Okay, I bought a Hydor Bravo 200 filter for my 30 gallon. It is a GREAT filter. everything works of presureized water. There are also two types of cartridges for it. Reusable (with sponge) and disposable (with Carobn Bags). Well i have had the filter for a whlie, and wanted to change over to reusable cartridge. BUT no one can get the cartridges. Where ever i go i get told that the reuseables are on huge backorder. SO, while at Big Als in Barrie (the god of stores) I got he parts to build my own sponge mod. VERY EASY.
Here is a picture of how the fitler works....
To mod do the following...
1) Take out removeable carbon packs.
2) Take sqaure filter sponge for a AquaClear 300 (2.99CDN at Big Als) or something of relative size, Cut in half
3) Take each half and round it out. So in the end you have a filter sponge that looks like a cylinder (welcome to grade 3 Geometry)
4) On one end, of each half trim to look like a pencil. This will help you get the filter sponge IN the filter.
5) Now cames the hard part, push the sponge into the cartridge. It is onyl hard because it is difficult to get to the bottum and to cover the entire area without compacting the sponge. I found it easyier to do my removeing the blue flow control knob that is buildt into the cartridge. Dont worry, it goes in and out with ease.
6) replace Flow control if needed, and place back into the filter. SLOWLY
if you own a Bravo you know what i mean by this. Because of the pressure in the water comeing from teh bottom. you can easily overflow the filter if you dont do it slowly.
7) this step is not needed but i did it. You are done BUT there is a small basket in the front of the filter made for anything at all. WELL, i have placed some carbon in there, just to help with water clearity. Since carbon has to be changed all the time, this is the perfect place to put since you dont have to play with the cartridge evertime you want to change carbon.
Well there ya have it.
ALL DONE
Here is a picture of how the fitler works....
To mod do the following...
1) Take out removeable carbon packs.
2) Take sqaure filter sponge for a AquaClear 300 (2.99CDN at Big Als) or something of relative size, Cut in half
3) Take each half and round it out. So in the end you have a filter sponge that looks like a cylinder (welcome to grade 3 Geometry)
4) On one end, of each half trim to look like a pencil. This will help you get the filter sponge IN the filter.
5) Now cames the hard part, push the sponge into the cartridge. It is onyl hard because it is difficult to get to the bottum and to cover the entire area without compacting the sponge. I found it easyier to do my removeing the blue flow control knob that is buildt into the cartridge. Dont worry, it goes in and out with ease.
6) replace Flow control if needed, and place back into the filter. SLOWLY
if you own a Bravo you know what i mean by this. Because of the pressure in the water comeing from teh bottom. you can easily overflow the filter if you dont do it slowly.7) this step is not needed but i did it. You are done BUT there is a small basket in the front of the filter made for anything at all. WELL, i have placed some carbon in there, just to help with water clearity. Since carbon has to be changed all the time, this is the perfect place to put since you dont have to play with the cartridge evertime you want to change carbon.
Well there ya have it.
ALL DONE
