Another canister?

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freak78

freak78

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Jan 25, 2013
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Northwest, Indiana
So three months ago I ditched my penguin 350s in favor of two Aquaclear 110s. One of the Aquaclear impellers keeps stopping which stops the pump. I've tried everything to keep it working but after about a day or two it will be stopped again. Now I'm thinking about just taking off the Aquaclears and getting another FX-6 or the 406 from Fluval. Any suggestions?
 
if your AC110 impeller is stopping then there is something in the impeller chamber making this happen, take it out, put the media in a bucket of tank water and take it apart and clean it, inspect the impeller for wear and the impeller chamber.
as an FYI best combo for a fish tank is a HoB and canister setup.
 
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You may be ditching the wrong filter. IME, Penquin is the most reliable restarter relative to Whisper and Aquaclear. I only have to clean the Penquin impeller once every 4 to 6 months to assure restarting. For Aquaclear and Whisper, I had to do it more frequently, Whisper being the worst. Switching from HOB to canister may not improve as cleaning a canister is a PIA.
 
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again a combo of both is best, I have AC110 and 70ies some well over 5 years old and never an issue, with any filter, maintenance a must, not just the media but the whole filter .
 
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The point of a HoB and canister combo is your are using 2 dif type filters, ones a mech filter, this is your HoB do to its higher water turn over and ease of cleaning, but is limited in its media capacity and water flow to fast to fully process the water. on the other hand it will remove most of the particultes from the water before your canister there by re leaving allot of that from the canister and gunking it up. Canister a much better bio filter, larger media capacity with a lower water turn over means processing of the water, ie ammonia, is allot more efficient per GPH.
 
Ok I'll stick with this set up. These filter are only 3 months old and I purchased brand new. Today is tank maintenance day so I'll take it apart and clean it. I have nothing bad to say about penguins, I have 5 of them downstairs on my grow out tanks. I just wanted the Aquaclears for the added media I can add to them.
 
pops said:
The point of a HoB and canister combo is your are using 2 dif type filters, ones a mech filter, this is your HoB do to its higher water turn over and ease of cleaning, but is limited in its media capacity and water flow to fast to fully process the water. on the other hand it will remove most of the particultes from the water before your canister there by re leaving allot of that from the canister and gunking it up. Canister a much better bio filter, larger media capacity with a lower water turn over means processing of the water, ie ammonia, is allot more efficient per GPH.
Click to expand...

True, HOBs are good for mechanical, but bad for biological because of small media volume; whereas canister is good for biological, but bad for mechanical because it is PIA to clean. Interestingly, all vendors claim their products are good for all three filtration, which is marketing gimmick. If you intend to use the canister for biological only, you can fill it with bio balls only so you never need to clean it. I have thin substrate in my tanks that houses plenty of BB so I have no need to run a dedicated biological filter.
 
having a thin substrate is no replacement for a canister filter/ bio filter. get no more results than you would with a thick substrate. water flow is only going to hit whats top, thick or thin, on my 180 I have 6" crushed gravel on a reversed UG system, duel bottom drilled, running 2 pumps. pushing 2400 gph with 9" foam filters on the intakes. this the only time I can say your gravel "may' be good for bio filtration.
 
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