No, I don't use the extended intake tube. I think the AC110 intake is about a foot off the bottom of the aquarium. The Aqueon filter comes down lower, but I have it up as high as it will go.
AquaClear filter barely trickling
- Thread starter CarpCharacin
- Start date
https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/large-intake-sponge
These are really good on the ac110 there out of stock again he had 250 of them 2 days ago
These are really good on the ac110 there out of stock again he had 250 of them 2 days ago
I ordered some sponges like that on ebay, but I think the media bag over the intake is working. If it stops working, I'll put the sponge on it.
Hello; The carp is using a fine grain substrate called black diamond if I recall correctly from his other recent thread. He is trying pre filter stuff because the abrasive substrate is chewing up his impeller operated power filters.
Seems the effort will fail for the quotes cited here. To keep the substrate out of the filter guts means the pre filter material has to be fine enough and so will restrict water flow on their own and more so as the fine substrate clogs it up.
I also stopped using sand decades ago myself.
With sand some things can be done to make it useable, but not this approach I fear.
You could use the pre filter on the lower portion of the intake and drill some holes higher up to allow flow when the filter material gets clogged between cleaning. I am sure it would still be possible to get sand in the impeller, but less likely. If you kept the parts to the old filter you could experiment with the old intake tube.
I put some finer foam on the intake today, and it's working good so far. I much prefer the look of sand over gravel.
Have you thought about dialing down the flow rate so it won't suck sand? Another approach that has worked for my Penguin HOBs is to replace the impeller with one model lower.
I replaced my Penguin 370 impeller with Penquin 200 impeller that has smaller blades and pumps less water. The reason I did that is not because Penguin sucks sand, but smaller impeller runs quieter and the filter pads last longer. IMO, all HOBs pump more water than their filter media capacity so pumping less isn't a trade off of less filtration. AC is the power champion of all HOBs, pumping much stronger flow than comparable HOBs, and the only one complained for sucking sand. I have big cichlid blowing sand to my Penguin intakes, but I have never experienced sand intrusion problem.
I replaced my Penguin 370 impeller with Penquin 200 impeller that has smaller blades and pumps less water. The reason I did that is not because Penguin sucks sand, but smaller impeller runs quieter and the filter pads last longer. IMO, all HOBs pump more water than their filter media capacity so pumping less isn't a trade off of less filtration. AC is the power champion of all HOBs, pumping much stronger flow than comparable HOBs, and the only one complained for sucking sand. I have big cichlid blowing sand to my Penguin intakes, but I have never experienced sand intrusion problem.
