Aquatop Recife 40 Gallon Filtration Options

[smoothie7]

Looking for help on the filtration of the Aquatop Recife 40 Gallon Cube. The bank has multiple chambers. In the first chamber, there is a filter sponge that takes on water from the tank. The chamber is plenty tall to possibly put something underneath that if necessary. It then flows in to a stack of 4 boxes with different media in them. The top box has carbon infused media cubes, then the second box has Phosphate/Nitrate Removing Media (looks like white sponges) then the last 2 boxes are ceramic quartz rings, kind of like bio-balls back in the day. Those four boxes sit in the center of the back large chamber. My dilemma is I am upgrading the light that requires an arm to be mounted on the back of the glass and will interfere with these boxes. I won't be able to remove them if necessary without removing the light. Trying to figure out what other options there may be.

 

[smoothie7]

Here is a picture of my tank along with a factory picture of the back. I am not using a skimmer on this nano.

 

[X-37B]

On my 18" 20g Aquatop nano cube I used eheim substrate pro and matrix as bio filtration so I could have a heavy populated system.
Get rid of the black sponge and get a filter floss basket. Attatched pic.
For carbon or gfo I used a nylon bag and just hung it in the first chamber. You could leave the top middle open and just drop in a bag.
I ran 2 16hds from the back and never had to remove the middle baskets. If you wanted to remove them to clean then just remove the light once a year or so.

 

[smoothie7]

Looks great. I was hoping to find a media basket for my tank but haven't had any luck. Do you have a link to the filter floss basket?

 

[X-37B]

I think it was this site.

inTank Filter Floss Holders

inTank aquarium-specific designed Filter Floss Holders help improve the filtration and clarity of your aquarium while making maintenance extremely easy.

intankaquatics.com

 

[kingranch2003]

On my 18" 20g Aquatop nano cube I used eheim substrate pro and matrix as bio filtration so I could have a heavy populated system.
Get rid of the black sponge and get a filter floss basket. Attatched pic.
For carbon or gfo I used a nylon bag and just hung it in the first chamber. You could leave the top middle open and just drop in a bag.
I ran 2 16hds from the back and never had to remove the middle baskets. If you wanted to remove them to clean then just remove the light once a year or so.

Do you think I could use the same filtration set up on the 40 gallon aquatop? I bought the setup because I thought it had everything it needed. The lfs where I purchased it told me to take out the sponge it comes with and all of the media trays. No need for the skimmer and just use filter floss basically where you have yours.. I probably would've chosen a different tank altogether if I'd realized this. As a beginner, I plan to grow soft corals and lps only. Would you agree with lfs here? Any pointers would be much appreciated. Your reef is very inspiring.