Tropical Fish Forum

Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fishtank Filtration and Cycling => Topic started by: DutchyHolland on September 19, 2013, 05:35:40 PM

Title: TetraTec EX600 Filter
Post by: DutchyHolland on September 19, 2013, 05:35:40 PM
Well, my bargain external filter arrived Tuesday, was set up yesterday and is now being monitored for performance and water quality.  I must say I'm extremely pleased so far.  :D

I took some time working out where the pipework would run and found I had to saw about 1/2" of the intake pipe off to raise the intake guard off the bottom.  It's still fairly low IMO but that's something I can always rectify later.

Once that was done I took all the media out of my Fluval 2+ and put it in with the Tetra's own - just layered in where the un-needed carbon would otherwise be.

Final setting up was easy - I just followed the excellent instructions, and priming the filter was a doddle with the priming button (what put me off buying an Eheim was the thought of siphoning up a mouthful of tank water  :o ).  No leaks and the thing actually runs quieter than the internal Fluval did!

I initially tried running the double length spray bar along the back but found it didn't produce a very good water flow so wasn't cleaning the water properly.  I finally settled on having a one piece spray bar along the same end as the intake, pointing slightly upward to give a good flow across the whole tank.  That meant I had to get the hacksaw out again and enlarge the hole in the back of the lid slightly that end.  ::)

All in all, not bad for less than £50...    ;D  8)

Anyway, thay say a picture paints a thousand words, so here's 4,000 for you.

Thanks for all the earlier advice. :)
Title: Re: TetraTec EX600 Filter
Post by: Natalia on September 19, 2013, 06:37:21 PM
Hi Ken,
Again – congratulations! I am pleased you like the filter as I am a strong fun of externals myself.
Yes, some modifications are sometimes needed even with the tanks without hoods (as all of mine are) but at the end of the day there is always some flexibility for every user to make the set up to their own taste.
Eheim’s Classics “mouthful of water”! Haha – been there myself (hence the Installation sets 1 and 2 and the taps – now priming is easy, too).
Please, don’t forget to test for Ammonia and Nitrite – I did 6 or 7 tests a day (I don’t quite remember) – every few hours and even cut my night sleep so that there were no big gaps in testing (I did this over the weekend and booked a day off, too). All tests were “zero” though so I was probably too paranoid but “better safe than sorry”...
Anyway, all is good and enjoy your new clean water and a more spacious tank!
P.S. If you like your tank without much equipment inside (as I do) you may want to have a look at Hydor external heaters in time – they have excellent reputation (depending if any of the models fit your Tetra’s pipes diameter and if you can figure out the positioning of the heater – it has to be more or less upright on the outflow pipe).
Edit - forgot to say that the smallest Hydor is rated for tanks 100-200 litres and I know yours is smaller but they are supposed to be the same as external filters - can be tweaked for smaller tanks (to be honest, I myself use them "as intended" but other people did use them in smaller tanks - so more reading about on the Internet is needed!  :))
Title: Re: TetraTec EX600 Filter
Post by: DutchyHolland on September 19, 2013, 09:45:27 PM
Thanks Natalia,
I'm testing the water regularly and so far all's well.  Same results as when I had the internal in:   0 - 0 - 40.

I've removed the silk plant near the intake for now to see if that helps the water flow as it seemed to me that it might be trapping particles instead of letting them through to the intake tube.  May need a swap around of plants if so.  So far so good. :)
Title: Re: TetraTec EX600 Filter
Post by: DutchyHolland on September 25, 2013, 10:43:24 PM
Well, one week in I can report that I and my fish are all still happy as Larry with the Tetra external.

I made a couple of amendments though.

Firstly I swapped some plants around so that the big leaf silk was at the other end of the tank and replaced it with a tall slender one.  Less chance of it obstructing the water flow.

Secondly, I removed the spray bar altogether and now have the outflow coming straight out of the pipe with the flow from rear l/h corner to about 1/2way across the front glass.  A poor man's lily pipe I suppose.  I was finding that the current produced across the whole surface by the spray bar was a bit too fierce and I had to turn the flow down.  This way it's nice and gentle due to the large diameter pipe and the filter can run at full chat.

Tomorrow I'm off to MA Wimborne to up the Neon population to an acceptable shoal size (either 6 or 8 ).

Cheers all,