"LM" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi all,

I've decided to replace my HOT Magnum filter with Fluval 304 canister
filter... HOT Magnum has worked great, but I'm moving the fish tank to
a new location in the house (fun fun fun) and the new configuration is
not going to be HOT-access-friendly..

Moving in the house? Same floor is easy. Stairs add work, but still
much better than having to drive somewhere.

My tank has UGF as well as the Magnum..and on the magnum I have stuffed
the media mesh cylinder with marineland blue bonded filter and
surrounded by the blue thin sponge sleeve to trap the large particles,
and it has done great. UGF has been the main supplier of biological
filtration, and the Magnum being more of the particle filteration (the
gravel used for UGF is quite coarse, so it doesn't do whole lot of good
job in entraping finer particles). and every now and then (every 6mo or
so? usually I only do this when I notice a reduction in flow rate), I
just open up the Magnum, dump all the dirty filter, fill it with new
ones and put it back. No cloudiness even with this kind of overhaul
since UGF supplies bio filter.

perhaps Coarse gravel isn't the greatest bio-filter due to reduced
surface area, but it's not bad. I just think your plants had as much to
do with it.

Fluval will be replacing the magnum. UGF will be kept running (fish I
have seem to like high current.. well, with an exception of the
gouramis, but.. majority wins)

At any rate, Fluval 304 has three media baskets. I'm thinking about
filling the top two with the BioMAX biological filter media, and would
like to fill the bottom-most media basket with some sort of physical
filter to further aid the filteration done by the sponge blocks. Or
should I fill just the top basket with the BioMAX, and fill the bottom
two with some physical filter media? I don't need carbon, peat, nor
ammochip (water is naturally soft, fully cycled, and I fertilize
plants, so I don't want carbon in there filtering out my fertilizer)

The bio-max ceramic rings are a nice product. I would spread them out
over the 3 baskets. If you do use any filter media (finer than the
sponges), then it would be in the lowset basket, as your final mechanical
filtration. The Bio-max does almost no mechanical filtration, and you
should keep their pores relatively clean.

Seems like Hagen has ceramic ring-style large particle filter (Fluval
pre-filter material). would this be better than filling the basket
with floss-type media like the ones I have been using for my Magnum?
if i decide to use the pre-filter material and the floss-type material,
which one should be on the bottom?

how much does each basket hold? would one box of these media sold by
Hagen enough to fill one basket, or do I need to buy more?

also, are there any spare parts I really ought to buy at the same time?

The most vulnerable components of the 304 are (from most to least): the
impeller (nylon portion), the clear plastic impeller shaft holder which
snaps in to the pump base (snap-tang gets a bit of action), and the
unit's handles if you ever try re-installing it backwards (watch for the
power cord notch). There isn't any significant failure history, so if
you have an LFS which stocks impellers, you should be fine (or if you are
not close by, then a spare impeller might be warranted).

I remember a poster here would lived in Alaska, and we had to put
together spares kits for everything he was buying.

any suggestions, comments?

37G heavily planted tank.

Linda

Well.... UGFs, coarse gravel and heavily planted are not something I
usually hear in the same sentence, but if it works for you, then you sure
don't need my advice ;~).
--
www.NetMax.tk