fluval 304 media choices

Mid posted.
Daniel Morrow wrote:
Mid posted.
LM wrote:
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..

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.

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)

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?

The floss type material should be above the rings. All of what you
said previously sounds good to me.


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?

If you ever need any type of filter adapters you could buy an ati
filter max 3 sponge prefilter even if just for the adapters it comes
with (the sponge prefilter) so you should definitely be able to
connect the fluval msf 304 to the undergravel filter. You have a good
filter setup and seem to have good plans - I would continue with what
works for you for sure - undergravel filters have a lot of
biofiltration capacity and work great even if not the best, you don't
need the best as your ugf/fluval msf filtration just plain does the
job for you. Good luck and later!

Clarification - that previous paragraph of mine actually was mean't to help
if you wanted to run the fluval in series with the UGF but it might still
help someone, except that someone doing that would need some kind of
manifold to suck water out of 2 or 4 uptake tubes that are connected
directly to the UGF plates' outlets. I assume the original poster actually
uses either powerheads or air uptake to power the UGF in actuality. Any
way - good luck and later. Original poster - don't worry - you don't need to
power the UGF with the fluval just use your air or powerhead, that should be
well enough.




any suggestions, comments?

37G heavily planted tank.

Linda