# New eheim 2073 question



## upscale (Jan 31, 2010)

Just got finished installing the 2073 filter and man oh man is it nice!!
I can't believe how quiet the thing is. It is a very sturdy and well built unit.
I was looking into the new fluval G3, but thanks to this forum it saved me a couple hundred dollars, and I've got a more efficient and in my eyes a better filter!
So how long do I run it in tandem before I can remove my old filter? (emperor 400)
The emperor 400 has been a great filter for 11 years with no issues, I just wanted something under the tank hidden and more quiet.
Thanks guys and gals.


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## Revolution1221 (Apr 20, 2010)

idk what the filter is your talking about but if you can fit the filters from the emporer 400 right in with the filter you got so that water passes through them you can take it off today. even if you just took the sponge media and tore it off you could stuff it in the new filter. this helps the bacteria transfer faster IMO. just put the old biological media behind the new biological media. this is the way i have always done it when upgrading a filter or swapping a new filter cartridge or establishing a new tank using old media. typically a well established tank has more biological bacteria than what it needs to break down the ammonia and such in the tank so the little bit of bacteria you lose that would be stuck to the plastic walls of the filter wont hurt. it probably wouldnt hurt to do a light gravel vac and water change to pull out some of the decaying waste and leftover food so there is less ammonia for the becteria to have to break down. at work are tanks are ver very well established with over 20 tanks now i have completely broken them down filled them up with water while stirring the gravel dumped them out and repeated about 20 times tell the gravel is spottless and cleaned the filter bags at the same time. and i have yet to have a tank spike i test them every three days after doing so for 9 days. i typically treat the tank with prime and leave it fishless for about 2 hours afterwards.


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