I have both and for flowrates and media compartment space AC110 hands down. Don't get me wrong I still like the emp400 as it's a great filter. Only downfall is it's very noisy compared to the AC's.
Emperor 400 vs. AC110
- Thread starter xx WingZero xx
- Start date
AC 110 is a very good filter not for sand though the motors will get clogged up other than that it is very good
fcamargo6thave;3857329; said:
any filter can be damaged by sand if the proper precautions are not taken. this inludes things like, using a shorter intake if you have a deep sand bed or short tank, and using a foam prefilter over the intake. I have used AC110s with sand many times with no problems. It has nothing to do with the filter, and everything to do with the person operating it.
People use FX5s with sand all the time. And they have nearly twice the flowrate of an AC110.
bitteraspects;3857427; said:any filter can be damaged by sand if the proper precautions are not taken. this inludes things like, using a shorter intake if you have a deep sand bed or short tank, and using a foam prefilter over the intake. I have used AC110s with sand many times with no problems. It has nothing to do with the filter, and everything to do with the person operating it.
People use FX5s with sand all the time. And they have nearly twice the flowrate of an AC110.
Amen Brother!
I've owned Emperor 400's for roughly 10 years, and liked them very much.
The bio-wheel works, and is proven to work in independent lab tests.
If you want additional biofilter capacity, you can fill the media containers with ceramic rings, or whatever you want.
There are less expensive alternatives to the Marineland cartridges, including the Imagine cartridge, which has a reuseable frame which takes replaceable floss bags, similar to a Whisper. The beauty of this is that the reuseable frame can also accept homemade pads cut from a bulk roll of floss.
I did this for years, and could get roughly 10 pads from a $5 roll of floss, making the cost of operating the filter something like $1/month.
Mine were stone-axe reliable, the only thing I ever did to them was replace the impellers, roughly every 4 years. They never jammed, or stopped pumping water, but they would get noisey and rattley.
I never had one lose prime and fail to restart after a power outage.
The Emperor is made of a vastly tougher plastic than the Aqua Clear, and can withstand much more abuse. Aqua Clears parts frequently break if dropped, but I've never seen or heard of an Emperor component breaking.
Emperors appear to be made of a dense, slightly flexible plastic which resists breaking, some form of ABS perhaps?
The plastic used in Aqua Clear seems like the styrene used in model airplanes, very stiff and brittle.
I admire the basic design of the Aqua Clear, but the execution in what may be the cheapest plastic available completely spoils it for me.
I don't use HOB filters any more, but if I was going to, and if I wasn't going to use a Marineland, I'd buy a Whisper before an Aqua Clear.
The bio-wheel works, and is proven to work in independent lab tests.
If you want additional biofilter capacity, you can fill the media containers with ceramic rings, or whatever you want.
There are less expensive alternatives to the Marineland cartridges, including the Imagine cartridge, which has a reuseable frame which takes replaceable floss bags, similar to a Whisper. The beauty of this is that the reuseable frame can also accept homemade pads cut from a bulk roll of floss.
I did this for years, and could get roughly 10 pads from a $5 roll of floss, making the cost of operating the filter something like $1/month.
Mine were stone-axe reliable, the only thing I ever did to them was replace the impellers, roughly every 4 years. They never jammed, or stopped pumping water, but they would get noisey and rattley.
I never had one lose prime and fail to restart after a power outage.
The Emperor is made of a vastly tougher plastic than the Aqua Clear, and can withstand much more abuse. Aqua Clears parts frequently break if dropped, but I've never seen or heard of an Emperor component breaking.
Emperors appear to be made of a dense, slightly flexible plastic which resists breaking, some form of ABS perhaps?
The plastic used in Aqua Clear seems like the styrene used in model airplanes, very stiff and brittle.
I admire the basic design of the Aqua Clear, but the execution in what may be the cheapest plastic available completely spoils it for me.
I don't use HOB filters any more, but if I was going to, and if I wasn't going to use a Marineland, I'd buy a Whisper before an Aqua Clear.
I can say all those same things about my old cheapo Whisper filters: Never lost prime, DIY cartridges, denser plastic, etc... That doesn't mean that they come anywhere close to being as good as my AquaClear filters. The AC's may use clear plastic instead of black, but they still maintain their flow better & filter the water 1000 times better than those old Whispers ever did. The design is just far superior, without resorting to unnecessary complication (wheels, spraybars, dual impellers) like the Emperors. All that extra tech & we still dont have a clear winner? That says something...
Honestly, I don't have an AC110, so I can't speak directly about it. I have an AC50 and an emperor 400. Both of them really don't pose a problem with me. The emperor sometimes is noisy for like a few hours after first plugging it in, but then it quiets down. Some say the bio-wheels don't work, but I like them. The emperor also has room to customize media, you just have to be creative. Mine is crammed full of extra whisper filter pads I have laying around. And then there is the little box that comes in them that is supposed to be used for carbon, but I fill mine with more bio media. You can also fit a few scrubbies in there.
Throwing media behind the cartridge is useless. It is no more effective than adding more gravel to your tank. Because of the design, most of the water bypasses the media rather than flowing through It. You night as well just add the scrubbies in the tank. The AquaClear filters are designed like a canister with water flowing from the bottom, up through the media basket, ensuring contact with all the media in the basket.
Those grey cartridges are a good addition, but they simply don't hold much media at all. You can get a handful of media in them, but nowhere near the 4L of media you can fill an AquaClear with. the AC110 holds as much media as a comparable canister. (I fit all the media from one of my eheim 2227 into the basket of an AC110).
Those grey cartridges are a good addition, but they simply don't hold much media at all. You can get a handful of media in them, but nowhere near the 4L of media you can fill an AquaClear with. the AC110 holds as much media as a comparable canister. (I fit all the media from one of my eheim 2227 into the basket of an AC110).
