Cotton
 

I'm wondering if I can use COTTON as a filter inside my Hagen 802 Quickfliter powerhead,instead of using the filters that are made for them?As they add up quick in price :eek:

Thanks

Pluff

I can't say yes or no on the cotton for sure but I will say no at first guess.
Cotton is organic and will probably break down over some period of time. How long I don't know.

A suggestion for you is to go to a fabric store and pick up some quilting batting(polyester) and you can get it for on average 1/10th the price you would pay at your lfs.

cheers

A fluval 4 sponge filter will fit perfect. Comes in packs of 2 for rotation.
Just rinse often.

Re: Cotton
 

Yeah, those 802 Quickfilter replacements are expensive. I use AquaClear Mini foams in mine. You can buy them cheaper in a 3 pack rather than singly.

Or, if you really want to save, buy the AC 500 foams and cut them to size using a serated bread knife.

Foams will last for two or three months until they begin to harden and break down.

To export the most amount of crud from your reef, gently turkey baste your rock, sandbed and corals. This gets detritus up into the water column where your foams can catch it. Once the water has cleared, clean the foams in outgoing changewater, or in RO water if turkey basting between water changes. Clean the foams weekly, or more often if desired.

I'm a bit anal keeping my tank clean, so I baste and clean 2-3 times a week in our 42 gal hex. My nanos get basted and the foams cleaned at least twice a week too.

When cleaning the foams, use about a cup of water and squeeze the living heck out of them. Dump the dirty water, then repeat as many times as needed until you get clear water at the end of the cleaning.

FWIW, I just cleaned the foams in the 42 gal. Man, were they cruddy. Glad I exported all that crap out of my reef :eek:

Jon, how would you clean that poly batting? It would be used to throw away, I would imagine- thus it would prove more costly in the long run.

When I had turtles (and man were they ever messy!), I had an aquaclear and bought the multi-packaged foam filters, alternated and cleaned them.

When I used it one time I just rinsed it out under hot water and it came out very clean. It is cheep enough that just putting new stuff in would be acceptable though.

Hello Fishers

I was just over at Paul's in Surrey and tried to purchase an Aquaclear minifoam for my 802 Quickfilter. I stopped before I bought because it was such a tiny little foam that it wouldn't have looked right in the 802 Quickfilter housing.

Am I missing something important here? I truly have a great desire to save money and would much rather purchase fish than foam.

Nope you are not missing anything, Beverly does not have lots of space in her tanks so she cuts down the size of the intake cover so that it just fits the mini sized foam. You will need larger foam then the mini if you don't want to cut your intake cover.

I am even worse than that I don't have a filter in my 2 802's

Yes, Trevor is right. I have cut down the 802 prefilter's plastic housing so it takes up less room in my puny 42 gal hex. I also don't use the white plastic insert in the prefilter, I only use foam.

If you're keeping your prefilter housing the same size as you bought it (like most people would), you can buy an AquaClear 500 foam and cut it to the right size with a serated bread knife. If you cut it correctly, you'll probably get at least 4 foams to use in the 802 prefilter.

You can also use the extra pieces that don't quite make up the full prefilter size by just putting them in the prefilter housing so they more or less fit.

HTH.