Hello there, welcome back to another edition of Pimp My Filter. This has actually take two because I've just shot about 35 minutes of footage before I realized I didn't have the external mic on. So I've already upgraded this filter. I'm not gonna go back through how it came set up to me but I will show you how I have set it up. This one is a Fluvel 306. And it arrived beautifully packaged in this box. That is a perfect way to send something up to me. To guarantee that it doesn't get broken in transit. I've had a few filters sent to me that have just been rattling around in the box and touch wood. They haven't been broken yet but it's only a matter of time before somebody sends it on up like that and it arrives in bits. That is beautiful. Okay, I'll take the top off and then I'll bring it in and show you how the 306 should ideally be set up. Okay so the water comes into here. It hits these forms first. This actually arrived without any forms so I have put course forms in here and I've cut those from a pond pad which you can pick up quite cheaply online. I've gone for course it may actually be a little bit too coarse so if that's not working for you just go with a medium density pad in there. Now this side would probably be clasped as the outside because it's nearly outside of the filter and each piece of foam that I cut was approximately 20 centimeters or 8 inches by 6.5 centimeters or 2 and 3 quarter inches. That's a lovely fit. However on the back these forms were a little bit bigger. They were the same length which is 20 centimeters or 8 inches but these ones are actually nearer 7.5 centimeters wide which is about 3 inches. Water actually comes down and it splits so it goes through there and through there. Ultimately it all goes out of here down at the bottom and then rises up through our trees. It's quite a good system actually because you get a really good contact surface area for the muck to settle on the forms and by using these bumpy forms you get a little bit more contact area but you can put flat ones in. They work just as well. It's not a problem. That's a good fit in there. Okay I'll just take these trays out and then I'll show you them from the bottom up. Okay so our bottom tray has got the fluval coarse to medium pad in. It's probably near a medium grid that and it's quite thick so that is going to trap a lot of the reasonably fine muck. On top of that we've just put a small fine pad. Same on that side so that's all our mechanical filtration done. That can be dropped back in there and that ensures that our two trays of media stays clean and effective and in each one of these trays we've got one kilo or 2.2 pounds of bi-home ultimate. That just gets dropped in. Now the filter did actually come with some of these things which are ceramic rings. They're not bad as far as ceramic rings go but we can do a lot better than them. Now as I mentioned before you can put any sort of filter media you want in here. You could just go with cheap rings. You could go with another form of scented glass. I advise strongly against going with any sort of plastic media because in a static filter it's no good whatsoever but it's up to you put lava rock in if you want lava rock. In its various forms is a reasonable media. You've got the red lava rock which a lot of folks on YouTube seem to like. It does have a big drawback in that a lot of its internal structure is actually sealed up. So it's got a big external surface area but internally it's not very good therefore it only supports generally the aerobic bacteria. The last thing you want this to be is a nitrate factory. The pumice that's another sort of volcanic rock. It's like a white sort of volcanic rock. It is generally a bit better but again it can have sealed internal as well just with a bit of volcanic. You know you get sealed bubbles in it. You get some parts that are really hard or the ones that are really porous. It's not all that consistent. A good quality ceramic ring would be better than the red lava rock and possibly better than the white pumice dependent on the grade that you get. There are different grades available. I've gone for the biohome ultimate in here simply so I can tell you how big an aquarium this will hopefully provide a full cycle for and that is the process of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. That's really the only sort of filtration that I'm interested in because anybody can just fill it with cheap media and have it perform and well on ammonia and nitrate but in nitrates will be through the roof. That's only half a job. That's the aerobic side. By using good media you can get the anaerobic side as well. I know I keep banging on about it but it's so important. You know what's a point normally doing half a job. So with that said a few facts and figures. The manufacturer says that this filter is good for up to 300 liters. Normally I'll say half that but you can get to wear with a little bit more. You do have a bit more leeway because you've got two kilos of the biohome ultimate in here. An anaeromally stocked community tank it generally takes one kilo of the biohome ultimate per 100 liters to give you that full cycle. So two kilos equals a normally stocked tank of around about 200 liters which is 76 US gallons. But if your tank is creeping towards being heavily stocked if you've got sicklids or predatory fish or goldfish or something like that in it the bioalow in that sort of tank is going to be much greater so you need more media to cope with more waste. Therefore you could need up to two kilos per 100 liters. Making this filter suitable for a heavily stocked tank of around about a hundred liters or some people are going to take issue with that but remember we're talking about a full cycle not just half a cycle. The construction of these filters is very very good. They've been around in one form or another for I think as long as I've been involved in the trade which is 20 plus years maybe. I can't remember ever having a time when I had the shop for all those years when flueful filters weren't a thing and they've always had a good reputation you know. So it is a filter I would definitely recommend. And until I learned about the full cycle and the benefits of having aerobic and anaerobic bacteria and how to culture them I would have just said to set it up as the manufacturer says but that will not give you the full cycle. Definitely not. You've got to set the filters up properly for them to do a proper job. This will do it but you have to be realistic just like you do with all filters. Now if you've got a filter you'd like me take a look at and upgrade for you and send it back to you for free. Then by all means get in touch my contact details are in the video description as well as the pinned comment. At the moment I'm only taking people's filters from the UK due to the shipping costs because that would cost a fortune for me to send that outside the UK so hopefully you can understand there. It is a free service all you need to do is just pay to get it up to me. All the media is yours and all the phones are yours when they come back. I don't want any payment for this at all. All I'm looking to do is just build up a good collection of videos that will help people. You are really helping me by sending me the filters because I don't own every filter under the sun. You guys out there do so if you can send them to me I will upgrade them for you. No problem at all. Thanks very much for watching. Share this video wherever you want and I'll see you next time.