Im going to start off the thread by saying if you are a diehard fan of either filter this is not the place to voice your praise or disgust for one or the other.
Also in this thread I am only covering the AC110 AKA AC500 and the Emperor 400. These are the two Ive had the most experience with and the two that get covered the most here.
I am currently running one of each on my tank and am very happy. I am merely gonna list some pros and cons Ive found between each to help others decide between the two.
Lets start off with initial set-up. The AC wins here hands down. Unpack the media, it simply presses into the basket put the u tube in and the extensions comes with two, if you have a tank taller than 24" you will want to buy another extension if you want the filter to sit next to the substrate. Fill with water and plug in.
The Emperor Is a little more difficult. The impeller housing has to be assembled the extension for the u tube is far too long for most tanks and will need to be cut. I prefer to have the intake up higher where its less likely to draw in sand so I simply did not use any extension. Now you think the filter is set-up and ready t go fill with water and plug in, you hear a horrible noise. This is normal. The impeller housing is not seated properly. Start over make sure the impeller is situated and the housing firmly pressed down and try again. Now you have to adjust the spraybars for the biowheels. All in all the Emperor takes an additional 20-25 minutes more to set-up than the AC.
Now you have it running a HUGE deciding factor in a filter for me NOISE. I sleep 6 ft away from the tank and have trouble sleeping to begin with. A noisy filter drives me insane!
Initially the AC is much more quiet than the emperor.
This evens out in a week or two. As the parts settle in the emperor and the biowheels load up it will get near silent!
Six months later the emperor will still be running silent, but if running sand, and you put the intake too low on the AC you will be ordering a new impeller while the Emperor is still chugging away silently.
Clear winner here is the emperor.
Now for media. The AC holds more, Much Much more. You have room to run two large sponges for mech, or a sponge and 2 litres of biomedia, etc its very flexible and cheap to maintain.
The emperor comes with two pads that contain carbon, two empty media trays and two biowheels. This is more than enough to run a stock 30g tank by itselfs, but nowhere near the capacity of the AC. Each empty media container can hold roughly 0.5 litre of biomedia or carbon. The mechanical pads can be very easily rebuilt (I do this by utting out the restrictive mesh, and rplacing the blue pad with a two layer bonded pad. Regardless this is much more expensive than rinsing out a sponge once a month.
AC wins this round.
Now for filtration capability. With the media that comes with the filters.
Mechanical hands down the emperor. The blue pads filter out much finer particles thaan the course sponge in the AC.
Bio, gotta give it to the AC with the biomax provided Ive had better luck. I would feel comfortable running this alone on a normally stocked 55g where the Emperor i would fell comfortable running it alone on a normally stocked 30g.
Chemical Emperor again. It can hold another litre of chemical filtration without sacrificing any biomedia.
Ease of maintenance, Ill leave this up to you but leave a brief description of each. The AC can be left on. Simply pull the basket out keep the biomedia wet in tank water, and rinse out a sponge. If you are running chemical refill your media bag rinse it out and toss it in.
On the emperor it looks easy, rinse or replace the cartridges, well not quite. The impeller housing gets gunked up, as do the spraybars. The spraybars need to be removed and cleaned out with the brush included, the impeller housing needs to be cleaned out and reassembled. I find that in my tank I have to do this once a week, its a hassle.
The Aquaclears impeller gets cleaned once every month or so for good measure, I think Ive been clear on the fact that with a sand substrate the impeller in the AC will not hold up, and while there are mods out there that will fix this problem, its still a hassle.
Durability, well I have had problems with both. When I bought the emperor I got three defective units before getting one that worked. Thats scary. With The AC i got about 5-6 months out of the first impeller shaft. Also scary.
One thing is to be said tho. The customer service of both companies is good and they will try to take care of the situation.
Price. The emperor is cheaper initially, but you will pay that back ten fold in media.
The AC is roughly twice the price retail, but the sponge will last you a year or so and is the same price of two emperor pads, recommended replacement of a month, The biomax, and biowheels will both last the life of the filters so not much to compare there.
Last thing Ill cover is oxygenation. The emperor shoots the water over a biowheel, and has much more contact time with outside air. The AC disrupts the surface of the water better, but the top is solid and does not allow for alot of contact time with outside air.
The downside to this, with the new slotted tops on the emperor there is alot of evaporation. I lose a good 5 gallons every 3 days.
If your in the market its totally up to you. I bought one of each, I dont like one over the other enough to be a fan of either, If I did it over again I wouldnt buy either, but rather another canister.
Also in this thread I am only covering the AC110 AKA AC500 and the Emperor 400. These are the two Ive had the most experience with and the two that get covered the most here.
I am currently running one of each on my tank and am very happy. I am merely gonna list some pros and cons Ive found between each to help others decide between the two.
Lets start off with initial set-up. The AC wins here hands down. Unpack the media, it simply presses into the basket put the u tube in and the extensions comes with two, if you have a tank taller than 24" you will want to buy another extension if you want the filter to sit next to the substrate. Fill with water and plug in.
The Emperor Is a little more difficult. The impeller housing has to be assembled the extension for the u tube is far too long for most tanks and will need to be cut. I prefer to have the intake up higher where its less likely to draw in sand so I simply did not use any extension. Now you think the filter is set-up and ready t go fill with water and plug in, you hear a horrible noise. This is normal. The impeller housing is not seated properly. Start over make sure the impeller is situated and the housing firmly pressed down and try again. Now you have to adjust the spraybars for the biowheels. All in all the Emperor takes an additional 20-25 minutes more to set-up than the AC.
Now you have it running a HUGE deciding factor in a filter for me NOISE. I sleep 6 ft away from the tank and have trouble sleeping to begin with. A noisy filter drives me insane!
Initially the AC is much more quiet than the emperor.
This evens out in a week or two. As the parts settle in the emperor and the biowheels load up it will get near silent!
Six months later the emperor will still be running silent, but if running sand, and you put the intake too low on the AC you will be ordering a new impeller while the Emperor is still chugging away silently.
Clear winner here is the emperor.
Now for media. The AC holds more, Much Much more. You have room to run two large sponges for mech, or a sponge and 2 litres of biomedia, etc its very flexible and cheap to maintain.
The emperor comes with two pads that contain carbon, two empty media trays and two biowheels. This is more than enough to run a stock 30g tank by itselfs, but nowhere near the capacity of the AC. Each empty media container can hold roughly 0.5 litre of biomedia or carbon. The mechanical pads can be very easily rebuilt (I do this by utting out the restrictive mesh, and rplacing the blue pad with a two layer bonded pad. Regardless this is much more expensive than rinsing out a sponge once a month.
AC wins this round.
Now for filtration capability. With the media that comes with the filters.
Mechanical hands down the emperor. The blue pads filter out much finer particles thaan the course sponge in the AC.
Bio, gotta give it to the AC with the biomax provided Ive had better luck. I would feel comfortable running this alone on a normally stocked 55g where the Emperor i would fell comfortable running it alone on a normally stocked 30g.
Chemical Emperor again. It can hold another litre of chemical filtration without sacrificing any biomedia.
Ease of maintenance, Ill leave this up to you but leave a brief description of each. The AC can be left on. Simply pull the basket out keep the biomedia wet in tank water, and rinse out a sponge. If you are running chemical refill your media bag rinse it out and toss it in.
On the emperor it looks easy, rinse or replace the cartridges, well not quite. The impeller housing gets gunked up, as do the spraybars. The spraybars need to be removed and cleaned out with the brush included, the impeller housing needs to be cleaned out and reassembled. I find that in my tank I have to do this once a week, its a hassle.
The Aquaclears impeller gets cleaned once every month or so for good measure, I think Ive been clear on the fact that with a sand substrate the impeller in the AC will not hold up, and while there are mods out there that will fix this problem, its still a hassle.
Durability, well I have had problems with both. When I bought the emperor I got three defective units before getting one that worked. Thats scary. With The AC i got about 5-6 months out of the first impeller shaft. Also scary.
One thing is to be said tho. The customer service of both companies is good and they will try to take care of the situation.
Price. The emperor is cheaper initially, but you will pay that back ten fold in media.
The AC is roughly twice the price retail, but the sponge will last you a year or so and is the same price of two emperor pads, recommended replacement of a month, The biomax, and biowheels will both last the life of the filters so not much to compare there.
Last thing Ill cover is oxygenation. The emperor shoots the water over a biowheel, and has much more contact time with outside air. The AC disrupts the surface of the water better, but the top is solid and does not allow for alot of contact time with outside air.
The downside to this, with the new slotted tops on the emperor there is alot of evaporation. I lose a good 5 gallons every 3 days.
If your in the market its totally up to you. I bought one of each, I dont like one over the other enough to be a fan of either, If I did it over again I wouldnt buy either, but rather another canister.
