Disappointed in Marineland Emperor 400 filter impellers.

[A201]

I'm a big fan of Marineland Emperor filters. They are true work horses. I ran a Emperor 280 for 23 years. Never an issue with the impeller.

I eventually replaced the Emperor 280 with a couple of AC 110'S. After years of dealing with the noisy AC's, I decided to go back to the Marineland Emperor, and bought four Emperor 400's.

All went well for four or five months, then one by one the impellers began to fail. After replacing six impellers in as many months, I came to the conclusion that Marineland's new impellers are garbage and greatly inferior to the 23 y.o. impeller of my old Emperor 280.

The 400's impeller has a sliding, expansion joint located near the base fins, which slightly pull apart when in operation. The impeller breaks down when the expansion joint fails and pulls too far apart. Although the broken impeller still marginally functions, it makes a lot of noise and is far less efficient.

Evidently this is a common problem with Emperor 400 impellers. A fishkeeper - YouTuber found a solution to the problem.
Super gluing the upper and lower parts of the impeller together, which eliminates the sliding action of the expansion joint, makes the impeller one solid piece, which repairs the unit.

I superglued all six of my broken impellers as described above. I had four successes and two failures. The repaired impellers run quietly and efficiently. The resulting flow rate is even greater than before.

Why are the Marineland Emperor 400 impellers made with a unnecessary sliding expansion joint?

I used too much superglue on two of the impellers, which made them unbalanced & wobbly. My bad. Lol

We have all learned how to customize HOB filters to make them more efficient and economical simply by filling the media box with sponges and ceramic media, and never using the commercial replacement filter pads.

The manufacturers of HOB filters and replacement filter pads have probably suffered a huge monetary loss.

I spent $120 replacing six impellers for four relatively new Marineland 400's. I would hate to think that Marineland is purposely manufacturing subpar impellers, which necessitate replacement, just to increase profits.

Well guys, spending $5 on a tube of Reef superglue is far better than constantly spending $20 on a Marineland Emperor 400 replacement impeller.

 

[tiger15]

Have you ever thought about replacing the Emperor impeller with another brand. I run a dozen Marineland Penguin HOBs and all are still working after decades of use. The Penguin 350 impeller costs $11 from Marineland and has an impeller length of 65mm, and may fit your Emperor if the impeller length is the same. My Penguin is a workhorse, never fails, but after 4 or 5 years, the impeller starts to make noise due to wear out of the bushing. I used to replace with new impeller but now I fixed it by wrapping plumber tape on the bushing to stop the rocking noise. Not sure if you can fix the expansion joint of yours by wrapping with plumber tape.

I never want Emperor because it has a complicated design with spray bar and more parts to fail. Penguin is quiet and restarts reliably in power surge, but I only use it for mechanical and don't bother to install the biowheel. I also never buy the expensive Marineland cartridges but stuff the media box with cheap polyester batting from craft shop.

 

[A201]

I think the repaired Emperor impellers are good to go for the long haul. If one goes bad, I'll try one of the Penguins. It's amazing how much the water flow increased after repairing the impellers.

I really like the older Marineland HOB's and have been using them since the late 1980's.

Yeah the spray bars tend to be a hassle if they get clogged up and it's debatable if the bio wheels actually assist in filtration.

On a side issue, I tried out an Emperor 450 and was disappointed. I found that the expanded face of the filter caused fitting issues regarding a standard lid.

It worked fine for a few months and the self priming feature was nice.

I run sponge prefilters on all my Emperor intake tubes, and squeeze them out once a week during routine water changes. Unfortunately the 450's prefilter sponge evidently clogged up after only a few days causing the motor to burn up. Unbelievable.

I'll stick to the Old Emperors and maybe one of the bigger Penguins one day.

 

[tiger15]

I also prefer the older version Penguin 330 over the newer 350 version as the impeller assembly is simpler in design and easier to remove in case cleaning out the impeller is necessary. I also dislike the Pro version Penguin that sits the motor inside the tank as it is bulky to fit in tight space and can fall off from loose connection over time. Now that you said the internal motor was burnt out from running dry which would never happen with external motor designed to run dry and air cool. The self priming advantage of internal motor is just not worth the hassle.

 

[EricTheRed]

I have five aquariums with 2 to 3 HOBs on each. I ran mostly Emperor 400s for over a decade until the impellers began failing, one after another. I replaced a couple of them for about $20 an impeller on Amazon but was dissatisfied that the filters were also getting very difficult to restart after water changes. I gradually replaced some of the 400s with Tidal 110s and others with Marineland 450s starting about 3 years ago. Both brands are working fine but I prefer the Tidal 110s. They self prime and are easier to stuff with filter material than the 450s. I also have a single older AC 110 which filters a lot of water but needs to be closely monitored as it will overflow onto the floor if I wait too long to change the filter material. This has happened twice over the years. I have never had a Tidal 110 or Marineland product do that.

 

[A201]

Yeah, the AC 110's are good filters, but they do have their short comings.

As you noted, they have the overflow potential, not to mention the brittle plastic casing.
Mine were a little on the noisy side as well.

 

[tiger15]

Not sure what makes Tidal immune from overflowing as both AC and Tidal have similar up lifting flow design. Uplifting flow has the tendency to overflow or short circuit in clogged media, and this is why I prefer cartridge horizontal flow style.

 

[A201]

Although I live close to a rather big city with numerous fish stores, including several different Petsmart and Petco stores. None of them sell Tidal power filters. Apparently there is no demand for Tidals in my area.

There are plenty of Fluval, Marineland and store brands such as Top Fin and Aqueon. power filters available.

I don't like the upflow system of the AC's. I keep my old 110'S in storage as only emergency backups.

 

[EricTheRed]

Not sure what makes Tidal immune from overflowing as both AC and Tidal have similar up lifting flow design. Uplifting flow has the tendency to overflow or short circuit in clogged media, and this is why I prefer cartridge horizontal flow style.

The Tidal 110 is a much newer design and they use a different type of pad in this filter that doesn’t rise up in the basket and cause an overflow like the AC 110s do.