While waiting for the various layers of finishing to dry, I started on the filter to get Moe back in the tank. The XP4 has been tasked with the job and I decided it would be smart to replace the o rings since this filter has not been in use for a couple of years and they dried out. I was also missing a few parts of the plumbing. Luckily it's all available on Amazon.
The filter is setup like in the filter media thread
http://www.redearslider.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=30145#p288911Two baskets of bio media on top
1.5 baskets of foam. 20PPM on the bottom. 30PPM on top.
Purigen on top of the foam in the second basket. I may add some carbon if needed - going to let it run with just a little bag of purigen and see how it does first.
An dirty bag of purigen next to a new one. Hoping to regenerate one while there's an active one in the filter and just keep swapping them back and forth.
Because this is a 40 breeder I wanted to get as much clutter out of the tank as possible. It's bare bottom - the underside of the glass is painted with sand textured spray paint. The heater is an inline Hydor so that it's out of the tank as well. I've only had this thing a few days. It's physically much larger than I was expecting but it seems to be working well.