Packing Out My Eheim Classic 2217 With Media

[hunter22]

Hi, my eheim classic 2217 has just been delievered, it only comes with the blue sponge, carbon pad and filter floss so wanted to pack it out as much as i can. Anyone got any tips for me, have heard you can use a few household items for the media?

At the moment iv got some ceramic little "o" at the bottom with my blue spongue on top, then some black bio balls, then its just the carbon pad and floss. What else can i put in it and is there any better way to organise it.

 

[Mikaila31]

Those round plastic pot scrubbers work.

As far as organizing, its best to go from coarse to fine media. You can buy whatever sponges are cheapest and use those. I find some brands to be a bit to expensive, usually buy something that looks too big then cut it too fit. I prefer to just use sponges, biomedia, and floss in my filters. None of those carbon or special pads. I've got some of the ceramic noodles too, some aquaclear HOB sponges I jamed in there, then most of the original sponge pads my Rena XP3 came with. Only thing that needs to be changed occasionally is the filter floss, it only lives for about a year.

 

[hunter22]

Those round plastic pot scrubbers work.

As far as organizing, its best to go from coarse to fine media. You can buy whatever sponges are cheapest and use those. I find some brands to be a bit to expensive, usually buy something that looks too big then cut it too fit. I prefer to just use sponges, biomedia, and floss in my filters. None of those carbon or special pads. I've got some of the ceramic noodles too, some aquaclear HOB sponges I jamed in there, then most of the original sponge pads my Rena XP3 came with. Only thing that needs to be changed occasionally is the filter floss, it only lives for about a year.

sponges....like the yellow ones you wash your car with, the tick rectangle ones?

 

[OldMan47]

Sponges need to be an open cell type. the car wash sponges have a closed cell structure to hold water better. In a filter you don't want to hold water, you want to let it pass through the filter. A simple pot scrubber works well as biological media in my own XP3 as you can see in this picture.

I have never tried to pack an Eheim filter so basket dimensions may make particular things easier or harder to use.