The filter of the aquarium Askoll Pure Marine XL HC Led
Pure Marine is a marine aquarium sui generis. We know that for a successful breeding of small polyp scleractinians, or rather SPS, e.g. Acroporas, a protein skimmer is required. For reasons of place and design, Askoll decided not to include a skimmer in this aquarium, so the filter is based on a surplus of mechanical and biological filtration.
The pump draws water from the tank and pushes it through the compartments you can see above. The pump is on the right side. First of all, water passes through 3 compartments with a mechanical filtration to remove the suspended particles. Next it gets through a chemical filtration zone with activated carbon. From here part of the water returns in the tank, the other passes through a second area, on the left in the picture, where it finds biological media and zeolite.
The system is very well engineered, because it is out of sight, hidden in the top. For more, the part of water returning in the tank will provide oxygenation for the aquarium.
Aquarium pump
The pump provided with the new Askoll Pure Marine XL is an Askoll pump as well, called PurePump XLHC.
The pump has a declared consumption of 5,5 watt and a flow of 800 l/h that in the filter means, according to Askoll, in 370 l/h of filtration. We notice how serious Askoll is from this detail, giving the real flow of the filter and not declaring only the pump flow.
Keeping 5,5 watt permanently in use, means a medium power consumption of 5,5x24x30=4kwh per month, which means 48kwh per year. At present time one kwh costs about 0,27 euro, so the filter consumption per year would be the paltry sum of 13 euro, little more than one euro per month.
We wished to test the pump, as we are used to, with flow and heading measure, but the pump is built in the filter, so we were not able to do that.
Talking about power consumption, lightings takes central stage compared to the filter. With a photoperiod of 12 hours, of which 7,5 at full power, we talk about 8×27+11,5×8,3=311,45 watt per day, or rather 311,45×365=114kwh per year, that means, multiplied by 0,27, a cost of 31 euros per year, a little less than 2,5 euros per month.
The heater
Inside Askoll Pure Marine aquarium, a 200 watt heater is provided, as we can see in the following picture.
It works quite simple, you just need to set the correct temperature by turning the upper knob. For us the heater is very nicely sized for a tank like this, so you won’t have any problem. The running hours depend on the room temperature of the tank. Since the lightings by themselves have a consumption of 311 watt per day, the heater in one hour and a half would spend the same energy as the lightings, becoming the first consumption source of the aquarium. By the way, considering the size we are talking about,there is nothing to worry about it, unless you keep the tank in an unheated room, that is not recommended quite apart.
Details
When we talk about Askoll we cannot fail to notice the details that make the difference between an ordinary aquarium and an aquarium thought to perform at best its function. Below we can appreciate the place for filter, heater and lightings cables. So they wouldn’t annoy.
Just outside the tank, the three cables can be linked by a black zip-tie, so everything looks neater.
Inside the top we can check water level.
I would sincerely recommend to use a top-off system for evaporated water, since keeping a steady salinity of 35 per thousand is essential for a healthy aquarium. Otherwise you have to be extremely constant in continuous top-off, to prevent salinity fluctuations.
