Anybody use them and if so what do you think about them? Looking to put one on my 90g for polishing water.
H.O.T. Magnum's
- Thread starter bayoupr
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I have one in my 20g because I wanted a canister filter and it was the only thing they had available. 250gph isn't enough to turn over your enough, but if you're just adding one as a secondary filter for water polishing, it should be great. I LOVE the gravel vac attachment too. My 20g long is a lot of ground to cover with not much water, so doing a gravel vac during a water change had to be done quick.... now I can actually take time and do it right. WELL worth the extra $10 or so.
As for the effeciency of the water polishing, the only thing I've used it for so far is helping remove gravel dust from Onyx Sand... and it did a good job of that.
As for the effeciency of the water polishing, the only thing I've used it for so far is helping remove gravel dust from Onyx Sand... and it did a good job of that.
It is a good little HOT filter, but can't touch a Vortex diatom filter for water polishing.
I use my Magnum for running carbon, and yep- the vacuumming ability is indeed a life saver. You can vacuum as long as you want without worrying that you're removing too much water.
But I have run it with the micron filter overnight, put in a clean micron filter and run it overnight again, and the results still couldn't come close to two hours with a Vortex as far as crystal clear water goes.
But the Magnum is 3 million times easier to use with than the Vortex so for many it is an acceptable trade off.
I use my Magnum for running carbon, and yep- the vacuumming ability is indeed a life saver. You can vacuum as long as you want without worrying that you're removing too much water.
But I have run it with the micron filter overnight, put in a clean micron filter and run it overnight again, and the results still couldn't come close to two hours with a Vortex as far as crystal clear water goes.
But the Magnum is 3 million times easier to use with than the Vortex so for many it is an acceptable trade off.
I like the HOT magnum as a filter, but mine hasn't run for 2 weeks. the reason being that its a pain in the arse to reseal the thing after i clean out the media. So it always leaks air and stops pumping in water. As far as polishing water i don't recomend it either, the filter (the white pool filter kind, cant remeber what they're called) clogs very quickly. I use a "system 1" diatom filter to polish and have absolutely no complaints about it.
Replace your gasket, ryan. Mine didn't even come with a gasket when I bought it, for whatever reason.... and the first night I got it running with a piece I tore off a plastic bag and some Silicon sealant. Not pretty, but it worked. After that, I bought a nice new red rubber gasket for it for $2.50 at my LFS and haven't had a seal problem since. If yours still won't seal even with a new gasket, try some silicon on it too.
Mine is older and tends to be a bit gurgly for the first 24 hours. I believe someone mentioned before that Marineland had a fix for that on the newer models, but not sure. I also use a Marineland reverse flow sponge on the intake which cuts down greatly on the amount of media chamber cleanings required. Overall I like it.
I have had them and I love em. They are easy to use but they don't polish like a diatom, but then what does. I recently bought two used HOT's from my lfs. I use one for cleaning and keep one around for a backup filter incase one of my other filters goes out.