atmmachine816

Since these seem to be the most used and popular and also the best HOB filters why not everybody say why people think the bio-wheel or aquaclear is the better filter.

I personally have not used the aquaclear but my friend has but I use the bio-wheel and it has three step filteration too. Filter floss, then carbon, then bio-wheel which collects beneficial bacteria that just grows and grows cleaning the water. The newer designs are quieter and have large areas for filter media. Just my two cents

Austin

p.s. If this becomes helpful maybe pin it so people considering the filters can easily view it

chickadee

Bio-wheel wins in my opinion all the way. You never touch the bacteria bed and can change the other media without disturbing the beneficial bacteria at all. With other types you SWISH the pad out in used tank water or have to worry about "seeding" the new pad, or such. Nothing like that with a Bio-wheel, just remove the old cartridge or media or whatever when you need to and put the new in and the little wheel where ALL the bacteria resides is NEVER touched and never REPLACED. It just keeps rolling along. You do not have those awful mini-cycles unless you put some odd or awful chemical in that would kill the bacteria in ANY filter.

And yes I have tried the AquaClear and it works, just not as well as the Bio-wheel for the above reasons. Too much hassle.

Rose

Dino

And now the democratic response.

I have used both and prefer the Aquaclear.
Same size units push a lot more water than bio wheels.
And, in an established tank, media will reseed and be back to full tilt in less than a week max.
Unless the tank is grossly over stocked, this should not be a problem.
But that has been my experience, your's may differ, should as it has with Rose.

Neither opinion is an absolute, as no two tanks ever have identical conditions.

Dino

atmmachine816

Do they really push more water Dino, I didn't know that. Which one seems to have more room for filter media?

Dino

If I remember corectly, as it has been several years since I owned a bio wheel, the aquaclear has more media area.

Dino

Isabella

I've never owned any bio-wheels, but I do own an Aqua Clear. So the most I can do is comment on Aqua Clears, as I have no experience with bio-wheels. The "verdict" (lol) is this: For tanks smaller than 75 gallons I'd never use anything but an Aqua Clear. And if I couldn't get a canister filter for a larger than 75 gallon tank, I'd go with 2 or 3 Aqua Clears instead. I LOVE THIS FILTER. It has NEVER failed me so far. It's quiet, robust, and there is no bypass of water, so any water that gets in, it gets filtered through all the media. There is a thick sponge, thick activated carbon pouch, and a sizable bag of bio-cubes. I never replace the sponge and I never replace the bio-cubes. All works perfectly fine. You don't even have to use the activated carbon if you don't want to. My tank is temporarily overstocked and the filter handles the job very well - never any ammonia and/or nitrite spikes. Should I go on ... or maybe stop right here? LOL ...

chickadee

The AquaClear DEFINITELY holds more media that is 100% certain. The cartridges for the Bio-wheels are quite small as they have no need to be more than a bit of carbon and some kind of material to catch foreign debris. But I will say that I do agree that for sheer ability to have clear water, the water clarity with an AquaClear is beautiful.

Rose

atmmachine816

I'm not sure on that one, my water is crystal clear with my bio-wheel 200 though I really want a aquaclear to try it out. I don't use the filter inserts, just stuff a huge wade of filter fiber in and it works great.

Marc

I've used both very recently. Same sized filter on my 55 gallon. I started with a BIO-Wheel - if more than a little gunk was stuck in the filter, the wheel would stop. I'd clean it every week so the wheels wouldn't stop. It got to the point where unless everything was perfectly clean (brand new filter pads, empty intake, and no algae) it wouldn't move the wheels. At that point the wheels were useless. I had an ammonia spike after the filter choked up while I wasn't around and I prompty bought an AquaClear. No problems yet...

AlfaBetta

I don't know about others but my Emperor 400 has never stopped rotating in many years without any maintenance to the dual biowheels. The only maintenance I do is to the spray bar pipes that gets partially clogged once every few months which slows down the wheels. It takes only a few couple minutes with a pipe cleaner and it's done. The slide out media baskets are really convenient. I use them for carbon. I don't use the carbon that's prepackaged into the cartridges. I cut a horizontal slit at the top of the two cartridges and dump the carbon out and just use the filter floss/wool on the cartridges as a mechanical filter.

SunnShadow

I've never tried an Aquaclear, but just today bought a Bio-Wheel (Penguin) for my 20 gallon. I had a dinky "up to 20 gallon" Aquatech filter, and it was just not doing a very good job. The Bio-Wheel is for tanks up to 50 gallons and has improved my water quality in a matter of hours. Took poor Myst (Betta) a little while to adjust to the stronger current, but other than that it's doing great.

S.

wfosborn

Well, I run them both in various tanks. On one of my tanks I used an UGF along with an aquaclear. The UGF eliminates any mini-cycles and the aquaclear keeps the water crystal clear. The only thing I didn't like about the aquaclear was small biologic area and the aerator and waterfall were a little noisy. Very happy with performance though, filter clogging hardly bothered it and it always started right back up after a power failure as long as I didn't let my water level get too low.

On my latest setup I went with no UGF and a Magnum 350 running two Bio-wheels. On this setup I used a T before the outflow to split off to the bio-wheels bringing part of the water to the bio-wheels and the rest out a standard outflow. This eliminated any restriction from the bio-wheels. This setup also seems to keep the bio-wheels turning very well. It uses the spray arms to turn the wheels, and since there is much more flow coming off my canister than the bio-wheels can use even if the filter gets clogged up I still have plenty to run them. Bio-wheels have enough surface area that cleaning the filter does not upset the biological balance. Also runs totally silent, this has been my favorite setup so far.

On my other bio-wheel tanks I have problems with the flow if the filter starts to get clogged or the water level gets too low. I have the check it at least once a day to make sure it is turning. Those ones are the type where the water flows under the bio-wheel to turn it. With no UGF this can crash my tanks real fast. These have all had about the same filter capacity as the Aquaclear (Going by the filter inserts size compared to the flow rate). Same noise level as the Aquaclear as well. Works very well if you don't mind checking it daily.

Hope that's helpful to someone.

--W

atmmachine816

wfosborn. Too keep your bio-wheel spinning instead of using the inserts buy filter floss or filter fiber and stick a big ball of that in, I made a post on how to do it in filters board. It keeps mine spinning and keeps my tank abo****ely clear and I'v never had a problem. I do agree if you let too much junk build up it slows it down, reason to keep it clean.

I just bought a aquaclear for my SW tank and I haven't used it yet but it doesn't seem like there is that much more media room, though it's easier to choose what you want but you can buy the aquaclear bags, fill them with what you want and use them in bio-wheels.

Hazcop

I am just getting back into the game, and have two bio-wheels on my 75 gal. They are both Penguin 350, and seem to run just fine. I had just one to start, but on the advice of a member on this site, I added the second. Glad I did, it made a big difference.

susitna-flower

wolfman21

Gotta go with the biowheel. They just seem like they do a better job with filtration.

atmmachine816

So far after setting up my aquaclear I would have to say I like the bio-wheel better overall. It's quieter and easier to fit on the tank, you don't have to worry about cutting the plastic thing. The filter inserts are nicer in the aquaclear but you can just buy them and put them in the bio-wheel which is what I did since I don't use them in a SW tank. The aquaclear rattles some on the tank too, it's annoying. And I don't think it has more room for media just my opinion.

would have to go with bio-wheel after using them both

jayfl234

I agree bio-wheel all the way. I have been using the filter inserts and have not modified anything. I agree you have to clean it once and a while to keep the bio-wheel moving but i would not trade it for any other pump. I have Penguin 100 and 150 one on my 10 gallon and 29 gallon tank. Best Filtration out there in my opinion.