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The black stuff is apparently bio foam as it’s spikey on the other side. I had the white stuff at the top so should they basket with bio media go on top and do I just buy some and add it or would that mess up the parameters in the tank?.Is the black one carbon or some kind of filter pad?
I might add more bio media to the top segment. My preference is Marine Spheres however, I just have a large number in my sump versus a canister filter. Should work great still.
Looks.like the white stuff is some kind of filter floss. You could use clumps of Poly-Filter. You can order it in bulk and change it out periodically. I would say weekly to remove any built up detritus.
Yeah I’m running a skimmer as to whether it’s actually doing it’s job I don’t know. I just read about something called chemipure is that any good?. So if I buy some more bio media I just add it to the basket that already has some and take out the bio foam and fill that one as well?Does the tank have a skimmer?
I would personally take out the biofoam and add additional porous biomedia instead. It's good stuff for freshwater, but it and the white polishing pads will hold onto excess food and detritus without being able to fully clean them out and may cause nutrient issues in the long run. The prefilter sponges should be enough mechanical filtration and are coarser / easier to regularly clean. I'd fill up 2.5 of the media baskets with ceramic or rubble media leaving enough space in the top one in case you ever want to add some carbon or GFO media in the future to manage specific situations.
Ok thanks that’s helpfulIf you're running a skimmer then I'd definitely take out the biofoam, in freshwater planted tanks you don't worry about nutrient export because your plants will eat all the nitrates that come out of the solids breaking down in the foam, but this is less desirable in a reef tank.
You can put anything you want in those baskets, I'd add ceramic / porous media of your choice and just leave space for chemical filtration. That being said you don't necessarily need to run chemical filtration constantly, mainly to correct specific issues on an as-needed basis.