355858
New Member
Hi guys can anyone help i'm looking to upgrade to a external filter and wonder which is best and also can you over filter a tank??
External Canister Filter Fluval 05 Series?
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electropunk06
Fish Addict
Hi i have to disagree i have a 205 and its brilliant, when i was researching it almost everyone said 05 range is the best, the only problem is the main seal can dry up so just keep it lubricated (vasaline) and you should be fine.
Lloyd
OP
OP
355858
New Member
Oh ok!! Lol
Two opinions!! I'll wait and see what everyone else favours for..
Vaseline!? Wont that somehow mess up the water??
As electropunk, i have a fluval 305 running on my 125 litre and i know another member Keith on this forums uses 305 on his 125litre. I havent used it for too long as my tank is new, but over the past 2 months, i havent had any problems. In terms of vaseline, no first hand experience yet myself 
but that's a very common advice to use it as a lubricant for the o-ring and hopefully will be using it soon 
but that's a very common advice to use it as a lubricant for the o-ring and hopefully will be using it soon 
I am not going to be much help as I like the 05 fluvals, I have a 205 and run a 405 on my turtle tank, its the only filter that has ever coped with the turtles. The only thing I find with the fluvals is they do tend to start leaking from the shut off valve, not major just a nuisance having to put that in a bucket when cleaning the filter. However I also run the APS filters and price wise you wont get another filter of that quality for the price.
I have been running a Fluval 205 for about 7 months. I love its performance and have had zero trouble with it. I run it on a 26g/98L tank. It is very quiet and has great media capacity. Cleaning is also not bad. There is some water leakage when I shut off the valve to disconnect the hoses to clean, but I keep the entire canister in a plastic bin, so no trouble there.
elisew
I don`t count sheep to get to sleep, I count fish
I`ve had a 205 and a 305 on my previous 180L tank, now I have the FX5 on a 380L so I obviously would disagree with Ashers comment. There`s good and bad in everything and I`m sure you`ll get a lot of mixed opinions. 
Some filters are overkill on smaller tanks but I personally don`t think the 205 and 305 can be classed as overkill on many tanks to be honest. What size tank do you have?
Some filters are overkill on smaller tanks but I personally don`t think the 205 and 305 can be classed as overkill on many tanks to be honest. What size tank do you have?
hillmar77
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I did some research on canisters earlier this week and ended up getting a eheim 2080. Out of all the reviews, and customer opinions, eheim makes the nicest filters around. That's why they are usually more expensive then the fluval and the rena XP's. On first impression of the Eheim 2080, its very well built! The water flows from the top through to the bottom and out through the sides back to the top. So maintenance on the filter pad is easy since its the first thing you see when you lift the motor housing off. Its whisper quiet, and everything ( hose attachments, extenders, spraybar pieces, etc) have O-rings to make sure everything is leak proof. I've also heard great things about the eheim classics.... as some call it bulletproof design and last for a very long time.
I heard good things and bad things about fluval. Usually it seems there is some leaks with the canister after a few years. Fluval from what I was told uses a sideways water flow in the canister and there is some water loss during this process. ( as in flow not going through all the chambers)
Rena XP's. What can I say, I currently use one. Water flows backwards compared to the eheim's and go from the side down, then forced through to the middle and up. There is huge water loss as alot of the water flow doesn't flow through all the chambers. Servicing is a breeze except for the fact that the filter pad ( that catches everything) is at the bottom, so I have to take out my bio section to get to it. Its cheaply made, and the latches do break easily if your not careful. But for the money per GPH rating it can't be beat.
I heard good things and bad things about fluval. Usually it seems there is some leaks with the canister after a few years. Fluval from what I was told uses a sideways water flow in the canister and there is some water loss during this process. ( as in flow not going through all the chambers)
Rena XP's. What can I say, I currently use one. Water flows backwards compared to the eheim's and go from the side down, then forced through to the middle and up. There is huge water loss as alot of the water flow doesn't flow through all the chambers. Servicing is a breeze except for the fact that the filter pad ( that catches everything) is at the bottom, so I have to take out my bio section to get to it. Its cheaply made, and the latches do break easily if your not careful. But for the money per GPH rating it can't be beat.
RE: the Fluval - I'm not sure how you define sideways flow. My Fluval 205: the water enters the top left of the lid, flows down the left side throughout the sponges and then it is pumped (pulled?) up the right side through 3 media trays, and back out the lid? Is that sideways? Just curious.
hillmar77
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Yup your going sideways then through the chambers
waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
I'm curious about these last two comments as they don't clear up the flow description for me (I've not owned a Fluval EC and not studied the internal plastics to see where the structures actually take the water.)
Is the water fully blocked from left to right, such as I think GV describes, where water is forced through the sponges but only downward, then turns the corner at the bottom and makes it's way back upward through different media? Or is the water allowed to go through some sort of passageways/holes at different levels and thus some of water able to take a short route across (from downward side to upward side) without traversing the full length of down, then up? (as I believe hillmar describes by saying there is sideways movement)
[By the way, over the years I've found that filter internal designs may take more things into consideration than we at first may think about. For instance, having the water move upward through the media may allow gravity to additionally help in the slowing and trapping of particles within a particular filtering stage (despite pump flow seeming to overwhelm this consideration. Another odd consideration is that the overall box can be seen as containment for a set of wet organic debris that is being broken down by heterotrophs and thus providing additional concentration in the feeding of the autotrophic colonies and contrary to what one might think, small amounts of "stage leakthrough" may simply recirculate and smooth out the distribution of this ammonia to the colonies, while the final filtered water that is removed may still consist of water that has on majority had plenty of chance to be fully filtered. Filter beds and water movement are imperfect things, just like in nature, but the overall design may put the process into the correct range for success (in the EC and sump design cases, one is stacking the odds towards success by enlarging the bed volumes of course.) Yet another problem that is going on for the designer is the balancing of a desired external flow rate with the desire for a large reliable pump for reliability and longevity with the desire for a steady very slow internal water rate to maximize debris settlement - these can be tricky tradeoffs to balance and one can picture that product deadlines may get in the way of design teams passing along this knowledge to new sets of engineers.]
WD
Is the water fully blocked from left to right, such as I think GV describes, where water is forced through the sponges but only downward, then turns the corner at the bottom and makes it's way back upward through different media? Or is the water allowed to go through some sort of passageways/holes at different levels and thus some of water able to take a short route across (from downward side to upward side) without traversing the full length of down, then up? (as I believe hillmar describes by saying there is sideways movement)
[By the way, over the years I've found that filter internal designs may take more things into consideration than we at first may think about. For instance, having the water move upward through the media may allow gravity to additionally help in the slowing and trapping of particles within a particular filtering stage (despite pump flow seeming to overwhelm this consideration. Another odd consideration is that the overall box can be seen as containment for a set of wet organic debris that is being broken down by heterotrophs and thus providing additional concentration in the feeding of the autotrophic colonies and contrary to what one might think, small amounts of "stage leakthrough" may simply recirculate and smooth out the distribution of this ammonia to the colonies, while the final filtered water that is removed may still consist of water that has on majority had plenty of chance to be fully filtered. Filter beds and water movement are imperfect things, just like in nature, but the overall design may put the process into the correct range for success (in the EC and sump design cases, one is stacking the odds towards success by enlarging the bed volumes of course.) Yet another problem that is going on for the designer is the balancing of a desired external flow rate with the desire for a large reliable pump for reliability and longevity with the desire for a steady very slow internal water rate to maximize debris settlement - these can be tricky tradeoffs to balance and one can picture that product deadlines may get in the way of design teams passing along this knowledge to new sets of engineers.]
WD
the water flow goes from bottom to top through the stacked media baskets and top to bottom through the sponge. How is this considered 'sideways'?
+1 for Fluval 05's being good. My 305 has been excellent. Easy to clean and quiet as a mouse.
What Zoddy and I said is how the Fluval flows - top to bottom and bottom to top. Here is a pic from my users manual:
While the canister itself does not have a vertical divider, the media trays fit together tightly, and do not have any holes on the sides. The only holes on the right side are on the bottom of the media tray, and the top lid. So the path of least resistance for the water is to flow down the vertically oriented sponges on the left and get pulled into the bottom of the bottom media tray and sucked upward by the pump.
If you are really wanting to see animations - Fluval provides a good summary here: (I watched this before buying my 205)
While the canister itself does not have a vertical divider, the media trays fit together tightly, and do not have any holes on the sides. The only holes on the right side are on the bottom of the media tray, and the top lid. So the path of least resistance for the water is to flow down the vertically oriented sponges on the left and get pulled into the bottom of the bottom media tray and sucked upward by the pump.
If you are really wanting to see animations - Fluval provides a good summary here: (I watched this before buying my 205)
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