Filter opinions...

[CoreyMac]

Right now I am going to stay away from canister filters and the like. I have a 20G Long tank with a whisper 20-40 power filter. I am considering a new filter, but not quite sure if I should change, and if so, what I should go with. I have read a little about the bio wheel filter. Can anyone give me pros and cons with this, and any other filters that you may have experience with? Thanks!

[plah831]

The Whispers are OK, I've used a lot of them mostly because they came in kits. I used to have a large Penguin Bio-Wheel and it worked pretty well. My latest filter purchase has been an AquaClear. I've heard GREAT reviews of ACs in that they perform well and last almost forever. Also they seem to be the most accomodating to different filter media. It also seems easier to buy replacement parts (impellers, intake tubes, motors) for AquaClears.

[Rallysman]

I'll go with aquaclear as well. They are by far my favorite HOB.
I've started polls on another forum and the majority voted for aquaclear:)


They are easy to clean and you dont have to worry about buying replacement cartridges.

[CaptnDan]

You can have almost as much flexibility with an AquaClear as with a cannister since you aren't tied to using special filter packs.

If you do change, please remember to run both until the bacteria get established in the new one...

[TropicalNorth]

Another vote for AquaClear here.

[Star_Rider]

for HOB I'd go with ac

[CoreyMac]

IS the bio wheel the way to go with an aquaclear?

[SirWired]

IS the bio wheel the way to go with an aquaclear?

The BioWheel is a nice idea, and certainly a valid way of performing excellent biofiltration, but it isn't really necessary as long as you purchase a standard filter of sufficient capacity to filter your tank.

A "bare" AquaClear rated for twice your tank size should be just fine.

SirWired

[Native American]

My experience w/ AquaClears has been 100% positive. Would be using them if I had the space.

v/r, N-A

[jennfier]

I got an Aquaclear with my used tank purchase. It still runs fine after almost a decade of sitting idle. I've always had Penguin Bio-wheel HOBs. They're great except you can't separate the carbon out when you need to medicate. In the Aquaclear, you can put in anything you want or not want. I'm going with Aquaclear from now on. I've yet to try the canisters.

[mostlycichlids]

I use the penguin IMO you do have media options and carbon can be removed easily for meds. I have heard great things about aquaclears but have not used them. I love my penguin bio wheels and I double up on the bio media they have two slots for media mine has a bio block and a 3 stage cartridge which I think makes it very efficient. Here is what I use in mine.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=13370&N=2004+113805+2146963203


http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=4169&N=2004+113804
You can also use the bio blocks in other power filters including aquaclears.

[Rallysman]

You should try an aquaclear:D

[Hound]

I own both aquaclear and penguin filters and I both recommend and prefer the aquaclears myself.

[plah831]

IS the bio wheel the way to go with an aquaclear?
Corey, they don't make bio wheels to go with AC filters. As SirWired said, the Bio Wheel is not a total necessity, especially if you have another surface for your nitrifying bacteria. For the AC's that surface is usually bio foam or ceramic rings.

The idea of the Bio Wheel is that, since it's out of water a lot of the time, the bacteria on it are absorbing oxygen from the air instead of "competing" for O2 with your fish in the water. But if you have adequate filtration/circulation, I wouldn't even worry about that.

[CoreyMac]

Right on. Aquaclear it is then. Thanks!

[1boatnut]

I have an Emperor 400,and so far I am happy. It is a big filter though. It has 2 bio wheels,2 filter pads and 2 seperate slots for your choice of media.
I can get a 4 pack replacement filters for $10.00 from Petsmart.

One guy at Petsmart did reccomend the Aqua Clear,looked like a nice filter

[jm1212]

i like the penguin line, and i have 2 350s on my 90 gallon (one at each end) along with a UGF, and they keep the tank water crystal clear. i know that alot of people dont like UGFs, but if you turn it off when you are vacuuming the gravel you can suck up all of the excess waste through the plates.
i also have a Cascade 150 HOB filter, and it does a really good job, and it has two media slots opposed to one in the penguin, and it has a flow adjust knob that i use when i feed the fish brine shrimp etc that can get sucked up by the filter if the current is too strong.

[Shane Reynolds]

I will share my experience with you. Everything I had heard about AC was so good, that I decided to swap over my son's tank from a Penguin 150, mainly to get flow control functionality but also so that I could more easily adapt filtration to my tank conditions. Taking the AC out of the box, I was a little surprised at what felt like cheap, brittle plastic compared to what, IMHO, was pretty high quality plastic on the Penguin. I moved forward with putting it in place and was a little surprised by the noise level of the motor. I got up the next morning and went into my son's room to check on him (he likes to kick all the covers off), and the noise was maddening. I put him in bed with my wife and took the AC off the tank, returning it to PetsMart later that day. They said that they had had several returned for excessive noise, but that it seemed to be a recent problem as they had no problems before a few weeks prior.

As for Penguin filters, if you get the 200 or 350, you can buy a media bay to customize your filtration. If I were medicating, I could cut some bulk filter fiber and put it in one of those bays. Really, there is nothing stopping you from not buying their cartridges; you could have two of those bays and customize it as you see fit. If you get a Penguin 150, you can use the medium bio bags and customize what you put in them; to make the bio bag fit just right, you will need to cut off the bottom of the internal plastic frame.

I am in the process, though, of changing over to the Eheim Liberty filters. I am attracted to their inexpensive, no-mess cartridges and Eheim's fine quality reputation. All of the filters use the same cartridges, you just have more capacity to add more in the larger ones. I like to look at a company's product line, even if I don't need some of it at present, just to get an idea of their emphasis, and Eheim's emphasis, as I can tell, is top-notch quality. Hagen makes some excellent products, but they also have some products that are "not so excellent."

Finally, I will also say that customer service should be somewhat of a concern for you. I contacted Hagen once, had to follow up, and then was told to send the product back to them, which would have cost more in the end than the product itself. In contrast, I contacted Marineland about a concern once, and the lady told me to simply take the product back to PetsMart and have them call her if there was any question. It turned out that the problem was NOT in their product, but I was impressed that the Marineland service person put my needs above their needs whereas I felt like Hagen just plugged me into their "system" for when a customer calls.

These are just my experiences; your mileage may vary. I don't think you would go wrong with Marineland, Hagen or Eheim (or even Tetra Whisper if your tank will be lightly stocked). I hope all goes well.

[CoreyMac]

Thank you very much Shane. You have given me some things to think about and to look in to.

[ROLLIN]

I've always had Penguin Bio-wheel HOBs. They're great except you can't separate the carbon out when you need to medicate.


Yes you can. The cartridges can easily be cut and the carbon can be shaken out. Or you could avoid the cartridges altogether. Right now in my penguin 330 I have an aquaclear 300 sponge in one side and a bunch of floss in the other. The filter doesn't know the difference.

[jm1212]

on my penguin 350s i use two filter cartradges for each one, and the remaining slots i use some filter spone cartridge for some extra bioligocal and mechanical filtration.

[Hound]

To be honest a properly primed aquaclear should be near silent. I find that after water changes that sometimes the impeller has problems expelling all the air so after the filter primes. I just unplug it and tap the filter body a couple of times. When I plug it in again the impeller expells the last of the air and it is silent again. Also if the impeller cover isn't seated properly it will make noise. If both those are correct and it still made noise I'd just take it back to where ever I got it if it were still new. Lets face it everything sold can sometimes be defective. I'm actually glad to see that marineland has modified their penguin filter bodies, well lids really. The older penguin filters tended to be pretty splashy as the wheels weren't covered. Both filters are good filters, however having owned and used both I'm staying on the aquaclear side of the fence.

[CoreyMac]

I THINK I have decided on the Emperor 280 made by marineland. I like the biowheel, I like the extra slots for media. Petsmart.com has em for 35.99 as opposed to almost $80.00 in the store. I'll be doing the price match. My question now concerns these things that I saw that are called bio-balls. I didn't take a long look at them, but from what I can see that's just more SA for good-guy bacteria. Is this correct? How about a bio-bag? I saw these and see that you can add things in for chemical filtering. This normally isn't necessary for a tank that appears to be in fine working order, correct? Also, jm1212, does the sponge from the aquaclear fit in percectly? I don't know much about the sponge. If there is a certain size, which size should I get?

[Shane Reynolds]

You can make most anything fit, bro, but that Emperor should handle everything just fine. I would let it run for a month or so before I thought about adding anything outside of its regular cartridge and Bio-Wheel, though it might be nice to put some Chemi-Pure or Purigen in that media bay. If you really feel you need more SA, I would look at Seachem Matrix first - buy that cheap $1.69 bag at PetsMart and print out the page on the Emperor and the Matrix before you go so they will price match those. You really don't need the bag but it just makes it handy later.

FYI, I think I'm going to get one of those HOT Magnum filters to use periodically for water polishing. I get these dang floating white particles that I cannot identify and so far, nothing has gotten rid of them. I tried some coagulants (spelling?) but that was messy.

Happy filtering!

[DrussRob]

I've had several marineland HOB filters (emporors and penguins) and they've all been poo so far. The whispers are, well... decent I guess. I also have a fluval canister and it's basically useless. I myself have been toying with the idea of trying an AC filter.

I've also been interested in learning a bit about those cascade filters by penn-plax I think. I haven't really heard much about them.