Pimp My Filter #47 - ADA ES-300 Canister Filter

Hello there, welcome back to another edition of Pimp My Filter and in this one I've taken the camera outside, could do with a little bit of fresh air because currently the T-virus is sweeping the UK as it is in many other countries in the world and we're on lockdown, however something to lift my spirits has just been delivered and it's that this is the ADA or ADA ES-300 aquarium filter Obviously, it's a canister filter. But it's made of the most exquisite materials that a canister filter ever could be. This is top quality stainless steel. These are handmade in Japan. Everything about it is quality. This was sent to me by a guy called Rodney. Thank you very much, Rodney. I've always wanted to have a look at one of these. But, well, they're so expensive that not many people have them. And I know you bought it second hand along with the tank for an exceptionally good price. So you got a really good deal there. For everybody else, I'll put a link to this particular filter and its brethren in the video description and in the pinned comment. Check out how much these things cost. They are not cheap. They also generally aren't particularly big and they aren't particularly powerful as far as the pumps go, especially on the lower models. This particular one, it only has a turnover rate of 360 liters per hour. Which is approximately 95 US gallons per hour. That isn't very much at all. But this tiny little pump can deliver water up to 1.5 metres or 5 foot. Obviously by the time you lift the pipework up from here up to your tank, you don't want this sitting way down below your tank. Otherwise you're going to be just getting a dribble coming out the outflow, you know. So these are quite low flow filters. And with that in mind... I've set this one up a little bit differently to how I normally do. Now these are recommended for tanks between 10 and 17 US gallons which equates to... 38 to 65 liters which is very very small but that is entirely realistic with what comes with this because from the manufacturer it just has a block of sponge and a two liter bag of anthracite that doesn't even fill this container and if you look at the videos that people post about how to set to set them up you've still got about a quarter of it with nothing in. Seems like a bit of a wasted space. Luckily, this one didn't come with anything in it, so I've got free rein just to do whatever I want. Needless to say, it is going to have foams and media. Water comes in the bottom. Basically, this is exactly the same as the Eheim Classic, but this is a really well-made, indestructible version of that particular filter. So water comes in, travels up, drawn out, and spat back to the tank. Really, really simple. No trays in here at all. It's got exceptionally strong and really good quality stainless steel clasps on there. There's three of them. First two are hard to get off. Next one doesn't need to be taken off. In there, you've got a really thick rubber seal, which obviously is removable and replaceable. Before I get on to the next bit, I've got to apologize for the noise. It's been a really quiet day. There's a guy dragging the most noisy piece of farm machinery around in the nearby field that I've ever heard in my life. I'll wait until he gets to the far end of the field and then I'll start again. Okay, I've probably got about five minutes to film a little bit more whilst he's at the far end of the field there. So, actually, before we get on to the inside of this, I'll just give you a close-up of the top. That's it there. Again, all stainless steel. Beautifully made. You know, there's no rough edges. Everything's smoothed off, chamfered. Beautiful. If the pump ever needs replacing, you've just got four little bolts to take off there. Stick a new pump on. This is the 240 volt version. There is a version 2, which is a 12 volt version. Unfortunately, the version 2 isn't any more powerful, so it's still only 360 liters an hour. Okay, so let's have a look in there. Really beautiful. It is a beautiful filter. Expensive, but nice. So in there, you've got two... Two, I call them pot stands. They're basically exquisitely made stainless steel dividers. This one goes on the bottom. So your intake pipe goes in here, just so none of the foams block the intake. And then this one goes right on the top. Ordinarily, People would tell you to set it up with a coarse foam in the bottom, your anthracite or whatever media you're going to be using in the middle and a fine pad at the top. Obviously that'll just concentrate all the crap into your media. That's no good. So I've taken steps to eradicate that problem, just as I did with the Classic from Eheim. First thing that goes in is one of these beautiful dividers, like so. That's it. Next, we've got some sponges. Now I was just going to go with One coarse, one medium, and one fine. This is the sort of thing that you don't really want to be getting into too often. So, I've gone with two coarse, one medium, followed by one fine. It looks quite thick, that, but it does squash down a little bit, so it only takes up about a quarter of this filter. Then I've more or less cut a circular piece from a filter grid, and that goes on top of there. Then, when the media goes on... It still squashes the fine pad, but it squashes it down evenly, so it doesn't totally flatten it. That's important because if it's totally flattened, it will clog much more quickly than if it's just gently depressed. So they go in in the obvious order. Coarse first, followed by the medium. And if you notice, the bumpy bits are facing down in these foams. That allows for greater contact surface area. And when you've got a bumpy bit against the flat bit of the next foam down, It creates cavities and they get filled with muck and that's good because it means that you don't need to get into the filter very often. So on top of that we've got the fine pad. There you go. Then on top of that we've got our little DIY grid just to stop it getting totally crushed like so. Now as far as the filter media goes you're probably expecting me to put bags of like bio gravel or the bio home ultimate just tipped loosely in there but Couldn't really get anything to fit very well, the bags don't fit very well with this being a circular thing. You'd have to use a huge really floppy bag for the media to fit in there and you've always got the chance of catching on something on the way out and splitting the bag. So what I've gone for is approximately two kilos of the Biohome Maxi Ultimate. It's basically a large version of Ultimate that would normally be used in a sump. So in essence we've got Two stacks of these and then a few flat ones on the top because I couldn't quite fit three full stacks of them in and that'll give us about two kilos. As I said before that is the Biohome Maxi Ultimate. Obviously you're free to use whatever you want in here. I'm just putting in what I consider to be the most convenient to remove and whatever will pack it out most efficiently. So that's my choice for this one. I think this might be the first time I've used the Maxi Ultimate in a canister filter. So there's one for your records. This is basically a media that's made from sand and powdered glass fused together to create a close to perfect porous structure. Really, really natural for bacteria to grow on and in. And because of the structure of it, it will support aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. Aerobic on the outside where the water's flowing over fast, anaerobic on the inside when it goes down all the little tunnels, water gets deoxygenated, makes its way to the middle of the media, becomes deoxygenated, encourages anaerobic bacteria, so therefore you get good ammonia, nitrite and nitrate reduction. Using something as good as that It might not be too important for a lot of people who will be buying this filter because this tends to be associated with beautiful aquascapes, really well planted tanks that generally don't need this sort of media. Use it if you want, it will make a good thing better, but it's not absolutely necessary. Okay, so I'm just going to carefully stack that in here, then I'll bring the camera in to show you how it's looking, and then I'll give you my recommendations. for applicable tank sizes and stock that's our first layer in that's the second layer in it's almost like a huge cartridge that you would have on a rifle stuffed with rods of cordite now all you need is a real big ballistic top you've got the ultimate bullet okay and then you've got a few lying flat on the top that has now made that pretty heavy and on top of that i'm gonna put a carbon pad Just to fill up that extra little bit of space before we put this on the top. Obviously, if you've got a planted tank, you probably don't want to be using any carbon. But to be honest with you, there's so little carbon in these impregnated pads, I don't think it's going to draw in many of the fertilizers that you'll be using in your planted tank. So that goes in here, like so. Then we put our little pot stand on top of there, and that fits perfectly. with where our lid is going to go. Rubber ring always wants to be clean before it goes back in to prevent any damage. So that goes on there like so and then our lid goes on with these ridiculously strong clips to keep it down. Two, three. That's a beast of a filter. It really is. As I said before it's beautifully made. It's basically made with the best materials that you can possibly get. Price of it is ridiculous, but it's got sort of an elegant simplicity to it. And you know that if this falls over, this isn't going to snap off. You're going to basically have to hit that with a hammer to do any damage. It's not like the, albeit very affordable, Eheim versions of these, which are basically a plastic. This is a lifetime filter. It really is. And if you can pick one up... Second hand, I would say go for it, because although it hasn't got any trays to make it convenient for taking apart and putting back together, it is the best made filter you could possibly ever get. Now it's difficult to give a recommendation as to the size of tank that this would be suitable for, because although I've got two kilos of media in here, which ordinarily would make it suitable for a normally stocked tropical tank of up to 200 litres, or a heavily stocked tank of up to 100 litres, We haven't got a very big pump, so there's not actually much flow going around the tank. And because of the low flow, it still is probably only suitable for planted tanks, lightly stocked tanks. But there's no reason why you couldn't use it on tanks that were bigger than the recommendations, which were 10 to 17 US gallons or 38 to 65 litres. You could easily double that, you know. So, a couple of negatives. The outlet for the pump is a different size to the outlet. here or sort of say the inlet here so you're either gonna have to bulk that out or you're gonna have to step that down to use the same size of pipes would have been handy if they were both the same size maybe half an inch or whatever that is at the bottom there also this pump is very very small if you doubled that to like a seven or eight hundred liter an hour pump it would shift a lot more water it would be better for stock tanks but that's generally not what these very expensive I don't know what these expensive filters are used for. Generally used for planted tanks just to give a gentle bit of flow, more or less passive turnover through here. So that might be a negative, it might not be a negative. One definite negative, however, is the positioning of this pump. No matter which way you put the lid on, the cable always comes out at the same point as one of the clasps. So you've kind of got to hold that out the way whilst you get the clasp. If that was angled here, the cable would just be down here. You could get to the clasp with two hands, which you sometimes need to open these damn things, without any damage to the cable. I'm not quite sure why it comes out where the clasp is, but that's a definite design fault. Could just be this one. Version 2 might have cured that. I don't know. So that's it. As far as the negatives go, well really apart from the price, if you're willing to pay the price, then this is worth it. If you're not willing to pay the price, pick one up second hand and you'll get a good deal on a filter that will literally last you a lifetime. So, thanks very much again to Rod for sending me this. Hope people have enjoyed seeing this particular filter, because there's not many reviews of it or even people showing it online. And if you own one of these, please post your thoughts about it in the comment section for other people to see. Thanks for watching. See you next time.