Things You'll Need
- Tenecor standpipe and silencer
- Bio-balls
- Sintered biological filter material
- Filter mat
- Plastic tubing
Instructions
Place Teflon tape around one end of the Tenecor standpipe. Put this standpipe into the drain bulkhead and twist to tighten, but do not over-tighten. Position the silencer on the standpipe. Ensure that the top of the silencer is approximately 1 inch below the bottom of combs. Twist it clockwise to tighten. Fill the prefilter boxes with plastic bio-balls or a sintered glass aquarium biological filter material.
Cut a piece of filter mat to fit snugly into the prefilter box as an alternative to installing the standpipe and silencer. Place the filter mat onto the drip tray, which is positioned above the biological filter material. Ensure that it is touching the walls of the box. Aquarium water that pours into the prefilter box will dam up slightly on the filter mat and will trickle down and through the biological filter material. Through this process, both the mat and biological filter material will slow the water and produce less sound from the prefilter box.
Attach a piece of plastic tubing to the exhaust nozzle of the stand-alone protein skimmer. These skimmers typically stand in a sump or wet/dry filter below the aquarium, which is a remote reservoir that is attached to the aquarium via pipes and tubes. Ensure that the free end of the tubing is below the water level. Water that returns from the skimmer to the wet/dry filter or sump is noisy, but you can reduce or eliminate this noise by not letting it fall from the skimmer̵7;s exhaust nozzles into the water below.