20 Gallon Tank Aquaclear 50 Any Good?

The LFS guy recommended this model power filter. Anyone had any problems with it? According to the manual, it comes with activated carbon as well as some biological/mechanical filter media. I've heard carbon is a bad idea unless you have specific chemical problems... if I get this filter, should I skip adding the carbon?

 

I have one on my 20 gallon long shrimp tank. The only issue I've had was the impeller wouldn't spin when plugged back in after a water change. Poking it to get it going again fixed the issue and it only happened twice in over 6 months.

Carbon isn't a bad idea but it's not necessary in a healthy tank. I have a box full of brand new carbon from various new canisters and HOBs in case I medicate a tank but haven't used any.

I skipped the carbon and added a polishing pad (cut to fit) on top of the sponge and a bit more bio-media on top.

 

Aquaclear are IMO the best HOB filter.

 

I use it for my 20 gallon and it's great! I threw the carbon away on day 1 just added more sponge.

 

Got one running on my 40gal. Added my own media. Works great!

 

Reliable. Versatile. Quiet. Effective.

 

Worst HOB you could ever get for your planted tank!! I have some and they are clogged up on plant litter. don't use any aqua claers on a planted tank. If possible, try to geta tidal for your future tanks and never an aquaclear. I have had lots of trouble with aquaclear and tidals are way better and easier to keep clean of leaf litter.

 

In the case of a planted tank aqua clears are fine-just put a prefilter on the intake tube to stop it from clogging so quickly- squeeze and clean as needed or when the flow slows down too much.

 

my sponges in my planted tank that are on my filter intakes are being ripped apart and clogged up by my plants and fish. So I wouldn't do sponges for prefilters. A fellow aquarist told me that they had aquaclears and that with the double tubing and the sponges they had for prefilters, and they were just a terrible mess. They said that their fish would always pull apart the sponges on the intakes to the point that they had a bunch of black freshwater sponge fry swimming everywhere on the bottom of the tank and in the intake tubing. They also told me that if I use some pantyhose in my intakes then it would not get rip andit would not be hard to maintain,and that all they ave to do is to remove the leaf littler that occasionally got on the pantyhose.

 

Nothing wrong with an aquaclear. Recently made the switch to seachem tidal. I don’t use carbon on any of my tanks. Have some on stand by if something goes wrong and I have an emergency, never needed it.

 

In the case of a planted tank aqua clears are fine-just put a prefilter on the intake tube to stop it from clogging so quickly- squeeze and clean as needed or when the flow slows down too much.

what is a pre filter?

 

I got one; it's a little sponge that fits over the filter intake. It collects stuff from the tank pretty fast; I've been rinsing it with tank water when I do a change.

 

I have a sponge and it demands every two to three days that I clean it or else it said that it was going to stop the flow of water through the filter intake and I thought it was my imagination (it was my imagination) and so the next day I came home from work fish are gasping and the water flow through one filter completely stopped and the other one was almost slowed down to a trickle. I then did a small water change as I cleaned the filter sponges that I had on the filter intakes.

 

Cichlid4life, what brand of sponge do you use that clogs up and gets torn apart so quickly?

For the OP, how is your 20 gallon stocked?

My HOB's all have sponge pre-filters and I do not run into this problem. I use either Lustar ATI Filter-Max sponge pre-filters, or I use the green Top Fin replacement sponges used in the Top Fin internal filters from Petsmart. The green TopFin sponges I just zip tie to the end of the intake tube.

I have a 20 gallon Freshwater community tank with (2) AQ30's. Since I use the sponge pre-filter, I cut the AQ sponge that goes in the bottom of the basket in half. The basket now has room for other media.

By cutting the sponge in half, it gave me room in the basket to insert 2 layers of filter pad cut from a bulk roll. Works great.

As for the carbon pack the AQ comes with, save it in case you dose with meds and you want to clear up residual meds after treatment.

Or cut a slit in carbon bag and save the carbon in a ziploc bag (or throw the carbon away) and stuff the bag with extra bio-media, and sew the slit back up. I have done that in the past.

I re-purposed an empty bag of carbon from an AQ30 to hold bio-media, and shoved it into a left over TopFin 20 HOB. That went on a 10 gallon quarantine/hospital tank and works great.

 

any little fish with any little might will rip and tear at your sponges as what fits to the will of how the sponge must look like, most fish want the sponge ripped into tiny bits.

 

cichlid4life, thanks for that tip!

I will have to keep an eye on the condition of my sponges when I clean them

Although I don't think mine have started to bite into them, that doesn't mean they won't start to do so!

 

In the case of a planted tank aqua clears are fine-just put a prefilter on the intake tube to stop it from clogging so quickly- squeeze and clean as needed or when the flow slows down too much.

I have an aquaclear and gonna do shrimp...having trouble figuring out how to sponge cover the intake. Do they make a cover for them or will I need to jimmyrig my own? (Sorry didnt mean to hijack the thread, but yeah...the intake can clog with plant debris...I just clean it off every few days as needed.)

 

Kathryn_Crook, these at Petsmart have a hole in the top and are sealed at the bottom.

Slide it over the end of the intake tube and secure with a plastic zip tie if it's loose, cutting off the slack in the ziptie after cinching it down. Here is a

of someone using the same sponge, although his intake tubes are larger diameter and didn't require a zip tie.

This is the DIY method I have used and has worked for me so far. I have also use the Lustar ATI Filter-Max's and have also worked well in my particular applications.

I'm sure Amazon and eBay have similar slip on sponges.

I have also heard of people using hacked Aquaclear sponges and slipping them on the intake tube. I found this

of someone demonstrating this with a AQ 50 sponge.

Again, these worked for my applications, but as cichlid4life mentioned, he had different results in his application.

I do not have a planted tank, so this may be why mine do not get clogged so quickly.

 

Islandvic, thanks for the advice. Currently, my tank is stocked with hitchhiker snails and ammonia, because I'm still trying to get cycled. (This is week 2; 2ppm ammonia mostly goes away overnight, I'm getting nitrates, but the nitrites aren't going down very quickly yet.) I did end up putting the carbon away in case I needed it later and replacing it with a cut-down pad, so glad to hear you endorse that.

I've been dithering about what to actually put in the tank once it cycles--- depends on what my LFS has, I guess.

 

That is the hardest part, waiting for a tank to cycle and deciding how to stock the tank!

Are you using any type of bacteria-in-a-bottle, like ?

Is this your first tank?

 

Other than elevator-basket and not being self-priming, it seems to be a good filter. I've had one running for maybe 5 years and it doesn't lose power like some do. The waterfall is just as strong as day one.

 

Other than elevator-basket and not being self-priming, it seems to be a good filter. I've had one running for maybe 5 years and it doesn't lose power like some do. The waterfall is just as strong as day one.

What is self priming?

 

Kathryn Crook, when you plug in the filter after a water change, you need to manually prime it by pouring in water to make it start flowing again. I just save the last bit of water when I refill the tank.

Islandvic, I'm not using bacteria in a bottle, and this is the first tank I've kept in over 10 years. But I'm fine with being patient.

 

cichlid4life, thanks for that tip!

I will have to keep an eye on the condition of my sponges when I clean them

Although I don't think mine have started to bite into them, that doesn't mean they won't start to do so!

Cichlids especially love to remodel the whole tank that they are kept in, and what doesn't fit to their taste, they will move or change the object in which they don't like, sometimes it is a sponge on the intake that they just hate in my South American tank.