Hello, so I’ve been having this debate myself. I recently changed my AC 30 for a tidal 35. Everyone raves about the tidals but I’m not so sure I’m going to keep it. Both have great pros, and annoying cons. It all depends what you’re willing to put up with. Here are my thoughts based on my own personal experience.
The AC is pretty much perfect but for two things. 1) not self priming which is a huge problem if you have power outages often and 2) no real water flow control. It’s either strong or slightly less strong. I have a black water planted tank with lots of floating plants and this was a serious issue Every. Single. Day. Floating rings were never an option for me cause of protein films forming wherever there was no surface agitation and I had to find ways to dissipate the flow. Soap trays, driftwood, plants…I tried everything and nothing was a good enough solution. My floaters would always end up being pushed underwater.
I switched to the Tidal about two weeks ago and these are my cons so far. 1) it’s a visual eyesore. If you care about visual aesthetics, then this bulky black box will the a rock in your shoe on your daily walk. 2) It seems to get clogged every day so the water bypasses the filter and straight back into the tank. This is a serious problem. I don’t know if have too much media inside the basket maybe or what but this shouldn’t happen. I use the same matrix bag I used in my AC and the Sponge it came with a little filter floss.
These are my 2 biggest cons of each. So which to chose? It all depends which of these you’re willing to put up with. I feel the point of the “upgrade” to the Tidal was the piece of mind of self priming. However, if you have to clean the media almost everyday to avoid clogging, then there’s no real piece of mind is there? You go from hoping the power doesn’t go out ( a few times a year) to can’t leave home for more than a day or the filter stops working. Based on the above I’m undecided. Thoughts?