Filtration (HOB's) for a 125

[ccurtis]

Hello Everyone, 

I know I am going to get a lot of mixed opinions here, but just wanted to see what some thoughts were. I currently have a 125 with 2 marineland emperor pro 400s on it, and a large coop sponge filter. The tank is stocked moderately with some corys, a bristlenose pletco, some mollies, platys, zebra danios, black skirt tetras, blood fin tetras, 4 roseline sharks, 2 angel fish, a couple ottocinclus, a bolivian ram and some nerite snails. Before you guys go crazy with the stocking options, the tank is heavily planted, and there is no aggression. Everyone is happy. It actually works well because with the type of fish in there, the fry from the mollies and platys stay in check and it doesn't get out of control. 

Anyhow, my filtration works and is adequate. I do not use the cartridges. I use some cut pieces of sponge, followed by some fine filter pad, followed by seachem matrix (pumice). Marinelands flow back to front, which makes it difficult to stack media efficiently. I want to upgrade to better HOBs where I can stack more media and have the water flow through it more efficiently, I am thinking of switching to two aquaclear 110s. I think it will work better because the water flows from bottom to top rather than back to front.

 Anyone have any other ideas / thoughts? I'm not really interested in a canister or sump set up. 

 

Thanks!

 

[Jeff]

Aqua Clears are the best HOB, IMO. They'll provide what you're looking for. 

[Craziiininja]

I agree with Jeff. Aqua clear filters will be what your looking for.

[FrozenFins]

47 minutes ago, ccurtis said:

Hello Everyone, 

I know I am going to get a lot of mixed opinions here, but just wanted to see what some thoughts were. I currently have a 125 with 2 marineland emperor pro 400s on it, and a large coop sponge filter. The tank is stocked moderately with some corys, a bristlenose pletco, some mollies, platys, zebra danios, black skirt tetras, blood fin tetras, 4 roseline sharks, 2 angel fish, a couple ottocinclus, a bolivian ram and some nerite snails. Before you guys go crazy with the stocking options, the tank is heavily planted, and there is no aggression. Everyone is happy. It actually works well because with the type of fish in there, the fry from the mollies and platys stay in check and it doesn't get out of control. 

Anyhow, my filtration works and is adequate. I do not use the cartridges. I use some cut pieces of sponge, followed by some fine filter pad, followed by seachem matrix (pumice). Marinelands flow back to front, which makes it difficult to stack media efficiently. I want to upgrade to better HOBs where I can stack more media and have the water flow through it more efficiently, I am thinking of switching to two aquaclear 110s. I think it will work better because the water flows from bottom to top rather than back to front.

 Anyone have any other ideas / thoughts? I'm not really interested in a canister or sump set up. 

 

Thanks!

 

aqua clears do seem like what your looking for. 

[AdamTill]

Honestly, I don’t think you’ll see much difference. In a planted tank with healthy plants, the filtration system mainly has to efficiently move water around the tank. The plants themselves do most of the work.

I’m not even a slight fan of the Biowheel filters, but replacing 1 to 1 with Aquaclears won’t really do very much. You’ll gain about 25% on the gpm flow rate, but the filter media effectiveness is sort of moot since it’s not doing much in a planted tank.

Your best move would be to add one to have three, honestly. Most 125s are sort of three sections/lids, and HOBs only really effectively filter the water in front of them. So one per section would be great, with the sponge mainly for aeration.

[Steph’s Fish and Plants]

Sort of hijacking this post, but does anyone know the difference between seachem tidal HOBs and aqua clears? Is there a difference. I think @AdamTillbrings up an interesting point, rather than replacing what you already have just add to it. The marine lands aren’t doing a poor job, why fix what isn’t broke right? Especially if the gain is going to be very minimal. Also, redundancy is always a good thing. In the saltwater world, they’re always running backups and backups of backups in case something fails, and I think that in the freshwater world we don’t consider Ry he benefit of redundancy nearly as much. Adding a third filter and keeping the other two will keep the biological you’ve already established, and if one breaks down the line it’ll give you time to get a new one, as the other two will be sufficient. It’ll also help eliminate any dead spots you might have in the tank. And it’ll save you money. Buying one brand new filter will be cheaper than 2, and you won’t have wasted the money you spent on the others. Now you’ll have more money to spend on more fish or plants or a new heater when that fails etc.

[AdamTill]

The Tidals have that fry chewing surface skimmer if memory serves, plus a basket that’s harder to diy foam to. Plus they’re often more expensive than aquaclears

[Jeff]

8 hours ago, Steph’s Fish and Plants said:

Sort of hijacking this post, but does anyone know the difference between seachem tidal HOBs and aqua clears? Is there a difference. I think @AdamTillbrings up an interesting point, rather than replacing what you already have just add to it. The marine lands aren’t doing a poor job, why fix what isn’t broke right? Especially if the gain is going to be very minimal. Also, redundancy is always a good thing. In the saltwater world, they’re always running backups and backups of backups in case something fails, and I think that in the freshwater world we don’t consider Ry he benefit of redundancy nearly as much. Adding a third filter and keeping the other two will keep the biological you’ve already established, and if one breaks down the line it’ll give you time to get a new one, as the other two will be sufficient. It’ll also help eliminate any dead spots you might have in the tank. And it’ll save you money. Buying one brand new filter will be cheaper than 2, and you won’t have wasted the money you spent on the others. Now you’ll have more money to spend on more fish or plants or a new heater when that fails etc.

Here's what I don't like about the Tidal HOBs:

-all of the blue: I don't need different colors on my HOB. It doesn't look professional, IMO, and it's a color that you have to figure out how to cover it up in the tank.

-the skimmer: I don't want to have to worry about anything getting sucked into it. It's not like the end of an intake tube where I can put a pre-sponge on to cover it up.

-the "notification" knob on top: I don't need something 'telling me' when to service my filter. I comes off as "gimmicky", and I know when to maintain my filter. You should know that servicing your filter on a scheduled basis is part of maintaining your aquarium.

-the clip on the side for a heater. It's not needed.

 

Edited January 13, 2021 by Jeff

[ccurtis]

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I ended up removing only one of my marineland filters. Keeping 1 marineland filter that I filled with just bio-media, and then adding the 2 aqua clear 110s for mostly mechanical with a little bio-media as well. I know it's a lot of filtration, however, it's working out very well, water is very clear. The flow from the 110s is way higher than I had expected, but that's probably a good  thing. The fish do not seem to mind it.