Aquaclear HOB Filters

I ran one of the old ones ColinT describes for 17 years, 24/7. That is a workhorse. They are more expensive but they last. I have used some competitor's devices and gotten 5 years out of them before they became landfill. The newer ones are not as well made, as the ceramic impeller shafts wear more quickly and can only be replaced once or at most twice, but they still outlast any others I've used.
I have some no name, unbranded Chinese knock offs that move a lot less water at the same size, and have stood up very well. But the flow rate isn't even close to the aquaclears.
I sometimes have to reach in and spin the impeller after a power cut or if I've unplugged them, but other than that minor flaw, they are great.
 
I currently run 10 AC 110 (500), 1 AC 70 (300), and 5 AC 200 (50). I consider them the best HOB's available. I do also run 3 canisters.
I have had several AC's for years since I re-started with fish the last time in 2017 (several short term interruptions in the last 60 years). I too remember the older models with vertical divisions.
I even remember having one when they came in amber color, prior to introducing the smoke gray models. Anybody remember the amber ones?
I use either 2 sponges in 110's, or one and a big bag of ceramic noodles, and I use either 3 sponges in the 50's, or 2 sponges and a bag of noodles.
All my filters use screen mesh prefilters, and I clean media and prefilters weekly. I have never (not even once) had a problem with lifting baskets. I only replace media when it is literally falling apart after years of use.
 
Thank you soooo much for posting this! I just purchased 1 AC 50 AND 3 AC 110. I got the AC 110's at Petco for approximately 20-30 bucks apiece. Between my rewards, them being on sale and the discount for ordering online and picking them up it was a HUGE come up!! Again, thanks bunches!!
:thanks: :thanks::thanks:
More than welcome...that price for those 110s was a steal!
 
I ran one of the old ones ColinT describes for 17 years, 24/7. That is a workhorse. They are more expensive but they last. I have used some competitor's devices and gotten 5 years out of them before they became landfill. The newer ones are not as well made, as the ceramic impeller shafts wear more quickly and can only be replaced once or at most twice, but they still outlast any others I've used.
I have some no name, unbranded Chinese knock offs that move a lot less water at the same size, and have stood up very well. But the flow rate isn't even close to the aquaclears.
I sometimes have to reach in and spin the impeller after a power cut or if I've unplugged them, but other than that minor flaw, they are great.
I think that the manufacturers push the idea of how much water flow is needed a little too much to get people to buy more expensive models. Kind of like how fish food manufacturers tell people to feed their fish 2 or 3 times a day. We know that's too much. But they sell more food that way.
Sponge filters work and they barely have any flow. The only time I would worry about having a high flow is if I had a fish that was adapted to it in their natural environment.
 
I'm a big fan of Aquaclear myself. The one flaw I see in them is that they aren't self priming. If they could get them to do that, then they would be perfect.
 
Cons
  • Hangs on the back, front or side of the tank and this can make it less attractive in a living area.
I don't think this is necessarily a con. It gives you more space in the tank. And it isn't hard to hide them with a tank background. My biggest issue with sponge filters is the space they take up in a tank and they're a little unsightly. You don't have this problem with HOB's.
 
I am a huge fans of water movement in tanks, which is a reason why I like these filters. The more movement, the merrier, if you can avoid turbulence caused by small tanks. I've been in a lot of fish habitats, and there are very few tanks that come close to even the average flow or movement in most of them. Our artificial environments are very still compared to most water courses in nature.

More than once, I have stood in streams that almost knocked me down with their flow, while fish swam by barely inconvenienced.
I like sponge filters for the minority of fish that come from very quiet conditions, and for some that do okay in quiet waters. I have radically cut back on using AquaClears as I have cut back on using larger tanks - my killifish generally like the quiet side of life, and I like reducing my energy costs as much as I can.
 
Nobody has really stressed the fact that you can put about any media you want into an AC. If you are like me and your home has no basement, then you have tanks spread all over the place and using a central air system is only possible on a room by room basis.

AT my peak I had about 30 ACs running and I have all sizes. I started buying them when the plastic was thicker and the prices were great. My first AC 100 (aka 20) cost me $9.99.

As for their durability, in about 2002 or 03 I travelled a few 100 miles to a college town to buy, from a graduating senior, a lot of their fish supplies including a 75 gal. tank. As part of that purchase I came home with a used AC 150 (aka 30). It had sponges only in it. I still have that filter running today and with the same sponges until about 2 weeks ago when I repalced 1/2 of them with a block of Poret foam.

A number of years ago I began making changes to my filtration. This was mostly switching to a lot of air driven filtration. I became a big fan of Poret foam and I have a ton of cube filters and Hamburg Mattenfilters. The Poret is a vastly superior form of foam and it comes in a variety of porosities as well as colors. Since then I have been replacing more of the the AC sponges with Poret. I have never used the AC Bio-media. I either threw it out or gave it away. I also have replaced some of the Eheim equivalent in my canisters with Poret as well.

While I have change the media, I am still running 18 AquaClears today and in all of the sizes. I have never had one quit all together. One of the great advantages of the ACs is that they share parts. Even though ACs come in 5 basic sizes, they share motors and even impeller shafts. This allows me to keep spare patys on hand without breaking the bank. I have a few motors,and impellers on the self. I have a box with some spare baskets, lids etc.

There is nly one downside to ACs, imo. That is the plastic can crack if you drop it or bang it hard enough in other ways. Also, the U-tube that connects the uplift tubes and the impeller intake are somewhat flimsy and over time they can chip at the impeller intake end. And yes I keep spare intake parts on hand as well.

When FosterSmith was sold to LiveAquaria, the latter had a fire sale on many things. I loaded up on heater controllers and AC spare parts.

One last observation. I have pre-filter sponges an all of my filter intakes. I used to make these from the AC 500 (aka 110) sponges. I switched to using Poret foam for this when I began using this foam for cubefilters and the Mattens.

I can also report my first hang-on filer was an Emperor 400. It quit after about 8 years. When I replaced it wih the same model I discovered they had made many changes. By then I had added Aquclears to other tanks. That replacement 400 was on the tank for under 2 hours before I removed it, reboxed and returned it. Bad show Marineland. I replaced it with an AC 300 as I had already added an AC 200 to the tank which was a planted 45 gal. community.

My only negative comment re Acs is that Hagen has made the plastic thinner so hold down the price. Well the prices are high and the plastic is a bit too thin. It cracks/breaks easier. But they still run forever if you are a bit more careful.

ps. I have power outages and blinks all the time. Some of the ACs do not restart while others do. Some of then have the water drain into the tank so they need to be reprimed while others do not. Moreover, which filters do what is not constant. find cleaning the impellers and wells sometimes fixes this and sometimes not.
 
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Nobody has really stressed the fact that you can put about any media you want into an AC. If you are like me and your home has no basement, then you have tanks spread all over the place and using a central air system is only possible on a room by room basis.

AT my peak I had about 30 ACs running and I have all sizes. I started buying them when the plastic was thicker and the prices were great. My first AC 100 (aka 20) cost me $9.99.

As for their durability, in about 2002 or 03 I travelled a few 100 miles to a college town to buy, from a graduating senior, a lot of their fish supplies including a 75 gal. tank. As part of that purchase I came home with a used AC 150 (aka 30). It had sponges only in it. I still have that filter running today and with the same sponges until about 2 weeks ago when I repalced 1/2 of them with a block of Poret foam.

A number of years ago I began making changes to my filtration. This was mostly switching to a lot of air driven filtration. I became a big fan of Poret foam and I have a ton of cube filters and Hamburg Mattenfilters. The Poret is a vastly superior form of foam and it comes in a variety of porosities as well as colors. Since then I have been replacing more of the the AC sponges with Poret. I have never used the AC Bio-media. I either threw it out or gave it away. I also have replaced some of the Eheim equivalent in my canisters with Poret as well.

While I have change the media, I am still running 18 AquaClears today and in all of the sizes. I have never had one quit all together. One of the great advantages of the ACs is that they share parts. Even though ACs come in 5 basic sizes, they share motors and even impeller shafts. This allows me to keep spare patys on hand without breaking the bank. I have a few motors,and impellers on the self. I have a box with some spare baskets, lids etc.

There is nly one downside to ACs, imo. That is the plastic can crack if you drop it or bang it hard enough in other ways. Also, the U-tube that connects the uplift tubes and the impeller intake are somewhat flimsy and over time they can chip at the impeller intake end. And yes I keep spare intake parts on hand as well.

When FosterSmith was sold to LiveAquaria, the latter had a fire sale on many things. I loaded up on heater controllers and AC spare parts.

One last observation. I have pre-filter sponges an all of my filter intakes. I used to make these from the AC 500 (aka 110) sponges. I switched to using Poret foam for this when I began using this foam for cubefilters and the Mattens.

I can also report my first hang-on filer was an Emperor 400. It quit after about 8 years. When I replaced it wih the same model I discovered they had made many changes. By then I had added Aquclears to other tanks. That replacement 400 was on the tank for under 2 hours before I removed it, reboxed and returned it. Bad show Marineland. I replaced it with an AC 300 as I had already added an AC 200 to the tank which was a planted 45 gal. community.

My only negative comment re Acs is that Hagen has made the plastic thinner so hold down the price. Well the prices are high and the plastic is a bit too thin. It cracks/breaks easier. But they still run forever if you are a bit more careful.

ps. I have power outages and blinks all the time. Some of the ACs do not restart while others do. Some of then have the water drain into the tank so they need to be reprimed while others do not. Moreover, which filters do what is not constant. find cleaning the impellers and wells sometimes fixes this and sometimes not.
I really like the customizability of HOB filters, particularly AquaClears. I have a pre-filter sponge on mine, an extention on the intake tube, filter media of my choosing (the carbon pack they included went into the garbage), and I attached a cut up water bottle to the outflow.
 

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