I bought this for my 6 gallon book shelf tank, and while it is a little big for it, I love it. I can just fit it into the tank, but I do not use the spray bar. The suction cups work well and keep the filter positioned nicely. The only frustration with the suction cups is that if you are not careful in mounting them they slip and you will not get it where you want it (since I have little room to play with, that was important). Also, if you do not apply careful (VERY careful) pressure, you will cause a slight seperation between the impeller unit and the filter base...which leads to my main gripe and the reason why I did not give this 5 stars. The two pieces come apart too easily when trying to move things around. The suction cups should have a lift off tab, because they really stick.As for circulation....you will have plenty. It is a pretty powerful little filter and creates a strong current when fully open. The beauty is that it has a little plastic valve that controls the flow and works very well once it is set. Setting it is another point of frustration....but once you get it, you won't have to play around with it and you can forget it. I tried several different mounting options both horizontally and vertically and finally settled on the traditional vertical mount. I also bought the carbon inserts....pretty much a waste of money and I got pieces of carbon on my white sand. A MAJOR pain. I am not deducting from this rating, because it is not part of this set up, but rather an optional purchase. Still, if your tank is cloudy, chances are you need a good amount of activated carbon....here's a tip. Get an old nylon stocking, tie one end. place enough carbon to fill the slot and tie the other end. Easy and cheap and very functional Don't forget to rinse it a bit before putting it into the tank. The little cartridges are just not enough and too expensive.
I did have a problem with sound as well, as if it were grinding gears, but I think the problem was air. I completely submersed the filter, and angled it to make sure all the air got it, and sure enough, no more grinding sound. I will also mention that this was one of those VERY rare times that I did not look to Amazon first and bought this at a local (well known) "pet company." Serves me right and lesson relearned...Amazon has it for half the price and free shipping!
This is very quiet as long as everything stays FULLY submersed. I like the filter box, as you can put your own media in it, which I recommend, as I mentioned with the activated carbon. If anything changes, I will update. So far, I like it!
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I bought this at a local aquarium store in hopes of replacing my Marina S10 Slim profile filter for my 5 gallon shrimp tank. It was too large to fit upright in the tank and the flow was far too strong for my shrimp. The flow is adjustable but when I turned it down it rattled so loudly that I thought something was broken. I then moved it to my 10-gallon hospital tank and again the flow was so strong that the fish constantly struggled to not be swept away. (I did have a few ill/weak fish get stuck to the intake and expire.) I have turned the flow down and have that annoying rattle in the kitchen where my hospital tank is located. (****Update: After three weeks the filter finally quieted down, probably because water flow is more impeded by matter in the filter media. I raised the rating to three stars from two now that it does not sound like a train is going through my kitchen.)In the future I am going to buy a mini canister filter (either the ZooMed 501 turtle canister filter or the TOM aquarium mini rapids canister) for my smaller tanks in order to have the spray bar and better filtration for my planted tanks.
Also, the filter cannot be moved while it is on; the portion that contains filter media falls off very easily if the filter is plugged in. Both parts of the filter are stuck to the glass with suction cups but they are no longer attached to each other, and trying to put them back together with the filter running is impossible.
I would not recommend this for anything smaller than a 15-gallon tank. The flow is far too strong for most creatures that would live in a nano tank.
I like Fluval products but I do not recommend this one.
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This exact same filter came with my Fluval Ebi tank.*The actual media included in the unit comes with a large thin sponge layer followed by 2 more sponge layers...no biological or chemical filtration is included although it is possible to custom fill the media chambers with your own mix.
*The motor is attached MAGNETICALLY to the media chamber...needless to say that means this thing pops open in half quite often, releasing waste products and dirty water back into the tank every single time you want to move the filter around or take it out for cleaning.
*Popped the filter in after scaping the tank and wanted to use it to clear the water of the substrate that got kicked up, it's rated for tanks up to 15 gallons and with the Ebi being a 9 gallon tank it's technically more filter than you actually need...have had the thing running for about 12 hours now and the water is STILL extremely dark and murky...the stock AC20 that came on my Edge cleared the water to almost crystal clarity in 30 minutes.
*Uses a spray bar design to supposedly re-direct water current so as to not disturb sensitive fish and plants, except that when the waterflow is set to low it sounds like a bucket of gravel that got tossed into a food processor and when it's set to high it actually creates just as much if not more water disruption than other filters and because this thing is designed for smaller tanks (specifically nanos) that totally negates the entire point of having a difficult to clean spray bar.
*Impossible to put a sponge or bio-bag over the filter intake to protect fish fry and baby shrimps.
At $15 this thing is a flaming rip off when there's literally dozens of cheaper and better designed filters out there, like the AC20 which is only $3 more but about 300x the filter that this thing is. Hagen usually makes amazing products and I am a huge fan of their Fluval line of nano tanks and accessories but there is seriously no excusing how piss poor this product was designed and priced. I wouldn't even take it for free.
If for whatever reason you *MUST* have an anemic internal filter that's grossly overpriced buy this product..otherwise do the smart thing and get yourself a decent hang-on-back filter.
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The motor on the pump stopped working after three weeks. If you want a cheap filter then this is the one for you. However cheap costs more in the long run. Disappointed that I did not get what I expected to be a decent pump for a small 7 gallon tank.Save 44% Off
