for a canister filter. This is basically telling you how much the pump should pump when the filter's set up and all the pipes are attached. Now bear in mind, these are the maximums, so in a real world scenario, this is what it should pump. This is what you're actually going to be getting out of your outlets. So 1700 litres, now that's not a huge drop from 2250 litres. Same with the UK gallons, 375 gallons as opposed to 495. And for the US gallons, 450 gallons per hour as your actual real output, and that one is Here's what most manufacturers would go with. They would tell you, oh, it does 600 gallons per hour. Well, in the real world, it's nearer 450. That is good. That is very honest of the manufacturer. And the reason I like that is not only because it is very honest from the manufacturer, but if you're the sort of person that likes to size the filter based on the turnover rate, you're working with a real figure. You're not working at something that is the maximum that the filter will possibly do. Which bears no relevance to what it will actually do in a real world scenario. So you're working with a proper figure there. That is good. So far everything is looking good. And the flow rate on this is actually a little bit more than say the FX6. The FX6 is... 2130 liters per hour, that's 560 gallons per hour, US gallons or thereabouts, and by the looks of it, this one is going to hold more media, so things are looking very good. So we've got some pretty impressive figures there, we've got a nice big filter with good features, we'll get these forms cut for the top section, and then we'll fill it with media, and we'll see how much media we can get in there. I may as well explain just in case you haven't seen one of these videos before. What I'm doing is cutting a medium density pad. So that one is finer than our coarse pad. That one will go underneath our coarse pad. So let's just get both our coarse pads on there. So the water will come in the top tray. It'll hit two coarse pads which will filter out all of the coarse muck. Then it'll go through a medium density pad which will filter out slightly finer muck. Then it's going to go through a fine pad which will catch all the fine muck which will ensure that our water is clean before it hits all the media. That is very important, very important. You want the media to be operating in clean water to be effective. If you go with a fine pad down the bottom of here so it's the last stage, all the fine muck is going to be concentrated above that in the filter media, clogging it and making it ineffective. So really the positioning of this fine pad in any filter is not only important, it's absolutely critical to how well the filter performs. Because how well the filter performs isn't based purely on the foams and the fine pad, it's mostly based on the filter media. If you keep that filter media operating in clean water, all the pores can allow water through and allow it to be really well populated with bacteria. If you start clogging those pores up, With fine muck, the bacteria simply can't get in and it can't do a job. Remember, the goal of any of the filters in this video is to provide a full cycle, which is the processing of ammonia and nitrite, which is pretty easy, to be honest. That is the aerobic side of the filtration, but it's also about completing that cycle by processing the nitrate as well. And that's done by anaerobic bacteria, which needs very porous media. To give you the anaerobic conditions, and that media needs to be clean if it's going to support enough bacteria. Okay, so this is our foam tray, which is the top tray. Fine pad in the bottom. That's going to be the last thing in this tray that the water hits. Medium pad next. Coarse pad on top. Yeah, I think we might get another one on. So in here, we've got two coarse pads, one medium pad, one fine pad. Water comes through. By the time it comes out, it is clean. All the muck is held in here. That keeps our media clean, that keeps it effective. Talking of media, we've got four trays to fill up. I'll fill those with BioHome Ultimate now, I'll weigh it out and I'll let you know exactly how much each tray holds. Gonna be a lot. It's nice. Each tray easily, and I mean easily, gets two kilos and that's 4.4 pound of BioHome Ultimate in. We've got four of them. That gives us eight kilos of media in total. That is easily the most of any canister filter that I've featured so far in this series. I don't know of any other ones on the market that get anywhere close. Except maybe the Eheim 1200L. That one, I think that one fit six kilos of media in. Still two kilos less than this. And that's a hell of a difference. Hell of a difference. If you pack this in a little bit more neatly than what I've done, you could probably get the best part of two and a half kilos in each one of these. That is a lot of media. And a lot of media means a lot of surface area. A lot of surface area means a lot of bacteria. A lot of bacteria means no ammonia, no nitrite, no nitrate. And that nitrate is the big one. That's the big one. Because canister filters are generally known as being nitrate factories. Not this one. Okay that is playing it very safe. See we can probably get more media in here. Two kilos easily. One, three, four trays. Eight kilos of media plus our foams. Two coarse, one medium, one fine. And if the top will go back on here and all those clips we'll clip it down. We've got an incredible filter. So the manufacturer says this is suitable for up to 700 litres. I would actually suggest that that is too low, because you've got eight kilos of media in here. Now for a full cycle in a normally stocked tropical tank, you would generally use one kilo of media per 100 liters, or 26 US gallons, of water. So in effect, eight kilos of media should deliver a full cycle in a normally stocked tank of around 800 liters. And 800 litres is approximately 210 US gallons. But if the tank is getting towards being heavily stocked, say you've got goldfish in there, or big cichlids, Malawis, predatory fish, or if it was a marine system, you could need up to 2 kilos per 100 litres. So that would effectively halve what this could deliver a full cycle for. So for a heavily stocked tank, you'd be looking at nearer 400 litres. Which is still very impressive. That's still over 100 US gallons. That's a big tank. So is there anything that I would change about this filter? Well, I do really admire Aqua-L's honesty in setting this up the way they've done. They've basically tried to get as much in there as possible. They've given good provision for mechanical and biological filtration and also a UV. More similar to a pressurized pond filter, say the likes of Oase filter clear, than it does to a normal canister filter, but it does give that really good provision for proper filtration. You know, you're not farting around with cartridges of chemical media to chase your water quality. It's going to be done naturally in there. It's a proper long-term solution. The construction of it is good, the size of it is fine. It's even got little wheels on the back so you can wheel it away. Take that top off and you can just pour it out before you clean it. That is good. If I was going to change one thing, it would actually be quite a major thing. It would be the way the water flows through it. In an ideal world, I would like to see the water come in, go over the UV, into the bottom of the filter, and then rise up through the trays. That would settle all the crap out in the bottom of the filter. So basically, by the time the water left the bottom tray, It would be clean, and yet your media is bound to stay cleaner. It would also give you the option to add a lot of ceramic rings in the bottom of here to settle out the very heavy muck that acts as primary settlement, you know? But apart from flipping the direction of the flow on its head, I think they've done a good job. It is a very well set up filter. It's certainly I mean 700 litres that's what they say it'll treat. That's up to 700 litres. I see a normal tank of 800 litres no problem at all. Providing you set it up how it's set up here with good media. Obviously you don't have to use bio home. We're aiming for a full cycle so that's why we're using the bio home. You could put anything in there. See why they have it coming through the trays from top to bottom, because then if you just want to do a quick clean out, all you need to do is take the top off, lift that top tray out and the majority of the muck is going to be in there. What I would worry about is when that gets full, will the muck then go down the sides and possibly end up in the trays? It might not, you know, it might not, but that's the one thing I would be worried about and that's why I would personally have the flow coming down over the UV. Into the bottom and up, because all that muck is going to be held in the bottom. If you've got one of these filters and you've set it up in a similar way or a totally different way with totally different media, please let me know how it is doing for you, because I really like this filter. And when I've been looking online, the only negative reviews that I've some of it are people saying that because it is Polish, it won't last. And that is just a really quite an ignorant thing to say, you know. Just because something is made in Poland Doesn't mean it's going to last any less or any longer than anything else, you know. The people behind this particular product have put a lot of care into this. It is well made, the fittings are good quality, it is a well-made filter. And if the Polish people who I have met over the years or anything to go by, they take pride in what they do. They do a good job and that's why they're so popular in the UK with employers. A lot of people will be screaming at the screen now, saying, who's coming over here and taking our jobs? But the fact is, a lot of people who whinge on about the Polish can't be bothered to do the jobs themselves. The Poles are proper workers. This is a proper filter, and I would definitely recommend it. Definitely. Okay, so, Viva Polska! If you've got anything that you'd like me to take a look at, by all means get in touch by email or by telephone. My contact details are in the video description. As well as links to the media, the forums, the filter, the filter video from Aquael, which is very good. Check all those out, and thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.