Ya that was my question. Will the hose fit the rubber connector without the ribbed intake piece as well fit the inlet pipe (that im going cut down)? Ty for help
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The Great Big Filter Thread
- Thread starter JayP
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Capraquaria
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Thanks, @JayP. I actually watched Jeff's video before I even purchased the Yugang reactor . It encouraged me to double-check my math first before deciding on which size reactor I needed
I think rather than run a perfectly fine and new Biomaster in bypass mode, though, I would rather task it to a tank more suited to its ability. A DC pump through a prefilter housing seems perfectly sufficient for controlling and adjusting flow as needed, and a little more economical, too. But, I will have a bit more of a think about it over the weekend.
Where does the heater go?
I have an inline heater on both setups! Chihiros Pro inline heater. I have it on the return line to the return lily pipe.
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JayP
Valuable Member
Do you use inkbrids with your heaters? I could probably look back at the original setup post but I'm lazy right now.
My GHL Profilux comes with a high end temp probe, I use it for the same purpose as the inkbirds!
Haha so to be fair, that does add $110 plus shipping to your setups
No shade, I love my Netlea pre-filter
I have it in front of an Oase Filtosmart Thermo for a little 45C, specifically to hold the heater 
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True! But I also compared the biomasters to my setup, but not the biomaster thermo's. Similar price increase if you want integrated heater. But yes, none of it is ever "cheap" but I still LOVE these kinds of setups!
Great timing for this thread as it turns out for my current predicament.
Specifically for my 4 ft ~70G tank.
Its only running a common filter which you may not have heard of (Aqua One Nautilus 1100), advertised flow rate max 1,100 litres per hour. So real world probably only 600 or so (~150G) so not much more than 2:1. With my current setup of an inline diffuser, its barely enough in any case.
The predicament being that I opened the canister yesterday for the usual 4-6 week maintenance/clean and after putting it back, starting slowly leaking after about 15 min and basically hasn't stopped since. I've had this occur before and it was the main O-ring on the head unit that wasn't quite seated properly. So I checked that, applied silicon lube, and ensured it was seated as well as it could be. Same result. I had another old filter laying around that uses the same O-ring ( admittedly it had been sitting around for a couple of years). Applied the lube to that and seated in the filter. Still leak started after 15 min. Pretty sure it is still the o-ring as I can't see it being anything else so have ordered a new one but will just have to put up with a leaking cabinet/floor in the meantime.
Which brings me to the point that sometimes we overlook having a backup for different parts of equipment. With the filter which also runs the CO2 being super important on a high tech tank, the first thing I'm going to organise is a backup. More to the point, I'll manage to get this one working properly again somehow but then will become my backup.
So if you had to organise a new filtration system today for a 4 ft tank that currently runs an inline diffuser (but will be converting to a reactor in the hopefully not too distant future), what would you get?
Looking at all the great responses i do very much like the idea of @Naturescapes_Rocco netlea pre-filter and pump (but then do i just use a standard AC pump or the more high tech DC pumps?). Obviously the latter is a fair amount more expensive than the former but do like the flow control etc.
Or @Minorhero SS tanks and separate pump which in a way is a similar concept but different method.
Or @GreggZ solution of just obtaining good solid filters that do the job.
I'm open to all. Probably starting to lean on option 1. Also, sorry slightly off topic but was mentioned earlier, I'll add an inline heater to the system (my dog the other day ran behind the tank and pulled up an old glass heater.) Luckily it is still warm here. Only need a heater for months of the year. Fans or a chiller I need for the other months lol, another piece of the puzzle to finalise.
Specifically for my 4 ft ~70G tank.
Its only running a common filter which you may not have heard of (Aqua One Nautilus 1100), advertised flow rate max 1,100 litres per hour. So real world probably only 600 or so (~150G) so not much more than 2:1. With my current setup of an inline diffuser, its barely enough in any case.
The predicament being that I opened the canister yesterday for the usual 4-6 week maintenance/clean and after putting it back, starting slowly leaking after about 15 min and basically hasn't stopped since. I've had this occur before and it was the main O-ring on the head unit that wasn't quite seated properly. So I checked that, applied silicon lube, and ensured it was seated as well as it could be. Same result. I had another old filter laying around that uses the same O-ring ( admittedly it had been sitting around for a couple of years). Applied the lube to that and seated in the filter. Still leak started after 15 min. Pretty sure it is still the o-ring as I can't see it being anything else so have ordered a new one but will just have to put up with a leaking cabinet/floor in the meantime.
Which brings me to the point that sometimes we overlook having a backup for different parts of equipment. With the filter which also runs the CO2 being super important on a high tech tank, the first thing I'm going to organise is a backup. More to the point, I'll manage to get this one working properly again somehow but then will become my backup.
So if you had to organise a new filtration system today for a 4 ft tank that currently runs an inline diffuser (but will be converting to a reactor in the hopefully not too distant future), what would you get?
Looking at all the great responses i do very much like the idea of @Naturescapes_Rocco netlea pre-filter and pump (but then do i just use a standard AC pump or the more high tech DC pumps?). Obviously the latter is a fair amount more expensive than the former but do like the flow control etc.
Or @Minorhero SS tanks and separate pump which in a way is a similar concept but different method.
Or @GreggZ solution of just obtaining good solid filters that do the job.
I'm open to all. Probably starting to lean on option 1. Also, sorry slightly off topic but was mentioned earlier, I'll add an inline heater to the system (my dog the other day ran behind the tank and pulled up an old glass heater.) Luckily it is still warm here. Only need a heater for months of the year. Fans or a chiller I need for the other months lol, another piece of the puzzle to finalise.
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I'm about to pick up a new 120c (120x60x50h cm), so 4ft, and I plan on running it with a skimmer+lily pipe intake, then a prefilter, then an empty prefilter filled with bio media, then an inline pump, then a CO2 reactor bypass and inline heater on the return line, then return to the aquarium. Only answering since you asked! I've had it modeled out for a few months now:
Not all of the plumbing is modeled, just the gist of it.
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- #51
JayP
Valuable Member
Bio media as in something like Matrix? Why the switch, weren't you a convert to all foam?
Mainly because I already have one setup on my current tank! I don't think they're necessary in heavily planted tanks, but it couldn't hurt.
The first prefilter canister is the all-foam one, and it's a fine, dense foam Probably 60-80PPI. Absolutely scrubs the water clear.
The second canister is filled with Seachem Matrix. It's def nice to have it for the tank's initial startup and maturity at the least. The nice part of this modular setup is that if I don't want it eventually, I can just remove it!
After my first canister started a leak while I was on a business trip years ago, I decided canisters weren’t really my thing.
I’ll be the odd man out here, but I use Tidal HOB. Never have to prime it, cleaning is pretty easy, survives power outages, never leaks. I jam mine with foam, and sometimes a small double bagged purigen.
And like a lot of us, I like redundancy, so I also have a UGF plate on a portion of the tank. Flow on the UGF is reversed, so no UGF tube. A small power head pushes water under the plate and up through the gravel, keeping mulmy bits within easy reach of the gravel vac.
If you want a dc pump get jebao. They are very good price dead silent and work well.
Very popular in the reefing world. They have gotten better over the years as well. The return pumps are their best product line.
Very popular in the reefing world. They have gotten better over the years as well. The return pumps are their best product line.
Glad to hear good things about jebao. I'll check them out!
Thanks I'll take a look. Even the lowest in the range is still nearly 2 and half times more flow than my current leaking filter. Appears to have some decent features too for the price range.
Just to revive this thread one more time lol as its such a good one, I've decided on the netlea pre-filter/Jebao in-line pump combo although I may need to look at adapters to enable the standard 16/22 tubing for that pump by the look. For going down that route, I would add two of the netlea pre-filters (the ones easily available here are 6.9L), both for flexibility and redundancy.
The only alternative I was thinking to this setup is I already have several unused cannister filters gathering dust (most have some minor issue or another preventing them from working, impellar on one, latch to head unit on another etc). Could I not just use one or two of those, but not power them and use them as a proxy in place of the netlea pre-filters? As in is there a specific advantage of using the netlea pre-filters in place of non-powered cannisters if you already have them? I'm assuming maintenance might be one advantage of the netlea and also more efficient at handling waist, keeping the water cleaner?
I also have a perfectly working FX5 gathering dust but its too powerful for a 4ft tank I think, and uses stupid non-standard 25mm tubing.
The only alternative I was thinking to this setup is I already have several unused cannister filters gathering dust (most have some minor issue or another preventing them from working, impellar on one, latch to head unit on another etc). Could I not just use one or two of those, but not power them and use them as a proxy in place of the netlea pre-filters? As in is there a specific advantage of using the netlea pre-filters in place of non-powered cannisters if you already have them? I'm assuming maintenance might be one advantage of the netlea and also more efficient at handling waist, keeping the water cleaner?
I also have a perfectly working FX5 gathering dust but its too powerful for a 4ft tank I think, and uses stupid non-standard 25mm tubing.
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- #58
JayP
Valuable Member
Well, I hope it's not just one more time. My hope was this thread could continue to grow and discuss all things filtration (although, a couple other filter posts popped up right after this).
As it urns out, I too am thinking about trying something new along the same lines. I was curious about using the inline return pump in combination with my Biomasters ever since I saw @Jeff Miotke set his up that way, and then I saw @Naturescapes_Rocco's setup. In fact, I'm thinking Rocco was the scapecruncher Jeff was giving the shout-out to in his video.
I'd already purchased on Oase Optimax pump some time back (the 1150) and I've done a simple test runs with it, but honestly it runs just a little louder (I'm super picky) than I'd like, so all the talk about DC pumps piqued my interest. Some time back, I posted on here about a marketplace deal I was considering for a Waterbox 130.x setup with all the bells and whistles including a couple Ecotech Marine Vectra pumps. I could've had the whole package for $1700 but couldn't pull the trigger before someone else snatched it up. Really kicking myself I let it go. It would have been a deal like what @Kwyet just got from Rocco. Those vectra pumps alone are over $400 each. I don't want to spend that much now on a DC pump though, so I've also decided to give the Jebau pumps a try. I'm a bit concerned about reviews regarding their longevity but you can buy 4 of those for the price of one Vectra.
So, on my 120cm farm tank, I'm going to use one of my Biomaster 850s with it's pump disabled as the filter and heater, and the Jebau handling the pump duties. I'll also finally be using the small ARC Yugang reactor I bought a year ago on that tank. I'll be starting the official journal on that soon.
I’m really looking forward to hearing how this works out. I have 3 Biomasters and have been curious about doing something like this.
You definitely could! The flow pattern within canister filters vs just a bit prefilter is much more restricting with turns and corners. Also, the design of a prefilter (if you're using the included dense sponge) is that ALL of the water is forced to make its way through the filter; in canister filters, things like baskets aren't truly water-tight, so you don't get 100% mechanical filtration. Still, you absolutely can do this. Jeff Miotke did this with his oase biomaster filters, because those pumps are quite underpowered.
This could definitely work as a very large prefilter! Part of what I love about the Netlea ones is that they're just large enough to offer massive mechanical filtration media capacity, but small enough that it's not a huge pain to remove them for cleaning. But if you don't mind carrying your FX5 to the sink while filled, it would definitely work.
You could always give it a try with what you have and save the money, just to see if you like the concept first, before buying the netlea prefilters.
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