Emperor 400 Alternate Filter Media

iamntbatman

Just to throw in my two cents:

The biggest problem with a filter breaking isn't the lack of filtration per se, it's the lack of oxygen in the water that would result. I recently had a power outage that lasted about 24 hours, during which time none of the filters on my tanks were running. It's best to have pattery-powered air pumps on hand for situations like that, as simply tossing an air stone into the tank can help keep the oxygen levels up. However, my fish were no worse for the wear after 24 hours with no filtration. Even if your filter breaks completely, as long as you can get it up and running or replaced within a day's time, I think you'll be fine.

Is there enough room to put both filters on the tank? Why not do so, if you can? That way, even if one breaks while you're not around, you've still got another right there, already seeded. Your Penguin probably has variable flow so if you think there's too much flow with both filters running, you can just lower the flow on the Penguin.

Tyyrlym

Well in case of a power outage, well right now I'm screwed but a battery powered air pump is on my list of things to buy when cash isn't so tight. I have an air pump in addition to the filter that will be powering a pair of air stones so oxygenation will be fine if the filter dies.

I'm not hanging both filters because even the $15 it would take to load the power filter is money I'd rather not spend unless I have no other choice, that and the tank is in a pass through and another filter would mess up the view on one side even more. I might go ahead and load it up eventually, but at the moment I can either get the media for the power filter, or my cycling fish.

Pasfur

I think you have very little to worry about. So long as you clean the impeller every few months and replace it every few years, there is not much else that is likely to go wrong.

A battery operated air pump is an excellent idea, as is a battery operated fan with a clip mount, blowing across the water surface. You can get both for less than $20 total cost.

okiemavis

Agreed. I bought a number of battery operated pumps w/ airstones which automatically turn on when they sense the power has gone out. They ran be $11 each. You can get something for half that if you don't want the auto turn on, but I think that peace of mind is priceless.

Tyyrlym

New filter media question. For the record my filter is an old style penguin 300. It's similar to a penguin 330 or 350 and uses the same cartridges but only has slots for a single cartridge per chamber unlike the modern dual cartridge filters. It does have a media basket in each compartment like an Emperor however.

So, I'm still in the hunt for something for filtration besides the standard cartridges. I'm not wild about throwing away perfectly good filters because the carbon in them is depleted. So while hunting around the Dr. Foster's website I found this:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...0&pcatid=13370

Does anyone have any experience with this product or something similar?

iamntbatman

I have clamshell-style frames like that in a few of my filters. I do pretty much exactly that, minus the carbon. You can buy sheets of the sponge material (I believe even Petsmart sells it). I put this on the tank side of the clamshell, then have filter floss on the other side so that the sponge sheet keeps the filter floss from washing out into the tank. The nice thing about this setup is that you can remove the floss and add it to another filter on a cycling tank to help speed things along, pretty much no matter what type of filter it is.

Tyyrlym

The flexibility is really what I'm looking at. Right now the cartridges are the cartridges. This I can tweak to what I need at the moment.