is my media order okay?

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J

josephjeon

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Nov 22, 2010
177
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California
I'm running an FX5, and as many of you know there are 3 baskets for media. Here are what are in mine:

top basket: 3 fluval carbon packets / 3 fluval peat packets (I normally dont use peat but I had some so i threw it in there)

mid basket: 1 fluval polishing pad / 1 box of fluval bio max on top of the pad.

bottom basket: 2 fluval polishing pads stacked / 1 box of fluval bio max on top of pad.

Do you guys think this is sufficient or is there anything wrong with my order?
 
those polishing pads are a PITA when they get clogged up, i fill with bio max in the bottom 2 and carbon in the top. i really would get away from those pads unless you like cleaning that filter every week. they also seem to slow down water flow alot and that is the best thing about the filter.
 
I just have carbon, bio rings and those extra blue sponge pads in my fx5.

I've heard that polishing pads are a waste of time and money
 
buck_wildest;4696110; said:
those polishing pads are a PITA when they get clogged up, i fill with bio max in the bottom 2 and carbon in the top. i really would get away from those pads unless you like cleaning that filter every week. they also seem to slow down water flow alot and that is the best thing about the filter.
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oh snap it's that exaggerated? My tanks is 125 gallons and it only has and will have 4 fish in there. Not too much waste? Despite the cleaning, are the polishing pads any good at making the water more clear? And for those who stack trays with bio max... how many boxes did you use for the two trays?
 
Why waste your money on fabricated bio stuff? Just buy a cheap bag of lava rocks, pick out the smaller sized ones, rinse them well, and you have LOTS of biological matter for all of your trays.
 
well yeah lava rock will probably work fine but if you have the money and dont want a hassle or a small chunk getting stuck in the motor of you $300 filter then yeah use biomax :)


i wasn't really exaggerating no one i know uses the polishing pads
 
I tried using the polishing pads, clogged too frequently. I thought my filter was BROKEN, but it was just the polishing pads.

I just make sure I don't put any TINY lava rocks in the filter, you have to have some common sense about it.
 
Laticauda;4696209; said:
I tried using the polishing pads, clogged too frequently. I thought my filter was BROKEN, but it was just the polishing pads.

I just make sure I don't put any TINY lava rocks in the filter, you have to have some common sense about it.
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The flow of the filter will eventually erode the lava rocks and act as sand stuck in your filter... reducing the life of the filter by wearing down the impeller assembly. AND, the surface area of lava rocks is really low compared to a decent quality bio media. Maybe not an issue for you, but some people have BIG fish with big bio loads.

I just stuff all three baskets with bio media (eheim substrat pro for me) in media bags... any decent bio media will work well for you... matrix, biomax, substrat... a cheap bio media is Pond Matrix by Seachem... it's designed for ponds and you can buy it in big amounts for good prices.
 
With a little research, you can find how poor lava rock is for using as bio media. Do to it's lack of surface area.
 
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