As my zillion posts already say, I am moving my gf from a small tank to larger used tank that I got. I will be using two used Emperor 280's as part of the filtration and I just realized that I did not get the extension pieces for the intake tubes with them, although I think they actually come with the original filter. I have sent an email to the guy I bought them from, but if he does not have them, I am wondering if I should buy them (or make my own)?

From what I understand, the lower your intake tube, the cleaner it will keep your gravel or bare tank bottom. Right now, my intake tubes would only be about halfway down. I will also have a Whisper 40i running in the tank, and later when i have more money, I plan to get a canister filter. But right now, in the current tank, all I have is the Whisper in-tank filters which are also only halfway down, and they do pretty well. My gravel is gunky but not TOO much. Just wondering if this is one if those things that I absolutely want to do or not.

Just wondering if I really should get these extensions right away or wait and see....opinions please! The two parts I need would only be about $15 plus shipping from Marineland. I know I can make my own as well, I have seen the great DIY post from Paul (I think it was him anyway). Thanks again!

Hi Jen! I have three filters on the big tank. The Aquaclear 110 is running as is, so the intake tube reaches about 3/4 of the way down. One of my extra filter's intake is rather short so it's about 5 or 6 inches below the surface. So on the 3rd filter I wanted to reach very low so I bought some extra tubing(just took the piece of intake to the hardware store & matched it up with the tubing!). It fit perfectly into the intake tube then I put the bottom piece of the intake tube on the new extention. Now that intake reaches almost to the bottom.

This way I feel I am getting water cleaned from 3 levels in hopes that this (along with regular water changes) will surfice until I can get another Aquaclear 110! ((Come on BONUS!!))

I don't know if this is the best idea, but I FEEL it is doing adeguate job for now.

I run a penguin 330 with the extension about 2 inches off the bottom and an emperor 400 about 1/3 from the top of the tank. I used to have them less than an inch from the bottom but had to shorten them for my bottom sitting oranda. It is a barebottom setup.
It seems to take care of virtually all of the debris in the tank so that there's nothing to vacuum up during a water change.

I think I will buy some tubing at the hardware store and have at least one of the Emperor's intake at the bottom, the other one will be naturally about 1/2 way down and my Whisper filter will be about 1/3, so hopefully that will take care of everywhere! I'll buy some extra tubing too so I can adjust things if need be. Thanks to both of you for the great ideas!

I run a Whisper and it is about 3 inches from the gravel. Did the extensions come in the box when you bought it? If not, email Marineland. They will send you new ones. I have the email address of someone I carry on a conversation with on a regular basis. Do you want it? He will help you. He helped me greatly when my new Penguin 125 didn't work. He sent me a new Penguin 150. Express mail. No charge, I didn't even have to return the filter. In fact, the filter is still under my bed.

I bought it used but the guy who gave it to me said it did not come with extension tubes. I know I can buy them from Marineland for like $15 for two, but if you want to give me that email I'll take it in case I have any problems once the filters are up and running. Thank you! You can pm me if you'd like-or maybe not, you might have to have 200 posts? If not you can post it here or email me at nascarfan546@yahoo.com

I tried the hardware store route but it is not easy because the Emperor 280 has like a rectangular intake tube instead of a round one, and the piece that goes on the end (strainer?) goes on the outside of the tubing and the intake tube has to go on the inside. I bought some tubing though, maybe with heating it up I can make it work, but spending $15-20 for the exact parts is sounding enticing!