BIOHOME FILTER MEDIA, FILTER UPGRADE KITS AND FOAMS HERE: http://www.filterpro.co.uk Decent external filters: http://geni.us/2LnO 2.3 litre booster filter for externals: http://geni.us/2bj1 1.2 litre booster filter for externals: http://geni.us/1pBh This video shows how to set up an external filter for an aquarium using simply 3 grades of foams and great quality filter media........With the bewildering array of filter media available for sale and manufacturers trying to outdo each other with pointless technical jargon designed to confuse the beginner and enthuse the armchair 'expert' I decided it was time to once again make filtration simple and understandable. Filtration is at its most basic level a 2 stage process:
1 - Mechanical Filtration. The water passes through a series of foams or screens, each one finer than the last until it is visibly clean with no (or very few) suspended solids.
2 - Biological Filtration. The 'clean' water flows over and through media which can be plastic, ceramic or sintered glass. The best types of media are high quality sintered glass and ceramic (although there is a nation of poor quality ceramic media for sale from China). The media supports beneficial aerobic bacteria which consumes ammonia and nitrite, producing nitrate as an end product which is used up by plants or exchanged with the atmosphere. The very best media (e.g. Biohome) also supports anaerobic bacteria which will reduce the amount of nitrate providing a more complete filtering process. More surface area = more bacterial colonisation. Common sense.
Foams and media to be positioned as follows (in order of contact first to last by water): Coarse, Medium, Fine foams followed by media. Yes, it is that simple.
Many manufacturers will advise the incorrect placement of media and foam pads; possibly for no other reason than to sell more replacement media? but if the media is well protected from muck by good foams then it will last many times longer. No doubt there will be some ass clowns who cuss this video up and insist on having filters with digital readouts and the latest branded media but too often the idea of filtration is over worked to the point of stupidity - a case of the 'Emperors new clothes'.
A filter is only as efficient as the media it uses and all too often manufacturers will sell cheap external filters which will filter no more than a small foam internal filter due to the media inside them being cheap ineffective crap. Rip out the guts of the cheap filters and replace them with decent layered foams and good quality media and your cheap filter is capable of outperforming the most expensive range of filters.
I am using 3kg of BIOHOME *MINI* ULTRA in this video. It is a sintered glass media which has been made to my specifications by the manufacturer of other Biohome media. Unbelievably good stuff.
*NOW AVAILABLE - BIOHOME ULTIMATE - It has exactly the same structure of mini ultra but also has the added trace elements of Biohome Plus. This combination easily makes it the best filter media you can buy.
For quality filter media supplied Worldwide click the link below and contact me for bulk orders on [email protected] or 07772848730 BIOHOME FILTER MEDIA, FILTER UPGRADE KITS AND FOAMS HERE: http://www.filterpro.co.uk
**PLEASE NOTE I HAVE CLOSED TYNE VALLEY AQUATICS AND NOW SELL MEDIA FROM HOME ONLINE. COLLECTING MEDIA IS NO PROBLEM JUST RING OR EMAIL ANY TIME.**
Hello there, in this video I'm going to very quickly show you how I set
an external filter up with media and foams to get the most use out
of it, to make it the most efficient possible container that it can be.
Basically, external filters are all pretty much the same.
There's a pump in here which sucks water from the tank,
filters it through a series of foams and media and blows it back out,
back to the tank, clean.
This one is an Eheim Professional 2.
Now I bought this one second hand
and this is exactly how it came set up.
It's got that waste of time in the top there,
worse than useless ceramic media,
very smooth in there.
And it's got one or two foams in there,
one huge coarse foam in the bottom.
So now I'm going to show you how to make this very efficient.
First of all, the foam
was in the bottom, that's correct,
but there's only one coarse foam.
Any fine particles?
I'm going to travel up through the media
and clog up all the pores in the media.
So first thing to do is sort out the foams in this bottom tray.
Actually, before I do that, when this tray is slotted in,
you've got a gap in the bottom of approximately two inches.
Now when the water comes down here, this void is,
I think it's meant to collect all the heavy muck.
But that swirls around. If it swirls around too much,
it gets clogged on the bottom of your foam.
So what you can do is tip a little bit
of this heavy crappy ceramic media in the bottom of here.
Just about make it out there
and what this does it'll diffuse
the flow so the flow coming down
through the central pipe won't just swish around quickly
and then hit the foams it'll get diffused.
The heavy muck will settle out a lot better within all
these gaps within these little tubes here.
So here we've got two heavy foams no need to have two heavy ones.
I've got two separate foams.
This one can be kept as a spare.
Put that one off to the side.
This one goes back
in the filter,
goes in like that in the very bottom.
So after the water comes down
and hits this primary settlement chamber,
which is now filled with the heavy ceramic media,
it'll hit this.
This will strain out the heavy muck.
This piece of pond foam is reticulated.
In that it's got loads of little bumps on it, provides
a lot more surface area, but it isn't as coarse as this original foam.
So I'm going to use this original foam to create a template
and cut out a piece of this medium foam.
There, that's not bad. Pretty much the same as that one.
So that one will go in first, then that one,
and in the very top I'm going to put a fine foam, a fine particle mat.
Most people would be thinking at this particular point,
that's totally wrong, the fine one needs to go in the top,
the very last thing in the filter, but that's wrong,
because your fine pad will take out the very fine particles before
the water hits your media, and that's super important.
The water that hits the media needs to be as clean
as possible as far as particulate matter goes, otherwise...
It doesn't matter how good the media is you use,
it's just going to become clogged very quickly with muck.
So here I've got another pond mat.
This one's just called Fine Particle Matting.
You get a big sheet of this, it's only £3.99 or something,
and you can actually split it down
to make it as thick or as thin
as you want. It's not very square
that one but I'm sure it'll be
okay. So in this bottom tray
we're going to have coarse foam,
medium foam, fine foam.
There you go, three layers of foam.
Coarse, medium, fine.
All mechanical filtration done
before the water leaves
this bottom tray.
Drop that in, forget about it.
The remainder of this stuff, throw it away.
Or keep it for spare.
Not that this other stuff's ever gonna run out.
Seems a shame to throw it away.
This stuff might as well go on the fire.
In fact, it might light the fire quite well, that.
So now, two trays left.
These two go above the foam trays.
These two are going to be filled with high quality media.
Now in this particular instance, I'm using BioHome Mini Ultra.
I'll just give you a quick close-up on that.
That's it there.
Possibly the best filter media you can get.
It's a sintered glass media.
Ridiculous surface area.
That's super close up now
and I'm going to dip the BioHome Mini Ultra in.
Just the tip.
Whoosh.
See the water flying up there?
To my fingers now.
That's how quickly...
Water finds all the nooks and crannies in this media.
It's absolutely awesome.
That's one tray, more or less full,
and that's a kilo of media.
One tray done, just over a kilo of media.
And really there's no point mixing up any other sort of media.
Your foams are doing the mechanical filtration.
Your filter media is doing the biological cleaning.
So just fill up the next tray with the same stuff.
No point mixing different types of media.
People do it all the time, I can't see the point.
If you have efficient foams, that sorts out all the heavy muck.
Your media sorts out your ammonia and nitrite.
And in the case of the BioHome range of medias,
because they have a large protected internal surface area,
they also reduce nitrate as well.
So you've got the full process of filtration happening
in this little box which sits outside your aquarium.
So your last
tray drops in.
You see him?
Nearly forgot to put this fella in, goes in there
and now you've got a filter which is many more
times efficient than if you'd used crappy media
and you had the foams in the wrong place. Most
filters will come with a foam in the top,
all that does it concentrates all the muck that's in the
water in these sections here, clogs your filter media up,
means that they can't do their job,
it really reduces the efficiency of your filter.
This way you've got primary settlement,
Coarse, medium, fine foams to filter out coarse,
medium, and fine muck in the water.
And then you've got your biological filter media.
Some of the newer filters come with a pre-filter,
which is like a coarse foam.
That'll be located either on here,
before the water went down, or in a separate chamber here.
To me, that's absolutely pointless, because to maintain that,
you've still got to take the top off,
and it's hardly one of the labours of Hercules to take these out.
One, two, to get to your foams.
That took four, five seconds.
Job done. Perfect water.
Thanks for watching.
