I did that with two magnums, worked for a while but often the water in one canister was lower than full. I think this might have contributed to the failure of the second one. Put a pre filter on the intake for extra mechanical
Adding a 2nd chamber to a canister filter.
- Thread starter LukeOscar
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If memory serves me, Eheim had a dummy canister years (decades?) ago that you could add to expand your filter.
I run a prefilter on my canisters and fill them with all/mostly bio media - clean the prefilter every couple days and nitrates build up very slow. Still do the water changes of course though.
I run a prefilter on my canisters and fill them with all/mostly bio media - clean the prefilter every couple days and nitrates build up very slow. Still do the water changes of course though.
I've connected canisters to small over tank sump/trickle filter with good results and no reduction of flow.
I think using an old canister would work, just make sure to take out the impeller so it doesn't impede flow.
Using a reactor would be a good idea too. Especially in the planted tank world, lots of people put reactors after their canister pumps to inject C02, and add some bio filtration. I added a reactor in my tank and just inject air into it for added bio filtration and oxygenation, and it creates kind of a closed loop wet/dry filter. Making a canister or reactor out of 4" PVC or a home water filtration housing is popular. Google it and you'll find plenty of DIY pages.
You're definitely going to want to put the extra bio filtration AFTER the canister filter. It should help the pump prime better, and put clean water into the bio filtration so it doesn't get clogged with debris. It'll hurt the flow some, but shouldn't be catastrophic.
Using a reactor would be a good idea too. Especially in the planted tank world, lots of people put reactors after their canister pumps to inject C02, and add some bio filtration. I added a reactor in my tank and just inject air into it for added bio filtration and oxygenation, and it creates kind of a closed loop wet/dry filter. Making a canister or reactor out of 4" PVC or a home water filtration housing is popular. Google it and you'll find plenty of DIY pages.
You're definitely going to want to put the extra bio filtration AFTER the canister filter. It should help the pump prime better, and put clean water into the bio filtration so it doesn't get clogged with debris. It'll hurt the flow some, but shouldn't be catastrophic.
Here it is. 5g pail about 3.5 gallons of bio balls rest is sponge. Same design as a canister. In take is fed though the bottom via a pipe on the inside then flows up and out. The fluval 403 is packed with ceramic media.
Approx flow changes.
Fluval 403 without the added canister 190 gallons per hour at 5.5 feet.
With the bucket it's approximately 161 gallons per hour at 5.5 feet.
In.my opinion it's well worth the trade off. If you throttle back the intake valve slightly on the first chamber it creates a low pressure environment and a normal 5g pail won't leak.
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I just saw some kind of expand a canister set up at the pet store today. I do not think it was Eheim. Was not looking for a filter so did not pay that much attention.
If you ever set up a new system and want to have about any number of in line canister applications you can think of take a look at OceanClear. I run one of my tanks with these. It has the pump first then the mechanical filter, then a bio filter, then an in line heater canister. This has been by far the best canister setup I have ever used. You can also add chemical filtration inside the mechanical filter.
