Got an fx5. advice please!

[marvinbaker]

picked up an fx5 to replace my rubbish rena xp4. transferred the media from my xp4 to help get the thing started. got 1 litre of eheim ehfimech, got 2 litres of eheim substrat pro, some carbon and a polishing pad. started the filter up yesterday and wanted some advice on whether that's the right media for it and any advice on how best to start it up and maintain it.

can't believe how quiet it is! i keep having to check it to make sure it's actually on!

 

[DiXoN]

i filled the tub sections with bio media full to the top of each i use substrat pro along with ceramic rings and kaldness k1 filter media.
the sponges do the mech filtration on mine along with some internals for polishing.

 

[mikesushi]

first of all don't set it up the way fluval tells you to. it will start to lose flow after a week. what i do is from the bottom up is: 1. shredding plastic or bio balls. 2. ceramic media tubes. 3. i add a screen and put carbon on top is it. i don't use a media bag. this is the best way and i haven't lost any flow. i don't even clean it except for once every 6 months. i'm using it with a 90 gal. this is by far the best cannister filter. when i get my 200gal, i'm going to use two of these bad boys.

 

[craigthor]

Mine is set up simialar. Eheim Ehfimech in top 2 Ehfi Substrat Pro in bottom one with a piece of blue filter pad cut to fit above the Substrat. The only thing I did was switch the big double head for an Eheim Installation Set 2 22mm spray bar and get much better movement across the top of the tank with it mounted to the left wall creating a river all the way across my 75. I also use the Eheim 2229 for my main biological filtration and will be adding a UV to it tomorrow hopefully. FX5 is best bang for my buck so far.

Craig