Fluval Fx series. Is it really needed?

[NoCo tap water]

Hey y’all.

I run a bunch of canisters, 3 Amazon and one sicce. I have also set up and maintained an fx6 for a family member over the last couple of years. 
 

Petsmart is having a big Black Friday sale on the entire fluval canister line and people are ordering them up like crazy.

 

In my experience, they are both buckets that pump water. Do y’all see a big difference when using an fx series? Pros cons. Observations?

 

My limited observations and experience with the fx is telling me it’s not worth the 3x price over the Amazon Chinese filters. 

- fx6 I worked with is louder than my canisters 

- fx6 hold WAY more filter pad and I think does a better job with floaties (less filter blowby?)

- fx6 doesn’t have a uv

- fx6 is oddly shaped (wide) and huge

- fx6 is heavy and difficult to service, this leads to it not being serviced 

- fx6 is so massively oversized for a 75g you get a false sense of security that it doesn’t need to be serviced frequently

- fx series seems overkill for most of us with tanks smaller than 150g

- Chinese filters, no matter how you slice it are less than 1/3 the cost of the fx series but not 1/3 as effective.

 

Thoughts opinions ? Have you taken advantage of the deal? If so, why the fx over the Amazon brands?

Edited Friday at 01:26 PM by NoCo tap water

[Cory]

Fluval is aways trippin, but I'd still use a fluval filter over a random Chinese brand. I want parts, I want the reliability they bring. I like the power ratios they can achieve with electricity etc. Do I think they charge a bit too much of a premium? yes. Am I willing to pay it? Sometimes. I think the discussion should go more towards, that fluval 407 can handle your 200 gallon tank just fine and you don't need 3 fx6s. Spend money smarter.

I believe the way forward for expensive items is replacement parts. Make them easily accessible and affordable. It used to be that way with fluval and eheim and Renas. Now if you want a part, it is sold out lots of places and hard to track down. Even fluval itself sits out of parts. they get like 1 or 2 shipments a year of parts and not nearly enough.

I think if companies can establish that buying this, there will be longevity, that makes a difference. An example of this is, we are going to put out a replacement diaphram for our air pumps. It's a part that wears and once it wears out, we'd like people to be able to replace that part and keep using it. I remember it used to be, fish stores carried replacement parts for air pumps. I want to get back to that point and it's been a long slow process since there is very little interest by other manufacturers.

[NoCo tap water]

2 hours ago, Cory said:

Fluval is aways trippin, but I'd still use a fluval filter over a random Chinese brand. I want parts, I want the reliability they bring. I like the power ratios they can achieve with electricity etc. Do I think they charge a bit too much of a premium? yes. Am I willing to pay it? Sometimes. I think the discussion should go more towards, that fluval 407 can handle your 200 gallon tank just fine and you don't need 3 fx6s. Spend money smarter.

I believe the way forward for expensive items is replacement parts. Make them easily accessible and affordable. It used to be that way with fluval and eheim and Renas. Now if you want a part, it is sold out lots of places and hard to track down. Even fluval itself sits out of parts. they get like 1 or 2 shipments a year of parts and not nearly enough.

I think if companies can establish that buying this, there will be longevity, that makes a difference. An example of this is, we are going to put out a replacement diaphram for our air pumps. It's a part that wears and once it wears out, we'd like people to be able to replace that part and keep using it. I remember it used to be, fish stores carried replacement parts for air pumps. I want to get back to that point and it's been a long slow process since there is very little interest by other manufacturers.

I agree and would pay a more for something I know will last with available and reasonably priced replacement parts. If something breaks on these Amazon filters, I’ll need a new one. My budget can trump my good intentions though.. 

 

I didn’t realize there was even a difference in effectiveness or efficiency in the units. Just kinda thought all brushless motors moving water were the same, good info to nerd out for a couple of hours, thanks!

 

 

 

[MattyM]

I would also take a Fluval over some generic Amazon brand, esp on sale. But at the same time, I wouldn't want to get trapped in the Fluval ecosystem as far as tubes and connections go. For example, I have a Sicce and an Oase, both use the same size tubing and are interchangeable. 

[Cory]

I wanted to follow up and say some of the chinese canisters have gotten much more energy efficient and I think that part is a bit of a non issue now. I don't have enough reps to know how often the priming buttons fail and such. With Fluval's price increases vs the cheap canisters, it's a hard thing to justify I think at this stage.  If I get crazy, I may buy some and do some testing. Flow meters, kill a watt meter etc.

[NoCo tap water]

23 minutes ago, Cory said:

I wanted to follow up and say some of the chinese canisters have gotten much more energy efficient and I think that part is a bit of a non issue now. I don't have enough reps to know how often the priming buttons fail and such. With Fluval's price increases vs the cheap canisters, it's a hard thing to justify I think at this stage.  If I get crazy, I may buy some and do some testing. Flow meters, kill a watt meter etc.

Yes! Nerd out on it hard!