My "Free" (or $0.15 to you) AC70 Baffle Mod

[Superdave]

This will not be my permanent setup as I just ordered (this evening!) an InTank Media Basket for my AC70.  $50 felt a bit steep for me, but I realize I had $20 in Rewards Points that had accumulated with @Marine Depot so for $37 including tax, I felt it was worth it.  

 

Before I discovered the "free money" at Marine Depot, I decided to try my hand at a mod with the media tray that comes standard with the AC70.  I even ordered a second one (less than $4 on Amazon) in the event I want the original setup for whatever reason or needed additional pieces if I botched something.  Am new to AC scene, but replacement parts for that cheap make the product so friendly to DIY folks.  

 

Anyways, I wanted to try and create a baffle simply to hold some filter floss in the same vein as those designed by @el fabuloso and the basic design of the InTank Media baskets.  At this point I do not plan on create a refugium, though I am perfectly fine with whatever takes up residence back there.  I liked the idea of the using the existing AC media tray as you have pieces that are designed to fit, are easily cut (I did the cutting with a box cutter with relative ease) and are cheap to replace.  While I already had single edge razor blades in my tool box, a 10 pack of new blades is $1.59 at Target, hence the title of the post. 

 

As you can see in the first picture below, I cut off one vertical piece of the media basket, specifically, the one closest to the intake pipe.  

 

Next I cut out some, but not all of one "row" of the bottom portion of the tray.  There are long, thin pieces on the bottom of the tray with run the width of the filter to give the tray some rigidity as well as elevate the tray off the bottom of the filter box.  I did not want to cut into these and realized it would allow a piece to be vertically inserted and thus held (somewhat) in place.  I left a bit of the tray in the center uncut so as to give the vertical piece a bit more "catch" or locking effect.  I then notched out (with a box cutter, though I would recommend something different as this felt a bit dicey--maybe a larger pocket knife for better control?) portions of the vertical piece to match up with the opening I created on the bottom portion of the tray.  I also had to cut off the two triangular portions on the vertical wall; you can see these in picture 1 and the absence of them (very light grey vertical lines) in picture 6.  These are designed to help hold the media in place, but they had to go to allow my baffle to drop down into the bottom portion of the tray.  

 

Pictures 5 and 6 show how the cuttings allow the vertical piece (which I cut off the basket) to "lock" (not very tight and all, but just enough) to be held in place and not move around.  Basically all I did was to move the vertical edge of the basket a 1/2 inch (I bought floss that dry is about 3/4 inch thick) after from the intake pipe and towards to the filter--see picture 7 and 8.  This allows me to to place a piece of floss on the "outside" of the media tray and allowing water to flow across it.  

 

I had contemplated gluing very small acrylic pieces/strips in place on the back and front inside walls of the filter tank to "hold" the baffle in place, when I found an even more perfect solution requiring no other step!  

 

If you look at picture 8, then 9, you will notice it looks like the baffle has been moved back into place, but this is not the case.  Picture 9 shows how I was able to push the baffle to the left/back towards to the intake pipe.  This actually created quite a tight fit and far better than I could have anticipated.  This is due to the fact that as I cut the bottom of the tray and dropped in the vertical piece, it created a wedge effect against the side of the filter tank.  The AC (as many know) is not 90 angle corners inside.  The vertical portions of the media tray have a slight narrowing towards the bottom. 

 

My original thought was simply to keep the media tray as is, then add a baffle using a vertical piece from a second tray and install it somehow as I did.  I was worried about how I was going to achieve that, but the solution I stumbled into worked far better!  I actually spent a few days pondering and looking at the filter trying to decide how best to achieve my goal.  A additional reason for why I thought I thought about keeping the "left" vertical piece as the horizontal slot near the bottom of the tray (you can see this in picture 5) actually serves to help "lock" it in place with a couple of tabs.  These tabs are on the edge of lighter grey piece that sits above the impeller.  You can see the tabs in picture 7 and really clearly in 8.  

 

Sorry for the rambling narrative, but I always like a detailed description/narration of pictures when it comes to DIY.  I welcome any question!

 

--Superdave