Matala Filter Media has anyone use them?

StIcKy~RiCe

Redtail Catfish
MFK Member
May 24, 2005
2,564
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~ Laos ~
Just did a research on them, seem to be a good filer media/pads alternate from poly pads, also its very expensive but it's easy to clean and last very long time. Had/have anyone use them before? Where did you put them in your wet dry sump?

I am planning to buy all 4 color (black, green, blue and gray).

Right now I have 200 eshopp wet dry sump. After the drip tray, coming down I have sponge pad (I took out from my FX canister), and poly pads then bio balls.

I was thinking of putting black and green on top of the sponge pads, and bottom of the sponge pads between the bio balls. Would this work? Does anyone have try this or have other option? Any suggestion or advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 

Reedmaster16

Piranha
MFK Member
Oct 13, 2005
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Ohio
I have the blue matala acting as a prefilter prior to the water passing through my bead filter. The blue doesn't catch the fine debris at all I just use it to pickup stingers or large pieces of debris to protect damaging pump impellers. Not the easiest to fully clean unless you have a high pressure hose of some sort to spray it off.

They are made of a woven rubber plastic type material. Rigid and not very flexible at all. Hope that helps some.
 

StIcKy~RiCe

Redtail Catfish
MFK Member
May 24, 2005
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In term of making your water clean and helping your bio, does these pads help at all? or did you know the different before and after?
 

rodger

Polypterus
MFK Member
Apr 29, 2008
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It is a very poor mechanical and bio filter. Stick with poly
 

xman01

Feeder Fish
Jun 26, 2015
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0
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It is a very poor mechanical and bio filter. Stick with poly
yes and no

for example
where it doesn't work effectively
I have 2 strips cut to fit an ac110 with filter floss on top and it doesn't really trap anything much. I'm using it because the foam/sponge shrinks and I am looking alternative possible the blue poly. It works okay even though the floss get dirtier.

It works in the photo, as mech filter. Water comes in over head via 2x 3/4" approx 1000gph. How the flow is diffused across the material, it slows down the water enough to be effective. If you notice how it's setup for koi ponds in large chambers with high/med flow rates.

High flow rate, small chamber like in ac110 is not effective as mech. As for your question, op, I would not use matala for mech in your canister. If you insist, use the Super High Density Grey Matala instead.


Btw, using grey matala mat.IMG_20160425_102620.jpg IMG_20160425_103007.jpg
 
Last edited:

StIcKy~RiCe

Redtail Catfish
MFK Member
May 24, 2005
2,564
738
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~ Laos ~
It is a very poor mechanical and bio filter. Stick with poly
May I ask why? have you had experienced with them? Please feed back as much as possible. I have look up and it has a good review. Just need some more feed back from here.
 

rodger

Polypterus
MFK Member
Apr 29, 2008
3,343
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Kansas City
Yes, I spent a buttload of money on it. Very hard to clean and you wash most of the BB off in cleaning. It is not fine enough to be a good mechanical filter and does not have a very large surface area compared to other bio media.
 

xman01

Feeder Fish
Jun 26, 2015
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0
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Yes, I spent a buttload of money on it. Very hard to clean and you wash most of the BB off in cleaning. It is not fine enough to be a good mechanical filter and does not have a very large surface area compared to other bio media.
The black and the green supposed to be the mech and the blue and grey bio, and how do you verify that you washed away all the BB?
If people still using bio balls then there should be no issues with using matala. Go to the matala website, there is good info on how it's to be used especially as a mech media.
 
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