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Filter setup

Jeffery Kilpatrick

Jeffery Kilpatrick

So I'm redoing my back chambers on my fluval m60. I moved the skimmer and heater to chamber 1. I have chamber 2 completely open right now. Ivan planning on chaeto and some sort of mechanical filtration i.e. bio balls or ceramic rings. In chamber 3 I have my chemi pure blue and gfo bags before the return pump.

The biggest question is how should I have chamber 2 set up. The water flows up from the bottom of chamber 1 to the top of chamber 2 to overflow into chamber 3.

Should I put the bio balls on the bottom of the chamber so I don't disturb them and put the chaeto on top just before it overflows into chamber three?

This is a pic of the back chambers, the purple circle is my media bags, green is the skimmer and blue is water flow. I don't have the media rack but I can make one out of egg crate.

Any advice would help.
7607a7460bf03c2d0296a7783e573c62.jpg


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Mark_C

Mark_C

Staff member
Officer Emeritus
NJRC Member
Moderator
Heh, seems like the three of us need a Fluval forum.

This is tough as there is no space in 1 for mechanical filtration.
With chamber 1 being used for the skimmer, it limits your options.

Cheato growth for phosphate control is not really an option here If you didn't have the skimmer you could set up chamber 1 for mechanical filtration along with a 'chemical shelf', chamber 2 as a fuge and liverock chamber, and 3 as a return.

In my opinion, with this tank as it is...
I would remove the 2 bottom shelves in chamber 2 and fill the bottom area with the Marinepure media discussed in Sobo's post. I would then put filter floss in the top, which would be changed at least 1x week. This way you wont have to remove the chamber and the mechanical filtration is easily accessible and replaced (you'll not need to clean or replace the Marinepure media). NOt ideal, as you should have the filtration before the skimmer and rock media, but should be OK.

Better option if possible...
Put the skimmer in chamber 2.
Remove media shelf and either modify it to fit in chamber 1 or build a new simple basket out of egg-crate (super easy)

I'll post my mod builds tomorrow to give you an idea what I'm thinking.
 
Jeffery Kilpatrick

Jeffery Kilpatrick

I don't have the media chamber.. I can make one from eggcrate..but I kinda have to put the chaeto in the tank since I pretty much begged the boss to let me...i have had good success with chaeto in a bio cube..

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Trio91

Trio91

Administrator
Staff member
Moderator
Maybe put the bio media in the chamber with the return pump? It doesn't need a ton of flow

Also if you use cheMI pure elite you can do away with the gfo (as it has some in it) so that can free up space
 
Russell Bennett

Russell Bennett

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Jeffery Kilpatrick said:
So I'm redoing my back chambers on my fluval m60. I moved the skimmer and heater to chamber 1. I have chamber 2 completely open right now. Ivan planning on chaeto and some sort of mechanical filtration i.e. bio balls or ceramic rings. In chamber 3 I have my chemi pure blue and gfo bags before the return pump.

The biggest question is how should I have chamber 2 set up. The water flows up from the bottom of chamber 1 to the top of chamber 2 to overflow into chamber 3.

Should I put the bio balls on the bottom of the chamber so I don't disturb them and put the chaeto on top just before it overflows into chamber three?

This is a pic of the back chambers, the purple circle is my media bags, green is the skimmer and blue is water flow. I don't have the media rack but I can make one out of egg crate.

Any advice would help.
7607a7460bf03c2d0296a7783e573c62.jpg


Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
On my M90 I have an intank media basket in chamber one. I do filter floss, purigen, and then chemipure. In the 2nd chamber I have my protein skimmer. I have an extra chamber so in 3 I have mini-max reactor, and 4th is auto top off and return pump.

I tried chaeto and just never could make it work. I have a little hang on back light that I would leave on. I dumped it though. Just not worth effort imho.

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Jeffery Kilpatrick

Jeffery Kilpatrick

yea i have the same light lets hope i have a different result. im thinking about adding one of my DIY carbon/GFO reactors to the middle chamber, if the chaeto doesnt work then i will add a diy bio pellet reactor.
 
Russell Bennett

Russell Bennett

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Jeffery Kilpatrick said:
yea i have the same light lets hope i have a different result. im thinking about adding one of my DIY carbon/GFO reactors to the middle chamber, if the chaeto doesnt work then i will add a diy bio pellet reactor.
Click to expand...

yeah good luck- I always wonder if I got light lined up with Chaeto right, and wonder if a tumbling some how would have help. I don't have a heavy nitrate load, but I do grow some nuisance algae (bubble) so unsure why it wouldn't work. Bubble algae is mostly in unseen corners, and somewhat control. In March I had Absolutely Fish service my tank when my ankle was broken and they said they wouldn't bother with light.

I had this dream that PH stay constant and I grew the algae I wanted and had perfectly little balance tank, and just had to give it up. I am pretty happy with what it looks like right now so sometimes it seems the tank tells you what it likes lol (ps what it likes is for me to buy expensive equipment and replace all the fluval stuff)
 
Russell Bennett

Russell Bennett

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I took this yesterday- still don't know how to filter out blue
 

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Jeffery Kilpatrick

Jeffery Kilpatrick

So my chaeto was doing good I think, but of late it has dying off and red slime algae growing on it. I'm assuming I don't have enough flow into my 2nd chamber to keep it tumbling. I may try the marine pure media that was discussed.

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