Media Order Fluval 406... Right Or Wrong?

So here is my new media order for my fluval 406 canister filter.....

Water initially hits coarse sponges....
Stage 1 - bio foam
Stage 2 - polishing pad
Stage 3 - bio max
Stage 4 - bio max

What are your thoughts on that setup? From what others were telling me I felt it was the best order for my tank but any suggestions would be appreciated

 

I don't think you need a whole tray for polishing pads. A set should fit on top of the bio foam and 1 set on the bottom of tray 2 and fill the rest of the space with bio max. Tray 3 and 4 is good .

 

You can use Eheim Substrat Biological Filter Sintered Pearl Shaped on stage 3 and Eheim 6682 Biomech in stage 4 also on top off each tray a bag of active carbon charcoal unless that canister type comes with active carbon pad..

 

I don't think you need a whole tray for polishing pads. A set should fit on top of the bio foam and 1 set on the bottom of tray 2 and fill the rest of the space with bio max. Tray 3 and 4 is good .

The bio max black foam takes up literally the entire height of the tray on stage 1, I just looked and no room at all for anything else

 

The bio max black foam takes up literally the entire height of the tray on stage 1, I just looked and no room at all for anything else

Interesting. I have a 306 and 206 and I was able to put polishing pads on top of both first trays.

I would put 2 polishing pads on the 2nd tray and then occupy the rest of the space with biomax.

 

Interesting. I have a 306 and 206 and I was able to put polishing pads on top of both first trays.

I would put 2 polishing pads on the 2nd tray and then occupy the rest of the space with biomax.

Sounds good, I will play around with it more this weekend to see what I can work out with it.... the gist I am getting though is load the filter up with as much bio max as possible (the good thing with doing that is that the biomax media should last a long time not needing changed correct?)

 

The general idea for filtration (HOB or canister) is to have mechanical filtration>biological filtration>chemical filtration. You want the water to be cleaned and polished before going thru biological and/or chemical filtration.

Mechanical:
A coarse filter for most of the gunk, fine filter for small particles, polishing filter for the rest of the debris.

Biological:
BioMax, Matrix, etc

Chemical:
Activated carbon, ammonia remover, etc

You rarely need chemical filtration so replacing it with bio is much better. You can't have enough bio filtration. You will have some BB in the mechanical filtration media which is why it's recommended to rinse in old tank water.

 

looks good. I personally no longer use polishing wool as it clogs too fast but that's personal preference.
my filter goes course sponge > medium sponge > bio media
so very similar. still find my water is really clear without the polishing pads. 50% wc weekly is the key.

 

You rarely need chemical filtration so replacing it with bio is much better. You can't have enough bio filtration. You will have some BB in the mechanical filtration media which is why it's recommended to rinse in old tank water.

So let me ask you this, when I cleaned my canister filter I just took the sponges and squeezed them once in aquarium water.... is that right?

 

So let me ask you this, when I cleaned my canister filter I just took the sponges and squeezed them once in aquarium water.... is that right?

Yep. I usually take a 5 gallon bucket filled with gravel vac'd water and use that to rinse my media. They don't need to be sparking clean, just get most of the gunk off the mechanical media and shake the bio media in the water to rinse. With both my fluvals, I don't need to fill before re-connecting to the hoses to prime. I just connect the hoses and open the valve and it self primes w/o pumping. I do have my intake hoses longer than the output hoses which is supposed to help.