Tidal vs Aqua clear

[Guppysnail]

I woke up to 2 aquaclear on the same tank overheated not restarting and and 4 others shut down because of last nights power outage  Thank goodness for the coop sponge filters being in place. On most tanks and on all my backup air supplies. Coop again saves my fish. After years of the non self starting and clog overflows from aquaclear I am done with them. Do the seachem tidal work similar? I have read a bit about them but want some opinions on user friendly durable and your experience before I replace all 6 aquaclears please thank you

Edited September 2, 2021 by Guppysnail

[Scott P.]

I have a Tidal 55. That was one of the selling points for me, no need to prime.

It does have a surface skimmer, I hot glued a piece of nylon screen over mine.

The basket to service media is nice. I have had mine about three months, so far I like it.

[laritheloud]

I have a Tidal 55 as well! I use it on my 29 gallon, but I'm still too much of a coward to remove my Aquaclear 50 from the tank (it's been like this for two months.... side-by-side filters set on low flow). I absolutely adore it. The basket is really deep, the self-priming mechanism sells it for me. Pre-filter sponges are a very snug fit but they work. Sometimes the 'clog' knob will rise up and signal a clog even if there isn't one (like, the day after a cleaning). Just push and fiddle with the media a bit and that usually works for me.

As far as the surface skimmer goes, I cut a piece of filter media bag/fine mesh and just tuck it into the slots. I don't glue it down so I can clean it and replace it occasionally. Works great!

[Atitagain]

I don’t use but 1 HOB and it’s a came with combo piece o trash. Just wanted to say sorry to hear about your troubles. Power outages scare me cause of the restart and I have so many heaters plugged in. Good luck 👍 

[Scott P.]

One more thing to keep in mind. It only comes with a fairly coarse sponge and a bag of bio-rocks

I also ordered Seachems polishing pads. I cut out filter sponges of different ppi and stack them.

The one that came with the filter in first, followed by a finer sponge, then filter floss, then the polishing pad. My bag of bio-rocks on top.

[anewbie]

I had an aquaclear. While I did not love the beast I never had to prime it for it to work and it never had trouble restarting on its own so I have to question why you are having issues in that area. Having said that given my dislike for the beast if i were to use a hob again (not likely since my smaller tanks use matten filters and my larger ones canisters or sumps); i would try the tidal. In my case smaller is less than 100 gallons; and larger is well greater than 100 gallons.

-

Here is a 29 and a 40 with a matten filter in case that appeals to you; I insert the heater behind the matten filter.

Edited September 2, 2021 by anewbie

[Guppysnail]

On 9/2/2021 at 9:34 AM, anewbie said:

I had an aquaclear. While I did not love the beast I never had to prime it for it to work and it never had trouble restarting on its own so I have to question why you are having issues in that area. Having said that given my dislike for the beast if i were to use a hob again (not likely since my smaller tanks use matten filters and my larger ones canisters or sumps); i would try the tidal. In my case smaller is less than 100 gallons; and larger is well greater than 100 gallons.

It is rare that aquaclear restart they are not self priming. Once in a blue moon I get lucky and they start on their own. The lack of self priming is most folks hated feature of aquaclear. If the power only stops momentarily it’s ok. Several hours it’s miserable 

[laritheloud]

@anewbie Aquaclears will not restart on their own if the basket drains of water (which it usually does juuuuuust enough when the power goes out; you have to manually refill the basket for it to start pumping again). The impeller has a tendency to get clogged easily and not work at all. So that, in combination with filling up the basket with tank water manually, multiple plug ins/unplugging make it unintuitive to prime and restart after a power outage, because it can fool you into thinking it shorted out.

[Guppysnail]

On 9/2/2021 at 9:29 AM, Scott P. said:

One more thing to keep in mind. It only comes with a fairly coarse sponge and a bag of bio-rocks

I also ordered Seachems polishing pads. I cut out filter sponges of different ppi and stack them.

The one that came with the filter in first, followed by a finer sponge, then filter floss, then the polishing pad. My bag of bio-rocks on top.

Thanks I have 2 drawers full of coopcoarse and poly pad I also intend to use existing media. I’m ready 😁

Edited September 2, 2021 by Guppysnail

[Guppysnail]

On 9/2/2021 at 9:38 AM, laritheloud said:

@anewbie Aquaclears will not restart on their own if the basket drains of water (which it usually does juuuuuust enough when the power goes out; you have to manually refill the basket for it to start pumping again). The impeller has a tendency to get clogged easily and not work at all. So that, in combination with filling up the basket with tank water manually, multiple plug ins/unplugging make it unintuitive to prime and restart after a power outage, because it can fool you into thinking it shorted out.

This is exactly why I am replacing them on the tanks I use them in. 

[Guppysnail]

On 9/2/2021 at 9:34 AM, anewbie said:

I had an aquaclear. While I did not love the beast I never had to prime it for it to work and it never had trouble restarting on its own so I have to question why you are having issues in that area. Having said that given my dislike for the beast if i were to use a hob again (not likely since my smaller tanks use matten filters and my larger ones canisters or sumps); i would try the tidal. In my case smaller is less than 100 gallons; and larger is well greater than 100 gallons.

-

Here is a 29 and a 40 with a matten filter in case that appeals to you; I insert the heater behind the matten filter.

I have read about these filters and how awesome they are. If I were younger this is the route I would choose. As it is I want easy at this age and learning an entire new system and redoing 6 tanks is a no go. I plan on just sticking to my canisters and hobs and every trusty coop sponges. But thank you for this info. Again I read about a little and think they are great

[Guppysnail]

On 9/2/2021 at 9:21 AM, Atitagain said:

I don’t use but 1 HOB and it’s a came with combo piece o trash. Just wanted to say sorry to hear about your troubles. Power outages scare me cause of the restart and I have so many heaters plugged in. Good luck 👍 

Thanks. I am fortunate and very blessed the worst ida did was knock power out. My home is built in a hill thankfully.  I feel awful complaining about my nonsense when so many folks were struck so tragically 😢

[Mmiller2001]

I've had some motor noise problems, but their customer service was great and sent me 2 motors and eventually a whole new unit. 

I would not run a tidal on a shrimp tank.

[ACW]

As others have said, some sort of filter material on the tidal's surface skimmer is a must for tanks with shrimp and/or fry. On the other hand, it cleared up a mild duckweed problem I'd been fighting.

[Scott P.]

On 9/2/2021 at 12:55 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

I've had some motor noise problems, but their customer service was great and sent me 2 motors and eventually a whole new unit. 

I would not run a tidal on a shrimp tank.

Why is that?

[Mmiller2001]

On 9/2/2021 at 11:27 AM, Scott P. said:

Why is that?

The skimmer will chew them up without modification. 

Edited September 2, 2021 by Mmiller2001

[Scott P.]

On 9/2/2021 at 1:37 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

The skimmer will chew them up without modification. 

I agree with that. I covered mine with nylon screen and a pre-filter sponge on the intake.

 

[StevesFishTanks]

I have a few of the tidals in size 55 and 110 they work great.

[Zenzo]

I wish there was a perfect HOB filter. The AquaClears are so close...but not perfect. I wish they did/had the following:

- Self-priming (biggest issue imo)

- More durable/flexible plastic

- Ability to adjust the hanging mechanism to fit multiple sized tank lips/rims

[anewbie]

On 9/2/2021 at 2:21 PM, Zenzo said:

I wish there was a perfect HOB filter. The AquaClears are so close...but not perfect. I wish they did/had the following:

 

- Ability to adjust the hanging mechanism to fit multiple sized tank lips/rims

Yea. I tried to put the one i had on my 40 on the 120 to increase circulation; and it wouldn't fit over the rim - i think it was an aquaclear 70. That really pissed me off.

[CT_]

On 9/2/2021 at 10:02 AM, ACW said:

As others have said, some sort of filter material on the tidal's surface skimmer is a must for tanks with shrimp and/or fry. On the other hand, it cleared up a mild duckweed problem I'd been fighting.

You can take the pump off, cram some sponge media behind the "skimmer" vents, and put the pump back in.  That takes care of the skimmer vents.  you can also get creative with a sheet of co-op filter sponge to protect the side vents and bottom of the tidal 35, which doesn't have the tube part to draw in water.

[Guppysnail]

On 9/2/2021 at 4:24 PM, CT_ said:

You can take the pump off, cram some sponge media behind the "skimmer" vents, and put the pump back in.  That takes care of the skimmer vents.  you can also get creative with a sheet of co-op filter sponge to protect the side vents and bottom of the tidal 35, which doesn't have the tube part to draw in water.

Thanks I may ask for how to on this when it gets here. I ordered one today to try it out. Waking up at 4 am to down filters overheated was just not fun 😟 I loved my aquaclears but I need self priming at this point in life. 

[Streetwise]

@Zenzo, have you seen the Dymax Slimflo filters? I love my SF-500 units. They don’t auto-drain, self-prime, have rugged plastic, adjustments for rim width, and fit a couple sizes of Aquaclear sponges. The symmetry was very important to my aesthetics.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KMKWCZJ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_K6G540N9VDPDBES7H7KB?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Tested and documented in that thread.

[Guppysnail]

On 9/2/2021 at 4:59 PM, Streetwise said:

@Zenzo, have you seen the Dymax Slimflo filters? I love my SF-500 units. They don’t auto-drain, self-prime, have rugged plastic, adjustments for rim width, and fit a couple sizes of Aquaclear sponges. The symmetry was very important to my aesthetics.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KMKWCZJ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_K6G540N9VDPDBES7H7KB?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Tested and documented in that thread.

Will this hold coop coarse? Are the media baskets large enough to hold considerable media? I like this. Is the flow soft or can it be slowed easily I didn’t see adjustments.  

[Streetwise]

@Guppysnail, I show the flow options in the thread, and you should be able to cut coarse sponge to fit. I downsized the Aquaclear foam since that thread was last updated. It also fits Co-Op pre-filter sponges.

You can also see it in my Indoor journal.