Ok so this is the story of the filter.
I brought the fx5 off ebay years ago. It was seconf hand and really cheap, the add said that its didnt come with hoses. When i picked it up i realized there was no hoses as mentioned but there was also no intake or out put, no pipping, no hoses clamps or none of the adapters that connect the hoese to the can. The add was a little misleading but what ever. I placed an order for all the missing part hoping to get the fx5 to my tank and replace my sunsun. Anyway by the time i got the parts delivered to Australia it was quite expensive. So i excitedly set the filter up to test it out after hearing rave reviews about it and the flow that was coming out was very weak! I played around with the hoses to see if an improvement but nothing, just really weak flow. When i first got the filter home i was cleaning it and the sponges were all full of sand so i came to the conclusion that the impeller was probably burt out so i ordered a new, once again being quiet expensive to have it shipped to Australia. Put in th ene impeller expecting to see a big improvement in the flow but nothing.....still had the same weak flow. I even did a side by side test with the old and new impeller and they both produced the same amount of flow. I was very dissapointed. By this stage ive had this filter sitting round for a few months collecting dust and the amount of ca$h on this second hand filter + parts i roughly the same as what could have brought me a brand new fx5 and inflated Australian prices. It was around about this time i shut my tank down and moved to Canada to snowboard for a season..... 4.5 years later im still here haha.
I still have my tank and all accessories in storage back in Oz. Im heading home in a month due to visa's being up but i have an application in for permanent residency and im hoping to be back in canada in a few months but there is a chance that residency will be denied and i will be back in Australia permanently. If i find myself permanently back Oz the main this i would want to do is set my tank back up and get back into the hobby hence why i want to get my fx5 running as cheap as possible, i figuar replacing the whole should solve all my problems? this would mean everything aprt from the actual canister and media trays would be pretty much brand new.
I an familiar with thoses universal travel adaptors just wonder would the be safe to uses lone term?