hamstermann

Anyone know anything about aquatech 5-15 power HOB? I bought it to put in my fry tank to replace the bad penguin filter, but it doesn't have bio balls or bio tubes or a bio wheel. it's got bio-fiber. How does bio-fiber rate? I thought I might dump some bio tubes left over from my canister filter in it in order to help it. What do you all think? can you see any problems with this plan? It was $10 at walmart, so as far as fish stuff prices go, it's pretty cheap, but as far as my fish budget ($50 every 2 weeks) it's pretty expensive. The Impatient part of me wants to go do it right now, but the sensible part says "wait to find out if it's worth it and take it back if it's not." I guess I'll test the water levels and let that make the decision.

atmmachine816

Aquatech is the same as a penguin without the bio-wheel and cheapr. Good filter overall. you can buy bio-wheel retro kits if you want a bio-wheel. You can take some filter media from another filter of yours and use it in that filter to keep the tank cycled. Bio-fiber should be fine, just make sure it's cycled before any fish go in the tank. Just don't change all the fiber at once or you'll lose your cycle.

hamstermann

The bio-wheel's been out of commission for so long that's its cycling again anyway, sadly. I adjusted the height of the particle filter so that it sort of raises the water level spilling out to touch the bio-wheel. I also put some extra bio-tubes that didn't fit in my canister on the 55gal into the water return "Area" in the penguin. That should hopefully eliminate the need for the bio wheel. We'll have to see. Now I can get my wife to take back the aqua-tech and we can use that $10 or $11 for some african dwarf frogs if I can find some healthy ones. Yay!

atmmachine816

I'm confused, do you mean you got your filter working again?

hamstermann

sort of. I modified it. I got enough water to the bio wheel that it sort of keeps it wet and I'm hoping that works long enough to populate the bio tubes with bacteria, at which point I'll throw out the stupid bio wheel. That or the tank will finish re-cycling and the bio-tubes will get bacteria that way.

atmmachine816

I found that if you just use filter floss in the bio-wheel filter it works great. It keeps the bio-wheel spinning and takes a lot of junk out. I have my tank overstocked and use this on my filter and I have no problems. I wouldn't throw the wheel away, I really like mine and think it helps in the biological filter. What are these bio-tubes?

hamstermann

ceramic rings that collect good bacteria just like bio balls or bio wheels.

atmmachine816

Ok, what are you using for mechanical filtration?

hamstermann

The filter cartridges that come with the penguins. they've got different grades of floss on each side and the chemical filtration is handled by charcoal inside those cartirdges. Basically, I turned my penguin into an aquaclear by trading the bio-wheel for the ceramic rings.

atmmachine816

O I took out the filter pads because I don't use carbon and they slow the wheel down too much. I just combined them. Used sponge and bio-stuff from aquaclear along with some filter fiber and the bio-wheel and it's a great filter.

hamstermann

Sad that we have to modify them like this. They aught to just make the filters be good in the first place. Though, to the company's credit, my other penguin 100 works well.

atmmachine816

I love the filter, they just make the filter inserts poor. They slow the water down so fast, though that happens with a lot of filters, they just don't have a wheel to spin