what the quietest hob filter?
- Thread starter cornbread_5
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For HOBs, I run nothing but Aquaclear 110s with ATI Filter Max IIIs as prefilters. Less risk of sand making its way into the impeller and adds another area for mechanical and biological filtration. They are fairly quiet, especially compared to my 2 sumps.
Air drive HOBs are still available today, but repackaged as breeder or nursery box. I just bought one from Marina
https://www.bigalspets.com/marina-hang-on-breeding-boxes.html?sku=1888
The Supreme Superking had been the standard for decades until the 1980s when the magnetic drive HOBs have perfected the design and drove the direct drive HOBs to extinction. The limitation of any HOB is the media capacity, not the pumping capacity. Direct drive HOBs pumped a lot more water than its media capacity which clogged up qu ickly and began to sound like constantly flushing the toilet.
I have no doubt that Aquaclear is the most popular and satisfactory HOBs. My preference is Penguin though because I can place the tank closer to the wall, and restarting Penquin in power surge is more reliable than Whisper or Aquaclear. Just about all my HOBs are Penquin so i can standardize filter pad size. I bought media basket from Marineland and I cut my own from poly batting for pennies.
Hello; Yes to the flow of the direct drive. I eventually found that a bed of glass marbles under a layer or two of filter floss to do well.
i would have to say my aqueon quietflows are the quietest i've ever used, i've used ac110, emperor 280,400 and penguin 200s. the aqueon qf pumps are inside the tank which is also nice because there's no problem with priming like the emperors which will make loud noises when trying to prime. just my $.02
i am using ac110s on all my tanks and two i have are way noiser than the others. i changed the impellers on them and still noises. so i am not sure what it is
I always thought penguin and emperor where basically the same. also what do you use as media in your penguin
Have you checked the shaft, if it is crooked, sliding a new impeller on it will not balance it.
They are both made by Marineland. Penguin has simple design except for the biowheel gimmick. Emperor has a complicated design with double impeller and power nozzle gimmicks that created more parts to make noise and go wrong. I buy polyester batting from Joanne Fabric to cut my pads to fit the media basket sold by Marineland.
