Ultima II Over filtration

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
ok can someone suggest something to run along side or inline with an ultima 2k to pick up where the ultima supposedly falls short?

I did some searches on wlim it seems to be a media though, not a filter, would that just be placed in a run of the mill sand filter?
 
I don't see where they fall short... they do great for me. You're probably talking about water polishing.. I had a filter sock that did this, but it required a weekly cleaning and had more resistance than the Ultima 4000 did when dirty.

So I ditched the filter sock. I felt it made more sense to just keep a 2nd canister instead. Its way less maintenance.

Everything is a trade off... the Ultima's are fairly low resistance, high flow. This suits a big tank perfectly. Water is still crystal clear. Water polishers like socks are usually high resistance.. less efficient. I would have had to upgrade to a positive displacement pump to keep using the sock filter and it still probably wouldn't have done as good of a job as the canister simply because of flow.
 
spiff44 said:
...BTW- I use the water in the sink as my indicator that the filter is clean, not the little sight window. The sight window will look clean long before it really is... at least for aquarium use.
Click to expand...

This is probably my issue. I use sight glass. But 250 gals for me is way too much water to change.

Sent from my DROID4 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 
i'm not saying they fall short, it's what others are implying, but without suggesting a "better" alternative, which is what i'm looking for.
 
and the main sewer pipe for my house is 4 feet from where i plan on putting this tank, so drainage is not an issue at all.
 
Well, I guess that can be considered a "con" to these filters then. For me though, cleaning the canisters is the only water changes that gets done.

I actually just busted out an aquarium calculator to get a more accurate estimate of the water used to clean it.. I think I way under estimated the gallons. My tank drops from 12-15 inches to clean one canister... this is actually 330-450 gallons or so.
 
streetunity said:
i'm not saying they fall short, it's what others are implying, but without suggesting a "better" alternative, which is what i'm looking for.
Click to expand...

The only complaints I usually hear are related to water polishing.

i would say this.... on a big tank I think it makes sense to setup the main filter(s) first and then let them acclimate and then decide if you need more filtering or not based on water clarity. I think it would take several pumps pushing through several sock filters to equal the flow of one canister. I wouldn't say this is necessarily better. This translates to several times the operating costs to achieve just only a slight improvement on water clarity.

All my setups were related to forced filtering too. Having a giant sump with a huge sock filter array might be a better alternative.. I'm not sure. But the sump would have to be gigantic.. who wants to commit a 240 gallon tank (or bigger) to just be a sump? Not me...
But with a sump then you could distribute the flow from one pump over as many filter socks as you want as long as you have the space. This would be the only way that I can think of to achieve water polishing with out going crazy with the extra pumps.
 
Here is the link to the Wlim bead filter - http://wlimproducts.com/bio-wave-filter.htm

I have no personally experience with them but people here have mentioned that they take much less water to back-flush and they do a better job of polishing the water.
 
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