Pimp My Filter #51 - JBL Pro Cristal i30 Internal Aquarium Filter Upgrade

Hello there, welcome back to another edition of Pimp My Filter and in this video we're going to be taking a look at another very small internal filter. Now this little fella arrived without a box and it has been modified slightly so there is actually one part missing but I'll explain what that is in a second. This is the Profi Crystal, sorry, yes that was right. Right. Profi Crystal i30 from JBL. It's meant for nano tanks so consequently this thing is very small. It only pumps 200 litres per hour but for a very small tank that is plenty. Now JBL say that this is suitable for tanks between 10 and 40 litres. Obviously that depends what you've got in the tank you know if you've got fish in it probably nearer the 10 litres if you've just got shrimps and a lot A lot of plants in, possibly nearer the 40 litres but we'll see. I'll bring the camera in and I'll just basically show you the features of this, how it goes together, where the water flows and if there's anything we can do to improve the setup to increase efficiency. Rightio, this is it. Not very big as you can see, I mean I've got pretty small hands and it pretty much fits in the palm of my hand. It's got a good draw area around here and this is the bit with our foams in. One thing I'm not a big fan of is this. I've got a Euro plug and then I get like a huge converter there, you know? Nicer if it came with a UK plug, but I mean, that's a minor thing, you know? That doesn't really affect anything. Okay, so as I mentioned before, the water is drawn all the way around here. So it has got a good draw area. That's very important if you've got a shrimp tank, because the last thing you want is a raging torrent being sucked into one point. I mean, imagine if it only drew through that little bit there. shrimp was crawling about it got stuck on here it probably wouldn't get out so having a good draw area prevents that from happening. Pop the bottom off so you can see the foam that's a pretty good quality foam in like a almost like a keyhole sort of a shape so it's got a reasonable contact area unfortunately because this draws from all the way around here you're kind of stuck with using a foam in here you know you can't really put media in there because it's just going to clog up. So you're really stuck with the foam, but there is provision for filter media. Take that off to show you in there, that's where the water's drawn up into the pump, and from there it's spat up into this chamber. Now before I take this off I will warn you there is a piece missing out of here. I'll put a picture of what should be in here on the screen now. So that's like a little cartridge that just slots into the top and if we take that off That would normally just be a void where that little cartridge went in and that cartridge could be filled with filter media so that's something to bear in mind. At present time Shane who sent me this filter has got some snapped up BioHome Plus in there. Not quite sure where the little cartridge went but it has gone. So we do have a reasonable cavity in there for media and we've got A small amount put in there. Obviously, if we have a proper cartridge to go in there from JBL, and we filled that with biogravel or something, we could get quite a lot of media in there for the size of the filter. So, the way it's currently set up, that's basically what we've got. We've got a bit of foam as our mechanical filtration, and a bit of media as our biological filtration. But we can add more foam. These little extensions are available separately. Which way around is it? And they simply clip on the bottom like that, so you can have one, two, three, four, five foams. You could really make quite a big foam filter with this, but obviously you've gotta buy these things separately. Normally, you would just have one chamber for your foam. So when the water's gone through the foam, through the media, it comes out here, and as it's shot out, air is dragged in through this little air pipe, mixed with the water, and that disturbs the surface. Not bad in a small filter. That's a respectable amount of media in there. You know, you've got a lot of surface area. I'm going to add bio-gravel to that just to totally pack this area out, but weight-wise, it won't be much more than Shane has already managed to fit in there. Now, in here, there's only 40 grams of media, which isn't much at all. Obviously, if you were using the cartridge, you'd get even less. Probably near a 30 grams, which is, oh, it's not even a handful, I mean, it's next to nothing. And because this is so small, because I don't wanna block this outlet up, I've put a tiny bit of coarse sponge in here, just to prevent this being lost or blocking up this outlet. So that pushes on the top of there, and now we've got a little chamber here, which is absolutely... Packed out with filter media, you know, I mean, that's as much as you can possibly get in there. So really, that's it. That's pretty much all you can do with this. You can't even add different grades of foams because it draws them all the way around. It's got this central perforated tube where the water goes up. So you're really limited to using a foam like this. Obviously, you can just cram it with whatever you want. You don't have to buy the proper foams. But this section here and any subsequent sections will always have to have foams in. That's it, that's about as much as you can do with that little fella, unfortunately. But you still have mechanical and biological filtration, so that's more than you get in a lot of little filters. You know, most of them are just glorified sponge filters, which you may as well be running on air. At least with this one, you've got the Venturi effect, so you've got the bubbles, you've got the water disturbance, you've got some biological action, and you've got a reasonable amount of Mechanical filtration as well, with a really good draw area, so as I said before, this one is a really good one for a shrimp tank. Now like all the filters in the JBL range, this is reasonably inexpensive, it's pretty well made, and ultimately it does the job for the size of tank it's recommended for, you know, 10 to 40 litres. Certainly a shrimp tank of 40 liters, a fish tank of 10 to 15 liters, no problem at all. With the limited amount of biological media that you can fit in here, your full cycle, which is zero, zero, zero, probably isn't gonna be achievable unless the tank is tiny and very lightly stocked. But given that you've got a reasonable amount of foam, the ability to add more foam and a bit of biological media, I would think ammonia and nitrite shouldn't be a problem. Especially when you put the little extension on. That's quite a comprehensive little filter, not bad. Now I'll put Amazon and eBay links, providing I can find this filter on there, in the video description and also in the pinned comment if you wanna check it out. But it's a reasonable one, certainly well made. I imagine it'll be effective enough for a small tank so if you've got a small tank definitely worthy of consideration, especially considering it's only 200 litres an hour. Some of these little internal filters that you can get, not from JBL but more so from Chinese manufacturers, they have a hell of a high flow rate and if you've got delicate fish, say guppies or something, you know little big long streaming tails in a small tank, You just want a low flow. This gives you that and it's a pretty good package. I don't think there'll ever be a day when I fall off my seat in amazement at how brilliant internal filters are because really they are what they are. They're just made to a price point. They are made for small tanks and quite often with the likes of this one they're made with after sales in mind. I was going to say it's an increasing trend but It's kind of just what everybody does now. They want you to buy specific cartridges. I mean, this one's got little round cartridges, anti-algae things, all that sort of thing. I prefer to set the filters up so that they're simple. So you basically just need to rinse stuff out and put it all back in again, you know? Mechanical, biological. If you've got enough mechanical and biological, you don't need chemical. If you do need chemical filtration say you've got bog wood or something in or you want to suck in any residual fish treatments after you've trapped the fish, just use carbon. You know you can stick carbon in the top of there or you could even hang a mesh bag of carbon in the flow that would do the same job you know. You don't need to buy chemical sponges, chemical inserts, all sorts of consumables. I mean when I had the shop We had people coming in for dual sponges, and they were like five or six quid each. And folks just didn't need them, you know? They're buying nitrate sponges or anti-nitrate sponges. I'm like, well, have you ever had a problem with nitrate? And they're like, no, because we've got plenty of filtration. We've got loads of the bio-home in there. We don't get nitrates. I'm like, why are you buying nitrate sponges then? Oh, well, you know, that's what says it should be in there. Marketing. Marketing and after sales. I'm not just picking on JBL. All the companies are at it. JBL. As far as I've seen, I've been a good company. You know, JBL's really good, Fluval's really good. A lot of them are striving to provide the best products they possibly can. If they can keep you coming back for future purchases, i.e. cartridges, then that's good for them, but it's not so good for the consumer, you know. However, that's just the way the world is, you know. I prefer to set filters up to work well. and not need things every month, every two months, every six months or whatever. I mean there is still companies out there who will remain nameless telling people that you should replace all your biological media every six months and they're supplying plastic media which will last indefinitely. So all the advice that you see online isn't necessarily good but I'm hoping that the advice I'm giving out in these videos is useful to some people. It is very specific but... I mean, I know I'm not gaining any subscribers from making these videos, because there's no drama in them, there's nothing outlandish, it's purely just information, you know, it's not entertainment, it's information. If I can help two people by making a video about a specific filter like this, I'm happy. I don't make videos for subs or earnings, just to help. If you've been helped, please share this video. That helps other people, you know, I help you, you help other people, that's how it works, we all learn. Thanks for watching, see you next time.