Emperor 400's Media

[piler]

Hello All,
I have a 55G tank with 2 Emperor 400's (with biowheels) for the filtering system.

I keep reading things on these boards about replacing the filter cartridges that come with the filter with different media since the carbon is inactive anyway after a week or so, and I wasn't sure what to replace them with.

I was planning on going to the lfs today to pick up some new media, but I'm just not sure what to buy. Do I just need foam inserts and not actual cartridges?

BTW: my bioload is fairly heavy if that will make a difference in what I buy.

Thanks for the help!

 

[jgulecas]

You don't need the carbon. Just cut a small hole in the cartridge and dispose of the old carbon. Rinse out the cartridge in aquarium water and re-use until it starts to fall apart.

The cheapest replacement cartridges are available from www.kensfish.com .

If you want carbon, you can buy it by the jar and put it into the extra media container.

 

[piler]

Thanks for the tip about cutting out the carbon, and for that great low price website!

I have 1 more question, would it be a good idea to fill ALL 4 slots with the emperor filter cartridges, or is there something more beneficial that I should be putting in there? Right now my extra media containers are just sitting in the filters, empty.

 

[Pepe]

I have a penguin 100 on a ten gallon. I just added some filter floss behind the old filter. I wanted to increase surface area, and filter small particles( I just recovered from a self-induced green water epidemic). Anyway I think the penguins have less extra space than the emperors.

 

[YoFishboy]

I use the extra filter media cartridges as my regular filter catridges...I just buy bulk filter pad material and cut it to fit inside, put it in the back slot...then I take just the plastic frame from an old regular cartridge, slide it in the front slot, and add another piece of bulk filter pad in between the two cartridges.....works great!

 

[jm1212]

you could get more media baskets and put filter floss or some other biological media in them and then drop them in there. that way you have media ready for if you need to cycle a new tank quickly. i would also reccomend haveing some extra filter cartirdges in case you need to do an emergency medication to the entire tank.