What kind of filter?

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Zardra77

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Apr 30, 2009
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I'm in the planning stages of my 40 gallon breeder, I know I will have live plants but it will be a fish tank with plants. So far the only fish I know I'm putting in is my male bn pleco, he's in a temporary 10 gallon and really that is way to small for him.

I was going to get a emperor 400 bio wheel filter but now I'm leaning towards a canister filter. Does anyone have any suggestions for a quiet canister filter for this tank? Should I just go with the HOB? The ease of maintenance is nice but, in the long run the replacement cartridges add up, so cost of the canister up front maybe be cheaper in the long run.
 
I haven't run a canister fitler before, so I am not sure on that part. But I do have some advice if you want to run the penguin filter. To save on replacing cartridges you can use the filter material that gets used for the Fluval (used to be Aquaclear) filters. The foam inserts can be squeezed out once a week and the biobag shaken in tank water to release build up. If you keep up on maintenance on these they can last a good while. I think I had my foam insert for 2 years before I needed to replace it. This gives you the benefit of the biowheel and the biobag and the foam as well. It takes maybe 5 minutes to do filter maintenance in this way.
 
I had some customers that had been keeping fish for 30+ years and had never thought of it either. I definitely wouldn't have come up with it on my own either, if it weren't for my boss who had a tendency to DIY everything I wouldn't even know to do it :p
 
Lol yep I've been keeping fish for about 30 years. I've seen other types of diy filter hacks but nothing on these.
 
If it's a HOB you want, I'd recommend an AquaClear 70 for your 40B. For a canister, I like my Sunsun 302 and my Marineland C360. You can't go wrong with an Eheim classic either. Maybe a 2217 for your 40B. Sponge bubbler fitlers or small internals are nice for secondary/backup as well.
 
Well, Freshy just about covered all the filters I would recommend, but also look into the MarineLand HOT Magnum. A favorite of mine.
 
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I'm definitely leaning toward a canister filter, I haven't even looked at sunsun or heard of them for that matter lol.

How are they on noise and difficulty of priming? That's my main concern with a canister.
 
My sunsun 302 has been flawless. It was ~$45 shipped to my door with media, 3yrs ago. If fact, I broke it down and cleaned it yesterday. It's silent and I've never had an issue getting it to prime after I take it apart to clean it. The key to keeping canisters reliable and leak free is to carefully clean and silicone grease (plumber's grease) the seals every time you service it. Even though I only have to clean my canisters every 3 months, I still HATE doing it. For this reason, I tend to recommend you still run a HOB filter along with your canister. This way, the super easy to clean HOB takes the majority of the debris (mechanical filtration) load. That's my opinion on it anyway. I can lift the basket out of one of my aquaclear HOBs and squeeze/swish out the media and have the filter back up and running in about 1min. A canister cleaning takes me about 30min. Tons more parts and a lot more detail required.
 
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