Update - Matten Filters and Stock List

[nzafi]

I agree. My two biggest struggles with the hobby in general and like others is time and money. I have very little time which means I cannot tinker with sumps and all kinds of fancy filtration. From a money perspective, while I have a decent budget when you talk about a 750g tank filtration gets insane when you talk sump or advanced filtration like Ultimata/biowave.

I ran some rough numbers and matten approach versus sump I can probably save myself $500+ and a lot more versus something like Ultima. Not to mention all the time I save from a setup and maintenance.

When I upgraded to my 180g from a 75g 2 years ago, literally tossed my FX5 and went with 3 AC110s due to ease of maintenance. I actually think I am going to try converting my 180g to a matten filtration so I can get familiar with it before I upgrade to a larger tank.

 

[nzafi]

Btw, I am surprised you only have 2 jeflifters per tank. I thought I read on the website that the max you will get from the large one is 210g/h so I figured you have more. Unless you got custom versions that were bigger I guess.

 

[JasonsPlecosCichlids]

You will enjoy them and will probably say to yourself, just like I did, why didn't I do this years ago? Canisters are over hyped that's for sure. Yes they work but so many things can go wrong, same with hobs and sumps. I'm trying to eliminate everything I can that can potentially break down besides the obvious things I need like an air pump. If I had a small room or an endless budget, I would heat the room rather than use heaters which is why I use heaters at the moment. If I had the ability to use an automatic water changing system for ease of maintenance, I would as well, that will happen in the next house for sure but for now, I have to perform weekly water changes. This hobby will probably never see a system that won't fail of some sort but we can try to get there as close as possible. I'm happy with where I am with my current setup, next one will be even better. I used to have 2-3 FX5s and Eheims under my tanks, so lets max that out and say three per tank, so that's 12 canisters under 4 tanks. Right off the bat, that's 12 potential leaking issues, another 12 potential motors dying, another 12 potential canisters that don't prime, another 12 canisters that need to be cleaned, and so on. Right now I have one air pump for all three tanks, the fourth is on the other side of the room on its own system, so that's one air pump that could go bad. I just took all those issues and tossed them out of the equation with one single air pump, plus the backup is always running because its battery and electric. I'm sure I'm missing something here but you get the idea.

 

[nzafi]

JasonsPlecosCichlids did you end up using the 4in thick poret foam or 2in. Everything I've read says 2in but Swiss tropics recommends 4in.

 

[JasonsPlecosCichlids]

2", that's what Stephan recommended.

 

[nzafi]

2", that's what Stephan recommended.

Just went back digging and saw that you actually used 3in according to an old thread. Looks like its going to be kind of expensive to set this up. Will cost me $150 for the foam & jetlifters plus another $125+ for a high quality air pump.

Definitely plan on experimenting with this but I need to decide if I will do a regular matten filter or corner. I might be moving the 180g soon so if I drain the tank I can probably take the time to silicone the glass pieces into place.

I was looking at your old pics and it looks like when did put the glass pieces in place you ended up leaving some space at the top and did not use silicone on the bottom. Does it matter if there are some gaps?