Replacement internal filter - FW.

[Delapool]

Hi all,

A bit cheeky but I think I will be in the market for a new internal filter. Present one has stopped. Still to pull apart but just in case, any suggestions on an internal power filter?

After mainly mechanical filter and to push water around when co2 injection is running. Maybe with a container to try purigen one day or for carbon for meds removal but not essential. Water flow control and ideally flow direction control as well would be great.

Tank is 4 x 2 x 2.5 ft with two canisters running (I really, really hate cleaning these) so the internal filter is really just for a powerhead and taking a bit of the load off the canisters.

Currently using a fluval U4. This was the cheapest price to re-buy I could find so far.

Fluval U4 Underwater Filter:Amazonet Supplies

 

[candymancan]

easy choice here man..


I use 5 of these internal filters in 5 of my tanks.. The top Fin Internals from Petsmart.. well a petsmart brand is top fin.. For your 55g I would get two of the top fin Internal 40's.. Or one your choice...


I use 3 of these in my tanks.. I have 3 tanks in my bedroom a 44g pentagon, 27g hexagon, and 10g bowfront.. I needed absolute silence so I replaced all my HOBS for these.. I got the top fin internal 20 in my 10g, the top fin internal 40 in my 27g and I had 2x of the 40's in my 44g tank.. They are absolutetly dead quiet.. Hve a spray bar if you want a spray bar, adjustable flow.. and 2 sponge filters with carbon inside, and a chamber separate for rings or whatever you want to put in there, I personally took half of the rings out that it came with and I stuffed a 100ml purigen bag in there.. the 20 and 10 only use a sponge with carbon So if you want a chamber for purigen or whatever else.. Get the Top Fin internal 40


And my 2.5g betta tanks I use the top fin 10's. I took the 2 40's out my 44g for a canister because I keep discus in there and need more bio media.. But I put a 40 in my 30g tank and im debating on putting the other 40 in my 55g tank because the 55g is so long my Penguin 350 only filters one side of the tank.. and the otherside I noticed gets dirty and has no flow.


Anyway.. I highely recommend these filters.. trust me you wont regret it.. Its only $30 for the 40.. Im telling ya I have 8 fish tanks in my house.. and 5 of them use these filters and I havent had 1 issue with them


http://www.petsmart.com/supplies/filters/top-fin-multi-stage-internal-filter-zid36-20868/cat-36-catid-300088?var_id=36-20868&_t=pfm%3Dsearch

 

[Delapool]

Hi, thanks for the reply. This looks really good. I like the spray bar idea so I'm not getting a jet of water shooting across the tank. The price is good

The 40 looks ideal.

It looked like the sponge part can just be detached for easy cleaning?

 

[candymancan]

The 40 is 2 pieces.. The motor and back plate are one piece the clear section with the media clips on it.. To clean it you just pull it at the bottom and it unclips and take it out of the tank and then there is a backplate that you pull apart and the 2 sponges can be removed and you just squeeze them in fish tank water to get rid if the debris and I also rinse the bio rings to clean them off as well.


What I do with mine is I put the two sponges in, but the bottom sponge there is like small gap between the sponge and back this allows debris to get passed the sponges so it doesn't clog up *its an overflow kinda feature" I don't like this as I want it to filter ALL the water, so I take a little fine particle pad and stuff it behind the sponge this way it doesn't have that little bypass gap.. Just clean the filter often I clean mine every water change. It gets dirty really quickly


The only issue I had with the filter was the spray bar has a little rubber cap on it.. this way you can take the cap off and use it as a sorta power head and blow water in one big stream.. The cap tends to blow off by itself.. So what I did to fix that was I crammed the entire cap inside the tub.. meaning I did just put it like it suppose to go in.. I smushed it inside the tube.. All of my internals the caps blow off so I had to do this for all of em.. it isn't a big deal, but something I thought you should know.


Sorry this guys video really sucks, I think ill make one myself for people to see. He is right the bio media part has a lot of extra room when your put the included rings in.. So I add some Seacheam denitrate in mine which is basically just a really good biomedia and when I wanted to use purigen I took the media out and put the 100ml purigen bag against the bars you see that seperates the media and sponge and then I put the media rings back in.. Make sense ? This way the purigen gets the max water flow through it

 

[Delapool]

Nifty! Many thanks for the detailed post, really appreciated the information and the video link. Looks really good.

 

[candymancan]

Do you guys have top fin in Australia though ? If not that sucks I guess itd be harder to get the filter for you, youd have to order international

 

[Delapool]

I've started checking around lfs here as the Aussie dollar has dropped quite a bit and online buying a bit more expensive. So far no luck but great excuse to visit lfs . The fish shops are getting more stuff in here now but if not, yeah will try international. Thanks for all the help again.