Matten Filter for 300 - Umbee or Amphilophus heavy stocking

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I ran a matten briefly on my 180g and another member on here runs them on two 265g tanks. I have found folks running them on 600g tanks.

I did the side matten and would recommend doing corner ones on a tank longer than 4ft. Because of the low flow I had issues with the far side of the tank and had to install a powerhead.

I got rid of mine because the filter takes a long time to establish and I ended up killing my BB by doingnlarge water changes. At the same time I had to bleach my entire tank due to a disease which meant bye bye matten filter foam and I didn't want to spend the money for another 4in think 2x2 piece.
 
Btw, when I set mine up I went with the air powered approach via airlifters from swisstropics. It worked alright but depending on the size of tank, I think powerheads would be better.
 
urodoji said:
Are you using Jetlifters or a pump?
Click to expand...
On Stephan's recommendation, I'm going w/ 4 superlifters - apparently they are like jetlifters on steroids. This will also help span the 7 inches - I'm going w/ a 4" sheet of 20 PPI w/ a 3" sheet of 10 PPI in front of it. My theory is that I can occasionally clean the one in front, but theoretically never (or very rarely) have to clean the second one (and trash my filter) even though I have a tank of very large wast producers. I'll let all know how it goes. Right now the tank is way over filtered w/ 4 hydro sponge Vs and an Eheim 2262 (w/ Pond Matrix as the media). I'll pull out the canister when I add the Matten Filters (should arrive this week). I'll then remove all of the Hydro Sponge filters after a couple of months and test how it goes w/ only the Matten Filters. If this works, I'll try two corner ones on my upcoming build for an Umbee pair tank.
 
I highly recommend leaving your eheim and other filters running for several weeks to help with the seeding of the bacteria and just pull them out slowly.

On a 6ft long tank you are going to struggle with a side filter. Like I mentioned, when I did it on my 6ft 180g tank I had to a powerhead on the opposite end as the water was just getting stagnant there with almost no movement.

Does he have these new superlifters on his website or any information on them? Really curious how they are different from what he currently has.
 
nzafi said:
I highly recommend leaving your eheim and other filters running for several weeks to help with the seeding of the bacteria and just pull them out slowly.

On a 6ft long tank you are going to struggle with a side filter. Like I mentioned, when I did it on my 6ft 180g tank I had to a powerhead on the opposite end as the water was just getting stagnant there with almost no movement.

Does he have these new superlifters on his website or any information on them? Really curious how they are different from what he currently has.
Click to expand...
I'll definitely leave the sponge filters in for a long while. I have water movement pumps in my big tanks, so I'll keep them in. They are on the site - under Filtration, than Jetlifters:
NEW: Superlifters™
Superlifter™ XL = 32 mm

$20.00 – Superlifter™ XL 12″
$22.00 – Superlifter™ XL 18″
$24.00 – Superlifter™ XL 22″

The Superlifters™ move 400-500 gal/h. They require about 400 L of air per hour via two airlines that feed the new two-part injector. Note: the elbow adds about 4″ to the overall height.
 
I contacted Stephen as well for my upcoming 250 build. He suggested two 8" corners using 3" thick 20 ppi . That's way different than the 4" of 10ppi and 3" of 20 ppl you are planning.

I can understand your logic of doing two layers, though when I asked Stephen about that he suggested just going with the 20 ppl and only 3" thick.

Why do you think both sizes are necessary? 20 ppi isn't so tight you need to worry about instant plugging and cleaning daily. I also think the two corners is a good idea so when you clean you just do one corner at a time, so you don't need to worry as much about crashing the tank.

I'd also worry 7" is too thick, that's a lot of foam to flow through won't you have pressure drop issues? Other posts I've seen that do 2 different pore sizes do 2x of 2" layers.

Id also love to hear an update from JasonsPlecosCichlids JasonsPlecosCichlids , he did exactly what I'm planning on doing about 6 months ago.
 
Yoimbrian said:
I contacted Stephen as well for my upcoming 250 build. He suggested two 8" corners using 3" thick 20 ppi . That's way different than the 4" of 10ppi and 3" of 20 ppl you are planning.

I can understand your logic of doing two layers, though when I asked Stephen about that he suggested just going with the 20 ppl and only 3" thick.

Why do you think both sizes are necessary? 20 ppi isn't so tight you need to worry about instant plugging and cleaning daily. I also think the two corners is a good idea so when you clean you just do one corner at a time, so you don't need to worry as much about crashing the tank.

I'd also worry 7" is too thick, that's a lot of foam to flow through won't you have pressure drop issues? Other posts I've seen that do 2 different pore sizes do 2x of 2" layers.

Id also love to hear an update from JasonsPlecosCichlids JasonsPlecosCichlids , he did exactly what I'm planning on doing about 6 months ago.
Click to expand...
When you say 8" corner, what do you mean? Does it come out 8" in each direction? Ultimately, how many inches wide will the mat be?

You're probably right about the first mat at 2" - will see. It would definitely be a different case w/ two corners, or even two ends - can clean one w/out worrying about dropping your bacteria too low. I wanted one thick one that NEVER gets cleaned (just the front one) as I really want to see if it will help w/ nitrate reduction. I went w/ the end is this is a test case and I only had the 135, which was up and running w/ fish in it. I will definitely go two corners when I do a build from scratch - and on a tank wider than 18".

I don't think 7" will have any impact on the flow. It could have an impact on the amount of oxygen towards the last inch or two. I know whatever I do, it will need to be oversized for my eventual next build - will be b/w 225 and 360 gallons (still tbd) and will house a pair of Umbee, so major mechanical and bio to deal with.
 
The bracing on the walls goes 8" out, so one quarter of a circle with an 8" radius would be filter length of 12.5".

It seems pretty small to me, but that's what he suggested. I also think that is what JasonsPlecosCichlids JasonsPlecosCichlids used (based on pictures, he never stated it from what i see), so that's why I'd like an update from him.

you could also do a larger radius corner filter, but even 8" may look weird and be hard to hide.

I'm just so intrigued by the concept of it all, seems almost too good to be true to almost never clean a filter and still have clean water. Honestly the biggest selling to me is the electricity savings - using a small air pump instead of a large pump in the sump saves ~200 watts - about $400 / year where I live.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom