Anyone use the Aquatech 5-15 filter?

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.

 

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.

 

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!

 

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

 

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.

 

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?

 

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

 

Ok, what are you using for mechanical filtration?

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

The filter media in my aqua tech 5-15 had carbon inside of it. I have heard that with carbon it needs to be changed regularly. But....if you throw out the whole filter media once a month you will be throwing out your beneficial bacteria. Can I just cut the filter media and empty out the carbon?

 

Well did some reading of older posts... apparently once wet you cannot take the carbon out of the media insert. I don't want to mess up my fishless cycle by replacing the media w/o the carbon in it. I started my fishless cycle 3 days ago.

 

Sure you can: just slit the fiber, shake out the carbon, and stick the cartridge back in the filter.

I'd personally wait until you are further along in the cycle then 3 days though. Its not as if the carbon is doing any harm at the moment. And if you want to continue using carbon you can buy it loose and stick some in a separate media bag within the filter. That way you can change it without disrupting anything

 

I have an Aquatech 5-15 also. The black spongy pad that you put in the holster in front of the filter cartridge is also storing up the bacteria. In fact, anything that it porous in the tank is storing it up too. But Shine is right, you don't need to do anything to the cartridge right now.

 

Would my old, cycled AquaTech 5-15 work in a 15-17 gallon storage tote divided with bettas? I believe it has a gph of 100-125. I'm not sure.

 

I think the main concern would be water circulation. The filter might not be able to filter all parts of the tote if its divided several times with dividers.

 

The dividers would be plastic mesh/canvas. I'm considering running a sponge filter in each individual compartment.

 

In that case, yes, it would suffice.