Hello guys welcome back to another edition of Pimp My Filter. In this episode we're going to be taking a look at a one that I've been asked about all the time from you guys in the US and it's not really available in the UK very often. This one is the AquaClear 70. Now I know there is loads of different models in this particular range. This one is on a 70. The advice that I give apart from with regard to the amount of media needed will be relevant to the other models. So if you've got an AquaClear hang on the back filter please watch on. This was sent to me by a guy called Robert. Thank you very much Robert. He's based in the UK and I think he had actually buy this one from Germany if I remember rightly. Couldn't get this one in the UK. So I'm really glad that he put himself out to get one from Germany because that is asked about all the time you know AquaClear filters. You guys in the US seem to love these things. In the UK hang on the back aren't very popular yet. I really don't know why because they are pretty good generally. You know there is good ones there is bad ones. This one at a first look I would say boxy but good. Let's see what has come with it. Okay so there was two long inlet pipes came with it. I think maybe only one of these are supplied with the filter because in the instructions it only shows one but I've actually joined two together to take the intake all more down to the bottom of the tank. That's where most of the muck will be so that's pretty much where you want the intake to be. So there's nothing fancy about this one there's no surface skimmer or anything but the water is sucked up here. It then goes down into the pump and if we take the top off we can have a look inside it. We've got a removable cartridge type thing here or cradle that would normally have a coarse foam, a medium foam and then something called BioMax which is like a ceramic filter media. This one has only come with the coarse sponge. That's okay. So as I was saying water is sucked down into the pump and actually comes out underneath here into the bottom of here and then rises up through that cradle through all the forms and through the media. Before dropping back out into our tank, very very simple design. So really we've pretty much got a blank canvas with this thing. The only thing that's come with it is the coarse foam which is okay but I can tell it's pretty brittle it's very old. Actually smells okay sometimes I get the filter sent in these smell really funky but this one smells okay. We're going to chuck that away though or should I see I'm going to put it in the box to get back to Robert. Now that allows us to concentrate on this little cradle for our forms and media and in here we're going to go coarse and medium forms followed by a fine pad because remember the water flows upward and then I think I might just put a few mesh bags of media in here. I've got some little bags so that media is probably going to be bio gravel. I think there's a reasonable size to fit in here as well so we might get four bags in there but I'll set this up and I'll let you see what I've done. Now in addition to that we're going to put a coarse sponge on the intake. I don't know why these things don't come with any sort of coarse sponge but hang on the backs never seem to come with this. There you go. Now adding that on the intake will allow heavy muck to be stuck onto here and just take that off and clean it ideally that wants to be a little bit bigger. You can get bigger ones you can make your own as well. I would advise you to definitely do that. Definitely put a coarse sponge on the intake of any hang on the back filter because of the nature of them. You cannot really see when they're clogged you know so at least if you can say this then clog and with heavy muck you know that there's probably a reasonable amount of fine muck and medium muck actually in the main filter itself. This is pretty easy to clean as well just whip it off. Maybe just replace it with another one whilst you clean it and you know you're good to go again. Okay looking at the back of the filter this is how I've got it set up. That is a coarse foam that is a medium grade four that is a fine pad. Now on top of that we've got two bags weighing 350 grams each of biogravel so that's 700 grams of biogravel. What's that in total in pounds? Oh probably about 0.6 or 0.7 pounds and on top of that we've got a carbon pad. Now if you didn't want to go with a carbon pad and you want to maximise the space that's in there just put the media in loose you know use a bigger media you can put ceramic rings you know something if you want you know it all depends on what you want from the filter. Here we've used the media that's capable of supporting aerobic and aerobic bacteria. The biohome ultimate will also do that you could put that in loose you know you could put the really big forms of biohome in there that will also support aerobic and anaerobic bacteria but if you were bothered about trying to achieve a full cycle for your tank ceramic rings or any media would do even lava rock you know just pile as much as you can in there. Okay so that is the other option just using one big mesh bag and in there I've actually got one kilo of biogravel which equates to 2.2 US pounds. That's quite a lot of media in there and if I put it in loose I probably get more media in there but removing it would be a little bit more difficult because this cradle has only got two sides on it it's got a base and it's got a side up here and a side over there front and back it hasn't got a side so if you can't lift it out you're going to have media pouring all over the place you know so it is best to use it in a bag but bear in mind on the side of here and on the other side we've got some quite sharp little fins here so be careful when you're lifting it out you might even have to slightly lift this out in order to get to your big mesh bag so you just by opening those sides up that frees it if you try and rive it out when this thing's fully fitted you're probably are going to rip the bag so just bear that in mind there you go one kilo or media that's a lot of media for a little filter as you can see that fits in there absolutely perfectly so one kilo is the maximum that you're going to get into this particular filter and that's okay and with a careful bit of squashing you can just about get a carbon pad on top of there as well so we've got the coarse medium and fine a kilo of media and a carbon pad on there just okay so the fact that this little fella will actually fit a full kilo of media in here makes it really easy to recommend for a certain size of tank one kilo of any of the biohomeproducts would generally be enough to provide a full cycle which is zero-money or zero nitrite and very low nitrate possibly zero nitrate for a tank of roughly 100 liters which is 26 US gallons yeah so there you go I can see why you guys in the US make a fuss of these filters because they are cheap they are reliable apparently and they hold plenty of media and they're really easy to upgrade like this you know I mean this is just now going to operate to its full potential quite cheaply as well which is great you know there's no point spending fortunes on filtration when ultimately the most important part of it is inside the filter so you can get more fashionable and certainly more expensive forms of hang on the back filter but why do you need them you know it's just something to hold media and forms that's basically all the filter is to clean the water and make it healthy what the filter is called is unimportant at least it is to me anyway you've got something that's reliable the holds plenty of media that's going to outperform something that costs a fortune in a set up room setting a filter up right is the most important thing if you've enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up if you found it useful please share it wherever you want online and I shall see you next time thanks for watching and it'll give us a visual indication of how mucky and it'll also give us