xp3

[musho3210]

Well i just ordered my xp3 online at petsmart (thanks everyone for that coupon code you told me), only problem is i know absolutely nothing about it and only got it because it was on sale and it was meant to be a good canister filter for people who couldnt afford ehiems. So i need a nice run-down on the xp3. Stuff like:

Media: It will be for planted tank, i know it has 3 baskets in it so does that mean 3 different types of media or as much or as little media as you want? I want to go with something like this: Filter floss first stage, then go on to a smaller pored sponge, then a really small pored sponge, then a water polisher, then the rest will be bio-media. No carbon. Would that work?

Anything else you want to add please do.

 

[12 Volt Man]

you will love the XP3.

It is superpowerful, and has tons and tons of room for media.

the best part is, there is no real priming after the intial time when you fill up the hoses.

after the first time, when you are done servicing, put the media baskets back in, fill to the top with water, lock back in the hoses (that are kept full of water because of the valves) and plug it in.

bingo - it goes.

its great.

As far as media goes, what I have is this (starting from the bottom of the canister to the top):

-coarse sponges (the 20 pores per inch ones) in the first basket

-finer sponges (the 30 pores per inch ones) in the second basket.

in the top basic I have cermamic bio substrate type stuff and the carbon over top. You can skip the carbon if you want, but I use it even in my planted tanks.

I skip the fine floss at the top since it clogs to quickly with my huge fish.

There are lots of media choices made by rena out there.

I really like mine.

 

[musho3210]

could i put 2 different medias in 1 basket? I want to dedicate 2 baskets to mechanical filtration (the tank will be in our living room so i want it to look nice and clear with the exception of tannins) and 1 basket to biological.

 

[12 Volt Man]

sure, no problem the baskets are pretty big. just make sure that any substrate type stuff is at the top.

you don't want the surface of this stuff to get coated in debris. you want it clear for bacteria to live on, so put this stuff at the top, and the sponge media at the bottom.

 

[musho3210]

yeah, i will add the polisher before the bio-area, thats why i want to add a lot of mechanical filtration so the biological area wont be fulled with gunk. I still dont want carbon, i never really liked it when i used it before, and needing to buy more and more is not what i want. I also want tannins in the water from my driftwood and i like that tea colored water.

 

[Aislinn]

Each basket in the filter has a plastic divider shelf that you can use, or not use, depending on what configuration of media you want. The filter comes with two 20PPI sponges and two 30PPI sponges (enough to fill the bottom basket), one bag of Bio-Chem Zorb (carbon), and one "micro filtration" pad (ultra fine floss) for water polishing. Here's how I have mine set up, with everything listed from the top of each basket down to the bottom:

TOP BASKET
2 layers of ultra fine floss
Plastic divider
40 biostars

MIDDLE BASKET
2 layers of Marineland Rite-Size Bonded Filter Pad (cut to fit)
Plastic divider
Activated carbon (the kind sold in bulk jars, in a bag made of pantyhose)

BOTTOM BASKET
2 30PPI sponges
2 20PPI sponges

The tank I have it on is only 40g, and there's also a Penguin 200 Biowheel, so the tank is pretty overfiltered. But it's also full of messy, messy cichlids...and the water is beautifully clear all the time.

 

[musho3210]

whats the corsest? 20 ppI? 30ppI? or filter floss. How about this

Top basket:
All filled with bio-stars or something

Second basket:
Water polisher
divider
fine sponge

Third basket:
fine sponge (finer than the sponge, less fine then the second baskets finer sponge)
sponge (filter floss?)

 

[Mgamer20o0]

if you have a planted tank you wont need to worry much about bio filter. in mine i run 2 things of floss and a sponge. tank looks great.

 

[musho3210]

im still the type that likes over-bio filtration. It also lets me stock a bit more. If i wasnt gonna have any bio filtration i would have gone with the xp2.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

floss and sponges are good bio filters. not the best but its not like there wont be any good bacteria on it.