Great video, man and I'm glad it worked for you as the whole goal is to increase times between maintenance and still effectively remove particles (and ensure that water is as healthy as possible) In a couple of weeks your fish produce a mighty amount of poop, lol I designed an upgrade for the FX filter itself a couple of days ago so I'm going to have a go altering the actual structure of the filter to make a prototype when I get a spare hour or two. I'm hoping it can increase the potential load of media from 5kg to nearer 8kg within the same sized filter and still maintain good mechanical filtration.

HI Simply Shrimps. I´d like to offer u a tip. When taking of the hoses (in/out). Before u turn off the pump, close the intake, let it run 1-2 sec, shut off the out valve at the same time turning off the pump itself. This way u push out a bit of Water, leaving less Water to "overflow" taking off the valves.

I LOVE Pondguru and practice what he preaches -- onemore pimp I did on my FX 6 wast to take out the floss trays in the middle and use a course, medium, then fine floss in that center section on top..... I am changing every 4 months on my 125 with heavy bioload. Go Pondguru!

Finally a video on how to properly setup a filter. Pondguru has it down to a science. Too many people think clear water is healthy water. Buy a test kit and be assured the water is healthy for the fish.

Nice pimp job - it is very good that you can in fact extend the maintenance on your filter with this method. 👍

I setup my latest filter in the same way pond guru does I bought the 3 kg bio ult upgrade kit and it works great!

I have an FX6 and have not changed or done any maintenance/filter cleaning in 6 months. Had the water professionally tested this morning.Ph was 7.6, Ammonia at 0, Nitrite at 0 and the Nitrate at 5.0. So these filters work, work, work. :-) going to get her cleaned tomorrow though. Then on the next change, I'm going with this setup for an even better results.

Great video. I find that putting an intake sponge on the filter intake is an amazing help.

I know we all love the beneficial bacteria..in the filter..however use that drain hose that came with the Fx6 save your water..but go back and clean out the bottom of the canister...remove sludge ..or sand and check your propeller motor housing for sludge or sand...clean it out ..trust me the motor is priority #1 for healthy fish and crystal water..avoid damaging a $335.00 filter.

you go into your filter every two weeks ? wow !!! I do my 306 twice a year :-)

ive pimped both my FX6's on my big tank and both fluval 406's on my growing on tanks, all pimped sponges and all with biohome ultimate

Have you considered a prefilter? The one by Eheim is excellent and doesn't reduce flow and doesn't take up much more room. The prefilter will catch most of all the muck and stop it going to the FX6. Then it's just a simple case of pulling off the prefilter, and running the foams under a tap.

A great review thank you, it’s good to see a comparison of before and after, most of the reviews you see on KZfaq only show what changes they make and hope that you believe that it works, but I do know that this one works as I done it to my fx4. Again thank you.

While I think in theory this should work better I was personally a little underwhelmed by the results lol! My sponges are still plugging along, but I’ll probably replace them with this method. Thanks for sharing!

Simply Shrimps i have a tip for you when refilling the filter theres not need to use the siphoning tube you only need to put the incoming filter hose on but not the out going one open the incoming and turn it off before it overflows (you'll hear it) then put the out going tube on and turn the filter on hope this helps

Nicely done just got an fx6 last week so in the process of pimping mine also.. went with pondgurus suggestion of sponges but im going the cheap route with alfagrog and pumice 5 kilos of biohome ultimate is errrr kinda pricey !!

where did you get the 2 foam pads, the blue and black

next time just turn of inlet wait ten seconds then turn of outlet then unplug pump. it will pump a little out so you dont get water over pump

I hope you dont take this the wrong way but I think you might be wasting your time. The whole point of having the high capacity filter is the buildup of a large amount of beneficial bacteria to break down waste. By tearing down your filter every couple weeks, you're actually limiting the size of the beneficial bacteria colony in the filter. It may seem like you're cleaning but you're actually interfering. You're probably better off leaving the filter going for 2-3 months at a time. The larger bio colony will take care of the extra waste in there. Also the dirtier the filter gets, typically the finer the particles it will actually trap until you get to a point of reduced flow in which case its time to tear it down for cleaning. I have a ton more fish in my tank and tons of plants which also cause plant debris to get sucked up and everything is solid. I used two large Eheim classic canisters. Anyway food for thought.

Just got the fx4 im planning on doing this add sera siporax and mech pro on the bottom of filter bucket

I bought the very same upgrade kit and I’m very happy with it 👍🏻

I just followed the recommendations with a full grown red eared slider in a 55 gallon tank. It’s never looked better, so I consider that pimped.

I love a pimped filter!

I took another advice from Pondguru. I installed a smaller Sunsun HW603 B as prefilter with all the sponges. During maintainance I have to just clean the smaller one and not open up the entire filter.

Stick a eheim prefilter on intake and you won’t have to open the main filter for months. For a tenner you can make it so much easier

This is slightly flawed - The way in which the water flows up through the outer sponges is due to water volume rising and it naturally pushes itself through them until it hits the top of the canister. Once it's hitting the top of the canister it has nowhere else to go except to be sucked down through the center back into the tank which makes sense on your center setup. The most efficient way to do the outside sponges/filter would be to do it vertically, no? Because if the water is traveling up the canister and rising through the sides, it's going to encounter half course and half medium/fine and your getting a 50% pass through on the course because there's no fine above it, only on the side of it. Now if you layer each one Course on the bottom, and fine on the top, stacking them rather than combining them sideways that would make for a much better catch of particles. Does that make sense or am I crazy?

I clean my Fx6 on a very heavily stocked tank every 5-6 months. When I notice the outtake flow has slowed down a bit. That’s your Indicator to say it’s time to clean your sponges.

I did this to my FX6. I still use the Fluval Max Clean blue pads on top of the filter floss though as it saves the floss from clogging so quickly.

i allways wrap a towel as well

i love that trap trap trap trap bit hahah

bad filter set up! water does not travel from the outside inwards so stacking the course and fine filter like that wont do a thing but let most of the water pass through having only gone through the course filter as it always chooses the path of least resistance. the water in these filters travels first through the outer ring from the bottom to the top and then flows through the center from top to bottom. so if you would want to have several stages of mechanical fitlering you would have to place only course filter material in the bottom outer ring, then a medium material in the outer ring of the middle tray and finally a fine material in the outer ring of the top tray.

Great video, I just want to add that you should never change all filter foams out at once because there’s good bacteria in them and your risking disrupting the cycling of your tank. Sadly, these fx series filters are just huge sponge filters so most bacteria are in the foam sponges. You always change half of the sponges at a time, so if it’s an fx6 (change 3 in intervals)

Very helpful to put a prefilter sponge on your intake tube. The Eheim 6664 prefilter works very well for that in catching large particles that will otherwise get inside your canister, which is not so quick/easy to interact with.

Awesome video dude! I’m thinking of getting FX6 filter, I got an adult yellow bellied slider in a 250litre atm and I really need to upgrade the filter cuz he’s very messy and poops a lot! I just have an internal fluval filter I got with the tank, but your video helped me a little to decide weather or not to get it. Keep up the good content :)

My filter looks like that in about a year and a few months, If you add a pre filter sponge on or in the intake compartment on the fluval fx6 you’ll need to just take the sponge out a couple times a month to rinse and not have to maintenance the filter for a year if not a little longer, of course your situation might be different depending on what kind of fish and stocking... it doesn’t allow food or waste to be sucked into the filter, just micro size stuff gets through...

Great vid and lovely stand and nice tank. However, what about leaving one of the original foams at the bottom, put the medium foams in the middle, put the fine foams at the top and pinky filter on top of some sera siporax on the inside part.

What type of filter foam did u use I know one was black and one was blue I can’t seem to find them?

Just a tip.. you don’t have to refill the fx6 just hook up the valves & turn them back on it will fill itself.

I did the same thing and I love itOh my nitrates and everything stays where they’re supposed to be

If/when I ever get a large tank I want the FX6. Might just have to try your upgrade

oh you can rinse the filter floss, if you have a high pressured shower XD but yeah it's still far easier to just replace it. also you want to go longer with out clearing the big filter? get a prefilter attachment to it, in there 3 foams, corse, medium, fine and some floss, and then the big one becomes pick up of anything missed by prefilter and 90% bio filter, meaning the only one you have to change every 2 weeks is the pre filter. oh and for those looking for a CHEAP alternative to the biohome ultimate (and that's not to fault it it's just for those on a lower budget) Lava rock does exactly the same.

Also, i think you should put bio home ult on the top crate then top it off with filter floss

If you close the hose valves before you shit the filter off you won’t have water leaking out when you disconnect the hoses.

What is the name of the black blue foam??

I use these foams in my eheim pro 4+ and honestly I clean my filter every 6 months!

iI put four fx 5,s on a 120 g tank also has two aqueon 55/75 hobs aswell.tank stays mint ,I DO ONE FX EVERY 3 MONTHS ANS D ONCE A WEEK ON THE HANGERS.

Very nice. :) I will also do a video on it and pimp it slightly differently.

Great video.

What reducement of flow do you get by replacing the foam and biological media with 3rd party foam and ultimate media? Are you using more biological media than the standard ceramic media? What is the water turnover of the filter with the new upgrade of media. An easy way to find out is to quickly stick the outflow into a bucket. eg. 10 litre or 18 litre bucket and note the time it takes to fill it in seconds. Divide this timed amount by the litre size of the bucket to get the amount per litre, then divide that amount by 3600 to get the litres per hour, then divide that amount by the litre size of the aquarium to get the turnover.

awesome video, whats the red insert/grate? i have a fx5, but it doesnt have anything like that.

Hello there, where were you able to find the sponges.

Any link to the Foam you used from amazon? Id like to order some!

the fact is that the muck is traped on the blue foam thus is still present in the curculation , by sxtending the clean up sessions u just put5ting mor no3 into the system

Bro... Pro tip... leave your fx6 on, turn the inlet off first then your outlet, in succession, then power it off. You’ll never have to use that towel again! Lol

Iv always been told filter floss is the last piece of media the water passes through before returning to the tank.the way your filter is set up your outer sponges are catching all the big stuff then your filter floss is catching the rest and polishing your water before going through your bio media maybe I'm wrong but to me the bio media isn't getting used to its potential and the filter floss is being over worked my filter floss never gets that bad.

You didn't add Bio media to the top basket, leaving enough for a fine pad just on top.

Great video, man! Thanks for sharing. Where did you buy those 2 sponges (black and blue)?

I just have a 55 gallon tank with two turtles (don't need a lecture about two turtles living together, I am a zoologist and worked in a zoo with turtles kept together. There are biting incidents, but I am thinking like pit bulls and things there is more to the story). People are telling me a FX4 is to much for 55 gallons. I disagree. Now I just need to find the best topper. One of my turtles is a mud and the other a yellow eared so they exist in different places in the tank. That said many told me my dual Decorative Repto filters would never work for a shallow 55 gallon tank, but once I pimped them out (higher flow pumps, BIOMAX + Fluval sponge and the stock charcoal bags; I have clean water for a month+ with simple changes and they sound awesome in a living area. However; time for the turtles to both swim of find a burrow so have to expand. I will be going to at least a 125 gallon by the end of this year and probably end up with 180 gallons in the next 2-3.

Anything that can reduce maintenance by 30% if worth wild looking into. Thanks.

where do you buy these sponges from AMAZON ? please share a link asap. From USA

I just got this cannister filter and man it's noisy!!! Like seriously noisy. Any ideas on what to do?

Does it actuly work though

So I have the fx 4 and the polishing pad and nitrate resin pad and the colored foam upgrade but they didn't arrive prior to set up. Tanks been cycling 12 days. Do you think it's OK to add the pads and give the filter a light clean in tank water to remove detritus at this point?

how does ur filter get that dirty that quickly

Do you know if the lid off a fx6 would fit a fx5?

Stick eheim pre filter on the intake instead of the stock strainer.makes filter even more functional

why can't you keep the original coarse filter on the outside and just add a finer filter inside it?

Awesome video bro got ya self a new sub

I thought the water goes down so fine floss should be at the bottom

Did you hmm paint your stand?? Glossy red ? Or did you buy it like, that?? Also ... where did u get it??

Great video,thks sir

Once you change all the bio media you need to do fish in cycle

Hi great video my question is what impact does this have on the impeller with the extra pressure

do the course and medium sponges keep their shape after cleaning

What’s better to use fx4 or fx6 for a 75 gallon with mbuna fish.

is the fx6 quite a loud filter?

I followed PondGuru’s & others instruction on improved filtration and though the filtration is clearly better, the flow rate was far too reduced.

Can I use the regular fluval media instead of Biohome?

I've been to Home Depot And Lowes and they don't sell those damn foam pads , were can i get those?

where did you get those black/blue foams?

The only problem with that is you lose flow rate by doing this and could burn up pump .

How much bio home do you add

Where do you got the foam? I am ready to trick out my FX6 please help.

Hiya - just got the fx4 (first canister) and ordered biohome ultimate. Did you put that stuff in bags? Loose? Or mix it loose with the biomax? Thanks! Couldn't see the media in this vid~

i go about 8 weeks or more before cleaning

Do you find the fx6 to be too loud or noisy?

I have an fx6 and i can go longer than two or more months and my filter doesnt get that bad. I have african cichlids which are big waste producers and its a 135 gallon tank. how does your filter get so dirty?

Hey bro love the vid ima start shrimp up again any advice? Also can I get a shout out plz

The filter design on these is flawed. There is a giant amount of bypass going on with the side foams and also with the baskets. I'd suggest putting some extra 30 ppi and/or 45 ppi foam in the top basket. I'm sure Fluval designed them like this to keep water flow on the higher side even when the filter is clogged but IMO it's not a very smart design. It creates a lot of wasted space and the filtration doesn't work optimally. Fluval should have set up the FX series like the Hydor Professional.

test it. dont over feed .no one is feeding them in the wild .less crap in the pump that way

Where did you buy the foams from please?

Where do you buy that kind of filter

You crack your FX6 open every 2 weeks? I don't open mine until I notice reduced water flow (usually every 2 months or so). I would never put that fine blue foam in mine, or I would be opening mine every 2 weeks also ( I have a large messy Oscar and a large messy Pleco).

How much bio home media do you need for fx6?

Where can I find that bio media?

Hi. My fluval fx6 is brand new and the water hardly even comes back out. The Pressure is horrible Not very happy not satisfied with this thing at all ready to bring it back and get my money back I have a 90 gallon tank with a 20 year old turtle on it she’s 8 inches big and this flu bug does it push any water or suck any water it’s horrible

Now try the same thing with a prefilter

where did you got the foam???

I would be using two of those fx6’s on that big tank 👍🏻

You mentioned that your water quality values were stable. I expect 0 ppm for Ammonia & Nitrite. So my question is about the Nitrate. Has the Biohome affected the Nitrate levels? I've been following PondGuru for a while, and based on his Nitrate claims for Biohome, I've just added a Pimped out Cobalt EXT canister filterwith Biohome Ultimate.