Help With Actual Setup Of Filter And External Heater

[ellena]

I'm finally getting to set up my 60l tank
I have a tetratec ex700 and a hydor external filter. Before I start cutting pipes, I want to make sure I'm doing it right.
So, here's how it looks atm

On the filter, where it says in and out, does that refer to water in and out of the filter, not the tank? Probably the stupidest Q ever asked
The heater has a little loop to hang it up, so I'm thinking I'll put a hook on the underside of the wood the tank rests on. That means between the filter and the heater there will only be a tiny bit of pipe, will this be OK?
I bought the heater 2ndhand, but I've downloaded the manual. On the setup pic, I can't see whether it's on the inlet or outlet pipe. I would presume though it goes on the pipe going out of the filter and into the tank? And they haven't used the hook in the pic, do you think it would be OK, just hanging free?
I'm having sand, does the inlet pipe look high enough up?
Any other tips? Thanks

 

[jbeechey]

Looking good, the in/out refer to the direction of water yes

Wouldn't of thought it matters whether the heater goes before or after the filter, will still be doing the same thing.

Make sure all the pipes are on tight

 

[waterdrop]

By now I'm sure you figured it all out, right Ellena? The Hydor has a large arrow embossed in the black plastic to indicate water direction and the heater needs to be spliced into the tube that carries water from the output of the filter to the spraybar outlet in the tank. You want your tubes to not have excess length in them but of course you do want to give yourself some flexibility for rearrangement of spraybar position in the future.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[ellena]

Haven't actually done it yet, but I think I'm good to go. It's just cutting that tube-I know I could easily get more, but still want to get it right

 

[OldMan47]

Be careful cutting to the recommended length on those hoses Ellena. I tried once to leave myself lots of flexibility in positioning things by leaving some extra hose, just a few inches. When I had trouble keeping the filter full of water and free of air I finally, after about 2 weeks of messing around, figured out that the inlet hose was developing a kink at the back of the tank where I couldn't see it. As soon as I trimmed the hose to the nominal recommended length, the problem disappeared forever.

 

[ellena]

Thanks for that old man. I'll trim cautiously and keep an eye on it. It's all exposed, so I should be able to see any kinks etc

 

[waterdrop]

Be careful cutting to the recommended length on those hoses Ellena. I tried once to leave myself lots of flexibility in positioning things by leaving some extra hose, just a few inches. When I had trouble keeping the filter full of water and free of air I finally, after about 2 weeks of messing around, figured out that the inlet hose was developing a kink at the back of the tank where I couldn't see it. As soon as I trimmed the hose to the nominal recommended length, the problem disappeared forever.

Well OM47, perhaps you'll see this...
I came home from vacation last week to discover that my filter output was way, way down and after a few false starts at troubleshooting, I discovered that my hose had kinked coming out of the back of the cabinet that houses the filter box. My hoses are fairly short these days, almost no excess for flexibility but the hose still needed to come out the furniture hole and go back down to then reach the intake of my in-line heater, so it had to curve over the top of the furniture hole and that was where it decided to kink. As a quick fix I grabbed half of a wooden clothespin and taped it to the hose at both ends of the clothespin and then allowed the pin to broaden the curve where the kink had been. I think I'll look around the plumbing row at the hardware store for a nice curved half plasic pipe or some such smooth thing. Having your hose pinched is not something that the average kid feeding your pets will notice (makes me wish I had a fish-hobbyist kid in the neighborhood!)

WD

 

[OldMan47]

I don't know what to suggest to you WD. Maybe you could find a short piece of rigid tubing to force that small section into a straight line with no kinks. So far I have not had to go that far.

 

[nunster]

Put the heater on the outlet line. So then you have clean water going across it. Then don't be affraid of messing up. That is how I have learn a lot. Knowledge can be expensive. Advantage of knowledge from a mistake is that you will seldom do that same mistake again.