I've used ACs for a couple years now on my tanks and am extremely satisfied with them. There was the initial issue of noise, which was quickly fixed by lubing the impeller shaft, and also tiny particles floating in the water, which was fixed by adding filter floss.
My question is, are the sponges really needed?
I've recently started putting some filter floss at the bottom of the media basket, and noticed just how gunky it gets faster than the sponge. With the sponge at the bottom it is sometimes a bit harder to completely get all the gunk off, but with the floss I can toss it and replace weekly because of how cheap and easy it is to replace (I bought a $4 bag almost 2 years ago and barely 60% done with it).
On one of my tanks with 2 filters, they are setup as follows:
[biomax]
[sponge]
[filter floss]
[biomax]
[filter floss]
[sponge]
I was thinking for quicker maintenance and increased biological filtration of doing:
[biomax][biomax]
[biomax][biomax]
[filter floss]
Would it be just as beneficial to have the filter floss at the bottom, and pack the rest of the media with as much biomax that can fit? Filter floss seems to be the best mechanical, and biomax/matrix/rings are the best for biological.
My question is, are the sponges really needed?
I've recently started putting some filter floss at the bottom of the media basket, and noticed just how gunky it gets faster than the sponge. With the sponge at the bottom it is sometimes a bit harder to completely get all the gunk off, but with the floss I can toss it and replace weekly because of how cheap and easy it is to replace (I bought a $4 bag almost 2 years ago and barely 60% done with it).
On one of my tanks with 2 filters, they are setup as follows:
[biomax]
[sponge]
[filter floss]
[biomax]
[filter floss]
[sponge]
I was thinking for quicker maintenance and increased biological filtration of doing:
[biomax][biomax]
[biomax][biomax]
[filter floss]
Would it be just as beneficial to have the filter floss at the bottom, and pack the rest of the media with as much biomax that can fit? Filter floss seems to be the best mechanical, and biomax/matrix/rings are the best for biological.