I'm setting up a 75 gallon african cichlid tank with a sand bottom. I've always had Aquaclear and I like them but Iveven been seeing more and more reviews about the Sun sun. I'm looking for people's opinion who have used both and what they prefer. Thank you in advance
Aquaclear 110 or Sun sun HW304B?
- Thread starter JeromeFuller
- Start date
Thanks Cichla. That's not a bad idea actually. I'm currently running 2 FX5 on my 125 community tank which I'm moving towards getting it planted. My 75 will be strictly African. I bought about 20 yellow tail Aceii from a guy when they were .5" then also got about 15 yellow labs .5". They are all in my 55 currently while I set up the 75 and get it going. I'll use the current 3 aquaclear 70's to seed the new tank and all of the sand from the 55 will also go into the 75.
Some people experience issues when having sand with ac110. Depends on granularity of the sand and how low you have the intake. There are lots of good reviews for both. I will say it will come down to type of maintenance you want to deal with. I moved from FX5 to multiple ac110s just because they were much much easier to clean. For my 180g, I moved to 3 ac110s but cut the spongers in half to fit more bio, and found they held more bio than my fx5. However, I was understocked.
I will never use a 110 on a tank with fine sand again. Unless the tank was somewhere I didn't care about the noise the 110 will make when just a lil bit of sand gets sucked up
Both of those filters are excellent, but any hang-on-back style is going to be an issue when sand substrate is used. It's just the design of them. All intake water has to pass through the impeller, where on canisters, the return water passes through the impeller, so the sand is already taken out before it's hits the pump/impeller.
Even when pre-filters are used on HOB intakes, I've STILL gotten sand in the darn things. All it takes is a few pesky grains to wipe out an impeller assembly.
Even when pre-filters are used on HOB intakes, I've STILL gotten sand in the darn things. All it takes is a few pesky grains to wipe out an impeller assembly.
I would use a LONG PVC pipe with lots of holes drilled in then covered in some fine sponge to spread the suction and hopefully greatly minimise chances of getting sand in. I always vouch for the AC110, mine is amazing
It definitely will and at about the same (online) price as an AC110. Best option IMO, is to run both of these filters on a 75g tank.
The other good thing about the sun sun is the surface skimmer on the intake tube, I thought it was hokey at first, but it really does a good job. The downside to the skimmer is you have to remove it when doing water changes otherwise air gets introduced into the canister and it stops pumping.