Matten filter with canister behind idea?

[MDB_fish_newbie]

Hey everyone,

It has been quite a while since I've posted. I just got back with a new tank and went with a matten filter. It's actually a corner filter from Swiss tropics. It is very nice looking and seems to do a good job. But I'm thinking of adding the intake of one of my spare cannisters behind the foam.

Is anyone else doing this? I'm mainly interested in supplementing more filtration and think this thread might spark some ideas. Also my tank is pretty hevilly stocked and over filtration seems like a good idea.

I'm gonna try and add a few pics.

Thx y'all
-Mason

 

[Frank Cowherd]

In big tanks it is always best to have more than one filter. I have two large HOB Penguins on my 180 and they do great even with a heavily loaded tank. I also have a sponge filter in one corner.
The other major factor in a heavily stocked tank is how much you feed. You can easily overfeed even with excess filtration. If you see a lot of debris, you are probably overfeeding.
I feed only once a day. I have 5 large clown loaches, 4 angelfish, 8 gouramis including 4 large kissing gouramis, some BN and hill stream loaches, and a bunch of long fin zebra danios. And three flying foxes. The picture shows about half of the tank.

 

[Wet Sleeves]

I would talk to Stephan. Personally, I would just add more Poret to the intake of the canister and place it some where else in the tank. He also sells cubes that can be used inside the canister.

 

[mchambers]

I’ve got canisters powering some of my Mattenfilters and I know at least one other hobbyist in the area who does the same. Works fine. I’m not convinced the extra filtration adds much value, but it might for heavily stocked tanks.

 

[halak]

I have two canister intakes behind my matten corner filter in my 125g. I also added a bag of Eheim substrate pro behind the corner foam. The more filtration the better.

 

[MDB_fish_newbie]

I would talk to Stephan. Personally, I would just add more Poret to the intake of the canister and place it some where else in the tank. He also sells cubes that can be used inside the canister.

Im thinking this might be along the lines of my next move. I feel that if the intake is behind the foam the canisters full potential may be slightly wasted. Not sure if that makes any sense.

 

[Andrewtfw]

I run powerheads rather than air on my tanks with mattenfilters. I recently added a mattenfilter to my 54g corner tank. It had been running a fluval 405 on it. So the intake of the fluval is behind the mattenfilter. I have had no issues with this configuration and don't expect to.

 

[Airborne001]

Im thinking this might be along the lines of my next move. I feel that if the intake is behind the foam the canisters full potential may be slightly wasted. Not sure if that makes any sense.

Think of it this way, you can clean the matten more and the canister less....

 

[chriscoli]

I've done something similar. The problem I ran into is that with the extra flow, the mattenfilter clogged faster and it was in a spot that was difficult to get to. But, if it's easy for you to pull the mattenfilter out and clean it a little more often than you normally would then i think it's a great idea. I've also used to put poret cube filters on HOB's as a prefilter. You can use the ATI prefilter guts but poret as the foam...works well.

 

[mchambers]

Think of it this way, you can clean the matten more and the canister less....

Actually, it doesn't seem to work this way. I still clean the mattenfilter about once a year and the canisters every six months or so. I think the canisters could go longer, but since they are Cobalt canisters, cleaning them is very easy, so why not do it?

 

[MDB_fish_newbie]

I've done something similar. The problem I ran into is that with the extra flow, the mattenfilter clogged faster and it was in a spot that was difficult to get to. But, if it's easy for you to pull the mattenfilter out and clean it a little more often than you normally would then i think it's a great idea. I've also used to put poret cube filters on HOB's as a prefilter. You can use the ATI prefilter guts but poret as the foam...works well.

That's a good point. I think I'm gonna just try putting the canister intake behind. If it seems to clog too fast, I bought an extra foam piece with lower ppi. It would let more dirt through and allow more flow. The canister would finter the rest anyway. Also I probably have a HOB I could throw on with a prefilter. Just kinda want to hide as much equipment as I can.