Setting up the Sacem Filter

The second tank is now ready and has around 20 Platy fry. Initially I wanted to keep Mollies, Platys and Guppies but since the fry are only couple of weeks old I will wait before I add more fish. It was fun getting the second tank ready. I purchased this tank from eBay and it came with a Sacem filter that had half the parts missing.

Sacem Marathon 500

I had to put together the rest of the filter parts in order to get it working. Its does not look pretty and since I don't have a proper cabinet, all the wires and pipes are hanging around the tank. To start with the filter did not have the necessary connecting pipes. It had the spray bar and the suction pipe but nothing else. It gave me the excuse to run to the hardware shop and try to find something that could help me get it going. I found some pipe connectors that were 19 mm and some plastic tubing that was 16 mm. The simple trick to get the tubing fit over the connectors was to dip the tube ends in hot water for a couple of minutes to make it soft. It then slides easily and fits really tightly once it cools down.

 

I also got some valves that I fitted inline with the inlet and outlet tubes. I plan to use these during filter cleaning. I also connected a "T" joint (please see the picture below) which I use to refill the water and prime it after cleaning the filter. I had to make sure the opening at the top lies above the water level in any of the other pipes so that water flows down and down not flow out of it. Maybe fitting this in the inlet pipe would make more sense. In a hurry I fixed it in the outlet pipe of the filter/pump. The pump force is enough to push the water out and hence I have to make sure top of the pipe is nicely secured. However it works fine right now. The Sacem model that I have does not have the priming and shut off valves like the newer filter. It however works pretty well and it not that noisy.






I gave up trying to rotate the images so they displayed correctly. Even though I tried multiple times, the blogger just didn't display them properly. Both the images should have been rotated counter clockwise by 90 deg.





I got some nice drift wood and am waiting for it to sink. Once it sinks I will rearrange the plants and upload the photos. The tank cycled pretty fast since I had used water, plants and stones from my old tank which would have been covered by good bacteria (Water from the old tank may not have really helped since the helpful bacteria cultures are on solid surfaces and in the filter. The plants and the rocks would surely carry good bacteria.). Also the tank only has platy fry so the bio load should be very small.