tcarswell;3350680; said:
I stopped messing with the AC filters cause i don't really like the design. If you put finer media in them you slow down the flow considerably. They don't have anywhere for the water to go once the media gets clogged or you add fine media. And if that happens you get wet floors cause they WILL overflow and keep on until the water in the tank gets low enough to break the syphon.
Ever since that incident I have sworn off AC for ever.
With the emperor if you add to much or to fine of a media the water will just flow over the filter pad. Which is bad but you don't lose any flow. I have found that when I add the 2 micron sleeve over the emperor media basket that the water will just barely trickle over the media bin. So basically you are using gravity to push the water thru the 2 micron filter pad.
The ac filter is pretty nice and really powerful right out of the box. I currently run one with just double sponges because the do a excellent job of moving water. But i have ran 1 sponge and piled up some poly fill on top of that for better mechanical filtration. But you dont get the same micron results as the emperor because you can't compact the poly fill.
I guess if you were crafty you could take the top sponge and slice it length ways (like a sub at subway lol) and then put a good amount of poly between the upper and lower half and then put some rubber bands around it to compact it down.
1 mod I have wanted to try for ages but never have is to turn a HOB's output into a algae scrubber. I would like to take and make a drip tray that would stick out vertically from the spillway of the filter so that the water ran evenly across it and thru it. And then add a powerful light above the drip tray maybe inside of a canopy. And that way you could grow a algae scrubber/nitrate filter right on the end of your HOB filter. Of course i don't think it would ever work with any lid and i would not be appealing to the eye but I think it would work.
