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I was just wondering what everyone's experience has been with using AquaClear filters on moderately/heavily planted tanks. The reason I'm asking is that I'm not having a very good experience using two AquaClear 30's on a 29g planted tank. I've been trying the various mixes of media with two sponges, one sponge and floss, etc., but it seems that the bottom sponge always becomes clogged after 4 or 5 days and the filter starts to overflow. I was thinking of moving to a cannister filter. Would that be better for a heavily planted tank?

Last edited by renoharps at 06-Aug-2005 08:23

Hi,
I have a heavily planted 30G tank with a "150" HOB filter.
The only media I use is a sponge and that is one that I
cut to fit from some sponge material. Its been running for
years and I have yet to have your problems.
I use a UGF with a power head and run the power head output
through my CO2 reactor and back into the tank. The runoff
from the filter combined with the output of the reactor
provides the currents for the tank.

I only have only 9 tetras in the tank though.

To me, a larger tank, say 55G would be where I'd consider
a canister filter, below that I'd use HOBs or a UGF or
both.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

renoharps,

I have an AC 300 (now 70) on my planted tank and it gives me no trouble what so ever. I use 2 sponges as media and rotate them during my weekly water change (bottom to top). The bottom one contains quite a bit of &#8220;debris&#8221; but not to a point where it hinders the water flow.

I have no experience with canisters on a small tank, but I wouldn&#8217;t know why you should not be able to use one. It might be a little over-kill though.

How come that there is so much debris in your tank? Are your plants loosing many leaves? How many fish are in there?

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Reno,

With each AC rated at 150 GPH, you have a heck of a lot of potential water turnover on your 29 gallon tank. It also sounds like you have quite a bot of leaf litter and other debris in your tank.

I'm afraid that your problem may be compounded by a cannister filter unless you use a pre-filter sponge on the intake of the cannister. The sponge pre-filter prevents debris from mucking up the inside of your cannister.

I use a pre-filter on my Eheim because I hate to break it down and clean it. The pre-filter sponge gets thoroughly squeezed and rinsed in tap water each week.

A simpler and less costly solutioon may be to vacuum your tank each week with your water changes.

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

I was thinking about putting some foam over the intake of my filters to pre-filter the larger debris. I was kinda scratching my head trying to figure out what was clogging the sponges, but it has to be leaf litter, although I don't have an excessive amount of leaves dying on any of my plants. I'm also doing weekly gravel vacs and not seeing very much, if any, debris being picked up either.

The maximum turnover rate for my tank with those two filters would be 10x, but I know the AquaClears are way overrated when it comes to their flow rate. As soon as the sponges start to fill up with debris, the flow rate starts going down. I figure I'm getting maybe a 7x turnover rate.

Last edited by renoharps at 08-Aug-2005 06:54

Reno,

Is it possible that you are being tooo gentle with the sponges? I wring the sponges out in waste water until the water runs clear. Well, nearly clear. The wringing action is violent and sadistic, but I want the buggers clean!

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

I'm also running AC's on my planted tanks. The only one that I have trouble with is the AC500 that's on the 30 @work...it's got its intake covered with nylon in an attmpt to prevent sand from getting into the intake. The nylon clogs almost on a daily basis so if you're using spong over the intake be prepaired not only for reduced flow (and more strain on the impeller) but also to give the intake sponge a rinse every few days.
I'm curious as to how your filters are clogging so quickly :%) I have a 150 on my 20 gallon @home that's the most planted and it's not yet clogged up once....and this is with only monthly maintence.

^_^[hr width='40%']"Has someone taken your faith? It's real, the [link=pain]http://babelfish.qwertydigital.com/" style="COLOR: #EB4288[/link] you feel.
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I&#8217;ve got another confession my friend, I&#8217;m no fool.
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I have an AC 300 (now 70) for 3 years in planted tank with mimimal fuss.. I toothpick a piece of sponge inside the pickup tube.. keeps the plant stuff out of the filter as well as slow the flow (good if you run co2) Helps the impellor last longer as it doesn't have to 'chew' on plant mulm.. and the media needs to be rinsed less.. I use 2 sponges inside. Has been recommended to me to use some filter floss under them

Currently took the intake tube sponge out to get more flow but will have to now clean the filter more often.

Side note: I will be replacing my Penguin mini with an Aquaclear mini.

The Amazon Nut...

Update.
I just bought a canister filter for my currenlty minimally planted tank, seems the thing causes more surface movement than the HOB I've got running on it :%)!

^_^[font color="#999999][hr width='40%']"When you try your best but you don't succeed. When you get what you want but not what you need
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Dabel,

If you have a spare piece of sponge around, try toothpicking a piece inside the intake tube of your hob..
Before I started doing that, I used nylon mesh outside the tube as you're doing, and found it clogged way too fast. Once a week rinse of the little sponge piece will work great, and you'll have to rinse your filter media less. Try it and see !



The Amazon Nut...

Well I had an AC 200 (now 50) on my 32g planted... (it came with the tank). I think i needed the 300 (now 70) but it wouldnt fit thru the cut out on my hood I dont think. Lets just say I hated the AC. The flow from it went down into the tank and pushed plants aside and the plants that were right underneath the filters outflow didnt grow to well. And I noticed it clogged up fairly easily. It was a mess to clean out and a pain to change media with that annoying basket. I converted to a Fluval 204, and although many people think it is pointless to have a canister on anything below a 50g, I disagree. If you are willing to spend a bit extra on a filter go for a canister. Many people have had problems with fluvals but I have not had one problem yet. It is very easy to change media and clean out and its outflow does not flow down vertically like the AC and instead is move horizontally so it does not affect any plants. The ACs are good to have as a back up filter.

Do you have a Bristlenose of other algae eater in the tank that you are feeding veggies to? That could produce a lot of fiberous waste.

If yes, try placing a large pore sponge prefilter over the intake strainer. Clean it very vigourously at least once a week.

You must still clean the sponge elements inside the filter, and as Bob says, get physical with them.

Clean the bottom sponge really well and the top one a little more gently (in dechlorinated water). Then place them back into the basket in the reverse posiiton so teh one that was on top is now on the bottom. This will make sure each gets a really good clean out every other time, and will make sure you do not deplete your colony of good bacteria with any one filter servicing.

Heaven2,

Thanks, that's exactly what I did. I put foam over the intake which works great as a pre-filter and that fixed my problem.

Thanks to everyone else for the suggestions.

sorry i didn't read al the posts
i wouldn't think thered be a prob with having an aquaclear on a planted tank