GREAT FILTERS AT A GREAT PRICE, CAN'T BEAT THEM!!!!!!!!!!! The bio-wheel on these things is great. My water is always clear and never cloudy. Much better than an aquaclear, tetra etc. At least the other filter brands including the previous ones have never done as good a job as my bio-wheel.
I have an aquclear mini, and hte penguin 170 on my 20 gallon. I will be soon gettin a cannister and i want to make a wet/dry filter also. So there really isnt such thing as too much filtration. I really like my 170, the only thing i like better about the AC is the media basket.
I had one biowheel 330 in a 55 gallon that was probably a little overstocked. For the life of me I could not get rid of ammonia traces. So I added a second 330 and it was Gone....... I would say yes it does make that much of a difference. Turns out that the ammonia was coming from a UGF that I removed when I upgraded to my 100. it was an inch thick layer of fish crap. for it to keep the ammonia levels down with that much crap it there it must have been doing the job pretty well. I left some of that crap in there to begin the recycle process and without a filter on it the ammonia levels quickly rose to 2.0 ppm. Those same filters kept my new 100 gallon under control and I only do waterchanges once a week when my nitrates get high.
Andy gotta agree with you there the media baskets on the penguins SUCK! I just wish I could put some more poly floss in mine. Thats why I want the cannister. My water is not as clear as it could be, of course I dont use carbon either.
i use an emperor 400 on a 50g. we'll see how clear the water ends up, because this tank is relatively new. the penguin 170 i had on a 20g never satisfied me. the water was always cloudier than tanks i had comparable aquaclears on. i gave that filter for my father to use on his tank, and he took off the biowheel hoping maybe the water will clear up. who knows?
yea dude, aquaclears have space for just about anything you can imagine. i just ran mine with the sponge though, and the water was crystal clear and all the bad stuff were at nonexistant levels. suffice it to say, if i were buying a filter right now for something, i would probably head in that direction.
actually, my only complaint about the aquaclears filters is that they seem to jam up pretty easily. take a little java moss, or another piece of a plant that broke off and got sucked up, and the impeller just stops. that happened about three times over a six month period, while that's never happened with any other filters i've used. even the cheap whispers i've had will slow to a trickle, but they won't completely jam up.
People always say they like aquaclears best because of the size of the media basket, but who cares how big it is? Nothing you put in there is going to filter the water as good as a bio-wheel, and all the junk you can put in there like zeolite you dont need anyway. You can put filter floss in penguins and emperors (I have floss in my emperor, and will in the penguin) just like aquaclears. You could probably even stuff a sponge in there if you wanted. Im not saying I dont like aquaclears because I do, I currently run 3, but a bigger media basket isnt better than having a bio-wheel.
the thing I dont like is that the penguins have those media baskets that hang in the back of the filter instead of forcing the water to go through them like aquaclears do. ROLLIN do you just line the bottom with it and pack it in there? Do you use filter cartridges? I was going to fill the inside of the filter with poly floss but I was worried that the impeller might get caught up in it.
