Best, quietest HOB filter?

[tolstoy21]

On 2/29/2024 at 9:25 AM, Pepere said:

I originally bought and installed a Tidal 35 in my first 29 gallon tank. I think it is a ridiculously design piece of plastic masquerading as a filter.  In order for such a thing to filter, the water has to pass through media and not bypass the media. The Tidal 35 is little more than a pump to move water around the tank with precious little filtering taking place.

One of the best decisions I made was to chuck the Tidal 35 and replace it with a canister filter and flow bar.  Had I gone with the canister filter at the beginning, the money I spent on the Tidal 35 would have covered half of my canister filter cost.

My way of approaching the Tidal is to do away with the sponge and just put a bag of ceramic media in the bottom 50%, then fill the top 50% with Polyfill.

The action of the media chamber filling with water and emptying out does seem to pull water through that media, even if it does not routew to go directly through it.

If you look at how the AquaClear basket fits into an AquaClear, and where the openings/grate sit, the flow principal seems the same. The water gets directed inot the media chamber closer to the top and does not go directly through the sponge in the filter either (see pic).  However, the AC's work great and all evidence suggests a good deal of water still circulates through the media in the bottom. In fact, I have found in both filters that when the bottom sponge gunks up completely, it has a tendency to then push the top most media up out of the water. The ACs are worse at this as they sometimes push their whole basket upward, whereas the Tidals have that blue button to indicate, Hey man you might want to take a look at this and do some cleaning!

Experience and opinions vary from person to person, but this has been mine with both filters which I recommend equally, but for different reasons.

[Pepere]

On 2/29/2024 at 9:47 AM, tolstoy21 said:

Experience and opinions vary from person to person, but this has been mine with both filters which I recommend equally, but for different reasons.

The beauty of a free market economic system…. We all get to make our own decisions as to what we wish to purchase…

[tolstoy21]

On 2/29/2024 at 9:25 AM, Pepere said:

One of the best decisions I made was to chuck the Tidal 35 and replace it with a canister filter and flow bar.  Had I gone with the canister filter at the beginning, the money I spent on the Tidal 35 would have covered half of my canister filter cost.

Yeah, a cannister filter will outperform a HOB any day of the week. But that comes at cost and complexity, not that I have anything against canister filters. But it's like comparing a bulldozer to a bunch of guys with shovels.

On 2/29/2024 at 9:50 AM, Pepere said:

The beauty of a free market economic system…. We all get to make our own decisions as to what we wish to purchase…

Totally agree. This is why product reviews are good, evening knowing that every reviewer experiences and interacts with thew product differently.

[Pepere]

On 2/29/2024 at 9:50 AM, tolstoy21 said:

But that comes at cost and complexity, not that I have anything against canister filters.

It did end up costing me about twice as much, but it allows me an inline co2 diffuser and circular flow of water across top of the tank, down front back and back up across the full width of the tank holding co2 bubbles to stay in suspension..

As to complexity, labor etc, I so much more prefer the 15-20 minutes I might spend cleaning the canister filter monthly over the multiple times a week I was fiddling with the Tidal..,

[TOtrees]

On 2/29/2024 at 9:47 AM, tolstoy21 said:

If you look at how the AquaClear basket fits into an AquaClear, and where the openings/grate sit, the flow principal seems the same. The water gets directed inot the media chamber closer to the top and does not go directly through the sponge in the filter either (see pic).  However, the AC's work great and all evidence suggests a good deal of water still circulates through the media in the bottom.

I think you might be missing a small but key design feature of the AC impeller cover (or you know all about it but disagree, which is fine too 🙂). When you have the tube positioned all the way to the left (100% over the hole), all the water coming up and through the tube theoretically goes UNDER this cover, and the lip that I've circled directs water down the side of the filter box (there is space for it, though not much), and then it comes up through the grid at the bottom of the filter basket. From there to the outflow it passes through the media, bottom to top. 

So water flows like this:

In mulmy tanks, the sponge at the bottom of the basket gets very full at the bottom, and less so higher up. And you're right, when the media is clogged it does push the basket up, and this is how/why. 

These holes...

...let out water that ISN'T pulled through the hole in the impeller cover. Eg if you shift the tube to the right for lower flow, the impeller is still spinning just as fast, but less water is pulled under the impeller cover (and directed to the bottom of the media basket), so more water stays above the impeller cover, and passes through the side grid of the basket and out the filter over the top of the media. If your media is clogged, the side grid also lets some of the "back-pressure" water pass through. In either case yes that "rejection" water isn't well filtered. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 2/29/2024 at 7:20 AM, TOtrees said:

When you have the tube positioned all the way to the left (100% over the hole), all the water coming up and through the tube theoretically goes UNDER this cover, and the lip that I've circled directs water down the side of the filter box (there is space for it, though not much), and then it comes up through the grid at the bottom of the filter basket. From there to the outflow it passes through the media, bottom to top. 

There's definitely bypass.  There is also a lot of people that never remove the cover and maintain the pump / remove the gunk in there.  Once a month, once every 3 months... it's a really good Idea to fully drain and rinse a hob and clean the pump chambers.  (the actual plastic housing that everything goes into)

Those slots are there for the sake of allowing bypass in the case the sponge is full.

[Jeff]

AquaClears are self priming @tolstoy21  Mine has self primed numerous times after the power went out, and I was not home. 

[tolstoy21]

On 2/29/2024 at 2:49 PM, Jeff said:

AquaClears are self priming @tolstoy21  Mine has self primed numerous times after the power went out, and I was not home. 

Sometimes mine do, sometimes they don't. 

I find my larger AC's will self prime, but my smaller ones won't. Not sure why.

[TOtrees]

On 2/29/2024 at 3:16 PM, tolstoy21 said:

Sometimes mine do, sometimes they don't. 

Same. I find that the more overdue maintenance is (particularly cleaning the impeller and motor), the less likely it is to restart after an outage. 

[Galabar]

On 2/29/2024 at 11:49 AM, Jeff said:

AquaClears are self priming @tolstoy21  Mine has self primed numerous times after the power went out, and I was not home. 

Self-priming has a specific meaning. It means that there doesn't have to be water in the filter for it to work.  AquaClear filters aren't self priming.  If there is already water in the filter and if the tank water level hasn't dropped too much, an AquaClear filter may work after a power outage (or it may not).

A self-priming HOB filter would be one where the pump is in the tank.  That would pump water to an empty filter, allowing it to run after being installed or after a power outage.