Pimp My Filter #20 - JBL Cristalprofi e1901 Canister Filter

Hello there, welcome back to Pimp My Filter. In this episode we're going to be taking another look at a big filter that I consider to be a heavy hitter. And this one is so big it even has wheels on the bottom. This is the JBL Greenline E1901 canister filter. Now unfortunately this one has been sent to me and it is absolutely empty. No media, no foams or anything. If you want to see what comes with it I'll put a link to this particular filter in the video description so you can check out what comes with it and my advice would probably be to chuck most of that stuff that comes with it away anyway so the fact that it's come with nothing in it doesn't really bother me because we're gonna do major changes but they're gonna be very easy This one is not going to involve any drilling or hacking away with the Dremel, it's basically just about setting it up correctly. So let's take a look inside. Okay now the first thing we have is something called a pre-filter tray. That's it there. Now the water hits these side sections first, heads down the side of these trays and then rises up back out the middle of the pre-filter. So knowing the movement of the water now we need to set this up properly to be most efficient. So now that we know how the water actually flows through one of these pre-filter trays it should give us a good idea how to set this one up. Pre-filter tray plus one, two, three media trays. Hopefully you can see in there but we haven't got much room to play with at the bottom so we're not going to put any media in the bottom to act as our like primary settlement for heavy muck. And that leaves us with the four trays. Pre-filter tray, three media trays. We'll start with the pre-filter tray because that's what the water hits first. Looking at it inside the filter, that's how the trays would be set up. Media trays, pre-filter tray. And if you'll notice, the pre-filter tray is a little bit wider than the media trays. That's so when the water hits the outsides here, down here and here, can travel down the outside of these trays, into the bottom, up and out of there. So the first thing we need to do is cut a bit of coarse foam for here and here on our pre-filter tray. That's where the water hits first so that needs to be the most coarse foam. That's what would normally come in here if you were buying one new. So we're just going to cut strips of foam at roughly two inches. Probably get three of these in I think in each side. Hi. We'll just trim them up to fit. I'll just get these trimmed up and then I'll bring the camera in to show you exactly how they're going into our pre-filter tray. Okay, so that's our coarse foam cut. Now all we need to do is slot it into here. Bumpy side up, because our water is going to be hitting it from above. That'll give us the most contact surface area. One, two, and three. What a good fit that is. And one, two, three, in there. Okay, so for the time being, that is our pre-filter tray done. These side bits are going to catch I'm going to attach the heavy muck as it comes down into the filter. So we're going to concentrate on this bottom tray, water's going to come through the pre-filter, down the sides of the trays and up, and it's going to hit this bottom tray. So in that one we need coarse, medium and fine foams. Now the sheet that I've just cut this from is 11 inches by 17 inches, and you can see that you're easily going to get two from there, plus you're going to get enough bits for your pre-filter. So that works out very well for this filter. The coarse one goes bumpy side down, because remember, the water is travelling up, so it hits the bumpy side first. And again, this one's out of an 11 by 17 foam. You will get two of the medium foams out of here, no problem at all. And you'll also get spares if you did want to put them in the pre-filter. You might want to go two coarse and one medium. It's up to you. Okay, snip the corners off. That one again goes bumpy side down. Then we're going to put a fine pad on. This one isn't hugely thick but it's going to be about right because we've got approximately an inch or 25 mil to work with in there now. We're good and then that one goes on there. That's our bottom tray done. So now when the water comes up it hits coarse, medium and then fine. All the muck is held. In the bottom part of our filter, that is very, very important because we want clean water to pass up through our filter media. The cleaner the water is before it hits the filter media, the longer the media is going to last and the more efficient it's going to be. If you have the fine pad above your filter media, the water is flowing up, all the fine muck is going to be concentrated in your media. That's no good at all, that leads to total inefficiency and... A very short lifespan for your filter media, so that's where that goes. Remember, polish the water before it hits the media. That is important. I think I mention that every time I do a filter video, but it is important and it does bear repeating. Now, some of you might be thinking that the pad that was used on here is thinner than the ones that I've been supplying you, if you've bought any of me. Well, that's because the ones that I've got at the moment are crazy thick. Probably two, possibly even two and a half inches thick. So I would have to rip that in half to go in here, the good thing is though if you get one of these you just rip it down the middle you're left with two one inch foams. And from that you could get one, two, three, four, you get four fine pads out of one pad. I suppose that represents good value, I just didn't want to rip that one up. I had some of these thinner ones lying around that's why I used that one. Okay then that leaves us two main media trays. In each one of these, we can get a kilo and a half of BioHome Ultimate, so that's what's going in there. That'll give us three kilos in these two main baskets. And then there's this, the middle of the pre-filter tray. That can also be filled with biological media, and you'll actually get another kilo in there. So that's one and a half, one and a half, and one. In total, four kilos BioHome Ultimate. Three trays with media in. Okay, now in here, Now our pump head can suck media up if the media is very light, like plastic media or something, so you'd never put anything light in here, it's never going to suck this up. If you're worried about it sucking the media up, by all means put another coarse pad on top of there. That'll reduce how much biological media you can get in, but not by much. Or you could go with a carbon impregnated Like that. I think I'll cut that and put it on just to demonstrate. As you can see we had to take a little bit of media out, but it's probably around about 150 to 200 grams. Okay, water comes in, goes down through here, which is our coarse pads, out the bottom of that tray, down the outsides of these trays, it mills around in the bottom where there isn't really space for anything else, and then comes up and it comes up through coarse, medium, fine pads, trays of media, And then up through the middle of our pre-filter tray, through more media, and then before it exits the filter, it goes through a carbon-impregnated pad. So we've got mechanical, biological, chemical. Oh, that's a bit heavier than it was when it arrived. God, it needs the wheels on the bottom, barely lifted. Okay, just a few facts and figures. The E1901 from JBL, ...is supposedly for aquariums between 200 and 800 litres. Now even in its present form, 800 litres is going to be a hell of a stretch. Unless you've got maybe half a dozen tetras in a fully planted tank, then you might get a full cycle. Remember, a full cycle is the reduction in nitrate. Not half a job, the reduction in nitrate. A full cycle using aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. We've got a 1900 litre an hour pump so there's going to be a hell of a lot of water movement through there. We've got enough foams to ensure clear water, no problem at all, I mean 800 litres it'll keep that clear. It's the health that we're concerned about though, it's that full cycle, it's that full cycle reduction in nitrate and 800 litres, it's a hell of a stretch and if you've already watched my video about size and filters and about why most filters will never ever get I get a full cycle in your tank. You'll realise that 800 litres can be halved for a normal tank. That works out perfectly because we've managed to fit four kilos of media in there. Four kilos of media would be suitable for a full cycle on a normally stocked tropical community tank up to 400 litres. That works out perfect. So when a manufacturer says, oh it'll do up to 800 litres, you can halve that straight away for a normal tank when the filter is set up properly. For filters not set up properly and you've got 400 litres, you've got a nitrate factory. This should not be a nitrate factory. This should be a full cycle factory, a nitrate reducing factory, and of course we're going to get zero ammonia and zero nitrite as well. They're pretty easy to control. So 400 litres, that still seems like a very big filter, but it hasn't got a vast amount of space for filter media. It seems to be a bit of a reverse TARDIS, you know, when I first took that apart I thought that looks like a skyscraper, it's massive, but the pump head comes down to about here, so you haven't really got that much space in there, you know, however, if you had a heavily stocked tank, we've got four kilos of media in there, heavily stocked tank, that's like a cichlid tank or a discus tank, marine tank, obviously you'd use the Biohome Ultimate Marine for a marine tank, but a Predator tank or something like that of around 200 litres. So, for aquariums of about 200 litres to 800 litres, 200 litres, yep, if it's heavily stocked, 400 litres if it's normally stocked. Oh, and if it's goldfish, that counts as heavily stocked. Some people think, oh, I've only got goldfish. Goldfish are the most polluting things on the planet, so they need big filtration. This fella would do a 200 litre goldfish tank. Okay, I'm gonna get this packaged up and sent back now. If you've enjoyed this video, hit the thumbs up. If you want me to take a look at one of your filters and upgrade it for free, please get in touch. My contact details are in the video description. Have a look back through the previous videos. I'm adding to them all the time. And if there's something that I haven't done already, please drop me a line. I'll be all too willing to do it for you. That's people in the UK. It costs, oh God, imagine how much this would cost to send to Australia or America. Can't afford to send free media out and a heavy filter because it would cost me about 100 quid in total. I can't afford to do that so at the moment only people in the UK please send me your filters but contact me first. Don't just send me your filter in case it's one I've already done before. And I'll finish by saying what I always say, if you've enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up, share it wherever you want and I'll see you next time. Thanks for watching. Come on, slow down, man. Hey man! You're supposed to be a lowrider, man. We're supposed to be cruising, man.