Anyone use Lustar Hydro Sponge Filter for Pre-Filter?

beviking

beviking

Senior Member, Sophomoric Attitude
Feb 16, 2002
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I currently use the Filter Max III as a Prefilter. Looking at alternates and was wondering about the sponge filters instead.

Are they too fine to be a prefilter for a 300gph canister filter?

What's the diameter of the outlet? What size pipe would I need for one?
 
I actually use them exclusively now on all of my filters except the little HOB's

I do not know the exact dimensions and of course I'm not home to measure. I know the adapter at the top will fit snugly into a Standard Lift tube for a UGF (I think that is 1") I generally do a slight modification to the adapter (cut out the airline fitting) and most tapered intake screen will fit snugly inside. I had my Ac 500, and my now have my fluval 404 arranged this way. The only filter I have that I couldn't adapt them to was the Emporer 400 with the big square suction tube. When I get home Friday, I'll post dimensions, and PM you with a couple of pictures of my ready made adaptions. all in all I would guess I've never spent mopre than 5 minutes planning and modifying them to fit anything. The lustar is IMHO a great sponge for anyone who does routine maintenance. If you go past the two week pount in a high flow situation you will suck the spong nice and flat, but aside from that I've seen no issue, and I only ran that one that long to see what the plug point was for my tank.

I wash mine weekly in the maytag (No I'm not kidding) with belach and oxyclean, and they last 4-6 months depending on whether or not I forget to cancel the spin cycle. I would imagine with hand washing they would last considerably longer. They are not as tough as the punguin or AC sponges, but they are much finer and capture considerably more debris so ythe trade off is worht a few extra bucks a year. Al total I have 13 of them in place in three tanks. 11 are on high flow RFUG systems, the other two on the Fluval 404 set at max flow.
Dave
 
Dave - Isn't that what you sent me to try? If so, it is essentially identical in filtration to the FilterMaxI sponge. They work fine, but either need more independent mechanical filtration to keep from loading the fine sponge, or to be very conscientious about rinsing. If I flatten the sponges with debris/gunk/suction more than a couple of times, they permanently deform and get tossed. But the particle size capture and total capture are respectively smaller and larger than the FMIII sponge, significantly. So it is more efficient if you are.
 
Thanks for the replies. I've been using the Filter Max III which is great, but I find shrimp in my XP3. Not a big deal, just an extra step saving them. I also use the Penguin sponge (Reverse Flow Kit) but that seems to be just as porous as the FMIII but I haven't used it very long set up like this.

I rinse every week at water changes so maybe loading and flattening wouldn't be a problem.

Dave, no need to send pics, I've become quite use to adapting one part to another :) but I have to as why you run the sponge through the dishwaser? Is it too fine to rinse by hand? Could be a good forearm work-out routine?
Bill
 
Dave - Isn't that what you sent me to try? If so, it is essentially identical in filtration to the FilterMaxI sponge. They work fine, but either need more independent mechanical filtration to keep from loading the fine sponge, or to be very conscientious about rinsing. If I flatten the sponges with debris/gunk/suction more than a couple of times, they permanently deform and get tossed. But the particle size capture and total capture are respectively smaller and larger than the FMIII sponge, significantly. So it is more efficient if you are.
Click to expand...

Yup that is the one I sent you RTR.
Since all of my sponges go into the maytag weekly, I haven't had issue with plugging except when I purposefully tested for that issue. They are a very fine sponge and are also soft sponges so they tend to wear out quicker than my other media. I am more than happy to buy a $20 worth of spares a year just to get the finer filtration and keep the shrimp and snails out of the filters. The Hydro sponges stopped the migration for me completely. With the penguin sponges I saw a lot of snails under my UGF plates.
I use the worn out sponges inside my cannister rather than Floss. This is a recent developement (I just got my first cannister a couple of months ago) so I really don't know how well they will do long term.

Also I just did a pretty extensive project with PVC and these filters. They do no adapt to 3/4" PVC without some modification work. If you are familiar with Filtermax, then you will have the same Hardware (Based On RTR's comments) With that In Mind, Go to Big AL's and just buy the replacement sponges and give them a Try. BTW the plastic they use works very well with PVC cement from what I can tell so far. I'll know more this afternoon when the re-built RFUG system goes into my 115g tank. Pictures will hopefully be posted this weekend.
Dave
 
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