55 Gallon Tank Aquaclear 110 sponge thickness

[AndyP]

I've been running my Aquaclear 110 for about a month now. It's needed cleaning twice so far, and both times only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the sponge is ever dirty. The rest looks spotless.

So, I'm thinking of putting a thinner sponge in to make room for more media. I'm thinking of doing 1" of 20 ppi poret foam with a 1/2" of 30 ppi poret on top.

Has anyone seen any issues with water quality and reducing the thickness of the Aquaclear 110 sponge?

 

[Dunk2]

I've been running my Aquaclear 110 for about a month now. It's needed cleaning twice so far, and both times only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the sponge is ever dirty. The rest looks spotless.

If most of it looks spotless, why has it needed cleaned twice in a month?

I run 2 110s on my 75. Other than keeping the neighbors up from the noise, they work perfect. Great filtration with no mods.

 

[AndyP]

The top 2/3 looks spotless. The bottom 1/3 is dirty and gunked up..

My 110 is incredibly quiet. I can't hear it at all with the lid off, and it barely makes a noise with the lid on. How old is your 110? Maybe it needs a new impeller shaft.

 

[Dunk2]

How old is your 110? Maybe it needs a new impeller shaft.

Maybe a year? Not the impeller. . . I changed both of them out soon after I bought them.

I do think a lot of the noise comes from the lids, but they’re part of my snail containment system.

I clean my 110s every 6 weeks or so, but I have pre-filters on both of them.

 

[AndyP]

It's been my experience that some filters are just quieter than others. I have 2 110s. One is significantly quieter than the other.

I have read that you can swap out an Aquaclear 110 metal impeller with a Fluval 406 ceramic impeller. I tried this and it did cut down on the noise. But you need to be very careful. If you crack the impeller, you're in for a world of hurt getting it out.

Lubricating the shaft and the impeller magnet also seemed to help with the noise.