Penn-Plax Cascade Cannister Filter / No Support for Repairs

[Gradual_BT]

Good Afternoon....

Maybe a good say 2-3 years ago I purchased a Penn-Plax Cascade Cannister Filter for my 40' breeder....
Admittedly it worked really well... kept it sparkling and flowing... no real complaints with it. At first it was a little complicated with tuning it and getting it to work properly but like with most things you get it going.
.
Had a couple of scares with this though... on a couple of occasions i would notice water in the tub that i kept the filter in... 1 time in particular I came home and noticed that the tub was almost to the top... we are talking about a 12' inch tub to offer some
form of safety here. I often think that if I hadnt checked it that day and moment, water would have flowed out, electrical matter etc etc. Not good.
.
As time went on I noticed that the cannister would not seal tight. I bought a new O-ring for small fortune, no go, I even tried to silicone it and that seemed to make things worse as now I can't close it properly. Reached out to Penn-Plax and to my
surprise, they DO NOT offer any support... I figured that at that point I would just mail core over to them and let them fix it. So now I am stuff with a good core and motor, hoses etc but cant keep a good seal and possibly ruined with a bad silicone job of mine.
Curious what anybody on here would do in such a situation or if they know of any places that can repair such a filter. Having a hard time trashing it as it is still in good shape.

Thanks / Bill T

 

[GaryE27 142]

I had Penn Plax heaters, and have them no more. I'm glad of that. I've never seen their canisters, but it sounds to me like you are trying to salvage the unsalvageable. Its an expense, but move on and just transfer as much cycled media as you can to a better device. You shouldn't need a tub to catch leaks under any canister. I've had such faulty devices and made them work in the past, when the budget was tight, but you need an upgrade.

Some equipment is made to be replaced. It's wrong, it's unethical and it's profitable for those who see only that.

 

[OldFishKeeper1]

I had Penn Plax heaters, and have them no more. I'm glad of that. I've never seen their canisters, but it sounds to me like you are trying to salvage the unsalvageable. Its an expense, but move on and just transfer as much cycled media as you can to a better device. You shouldn't need a tub to catch leaks under any canister. I've had such faulty devices and made them work in the past, when the budget was tight, but you need an upgrade.

Some equipment is made to be replaced. It's wrong, it's unethical and it's profitable for those who see only that.

Agree... and no wonder our landfills are doing just that!

 

[anewbie]

While we can talk about best bang for the buck and other factors in terms of support and reliability i've been pretty happy with fluval products including their canister filters.

 

[TwoTankAmin22]

In the long rung, the cheapest solution is usually the one that costs the most up front. I have had as many as 3 canisters running on different tanks. I have only every considered one brand- Eheim. When I was buying then the current version was The Pro 2 line. I got my first one yo use om my high tech planted tank with pressurized CO2, My plan was to push the CO2 into the canister and let it become my diffuser and delivery system. That was about 21 years ago. It ran for almost a decade in that job. I still have that canister running today even though I took down the high tech planted tank after close to 10 years, it was just too much work to maintain. I moved the Eheim to another tank where it is still running today.

Just as an FYI, My first Aquaclear filter was a 150 gp (now called the 30). I bought it and a bunch of other used items (including a 75 gal. tank) in 2003 from a couple graduating from college who were selling all ther aquarium stuff. They were moving a long way from school and decied to sell it all rather than transport it a long way to where they were moving.

I was given one piece of advice by a gent with close to 50 years in the fish world including owning a store, and working iin the inport buusiness and pets shops. He hates anything with hoses and warned me that hoses can detach. As a result all my canisters usestailnless steel hose clamps on every connection point. I use inline heaters with canisters and use the hose clamls one thos two connections (un and out) as well.

Way back when Fluval canisters were not so great and when I purchased several tanks and other items from a Cichlid breeder who was forced out of the hobby after back surgery, One tanks came with a Fluval caniste., I sold it for $25 and bught another Eheim in its place. Over time Fluvals improved but, by then, I was done buying canisters.

As always this is just my experience and opinion. The above is my expreience and opinion and is cetainly not necessarily the best or only one. Each of us has to decide what works best for us.

Btw- the least relieble piece of equipment many of us use in tanks are heaters. I have tried a numbers of different brands and all of them can and do fail. I habe had two tanks of fish die because a heater got stuck full on. One tank was 105F when I discovered the problem and the second was over 120F. As a resut I began buying heater controllers for my more critical tanks.

 

[GaryE27 142]

I'll be a devil's advocate here. The hobby is growing in leaps and bounds in China, and the quality of a lot of what seems no name equipment to us has shot right up (sometimes). It's very comparable to US products, which are often made in China anyway. It helps in both cases to see the gear and how sturdy it is. I have had filters last 12 years plus, only I can't tell you the brand because they were branded with names of now defunct local stores. No competitor has lasted as long as my fluval/aquaclears though.

I like Fluval equipment (and did some work and product testing for them in the past), Eheim stuff and am hearing good things about Seachem's Tidal filters (hang on the backs). Sadly, Penn Plax strikes me as being in the "run away" category.

 

[anewbie]

I'll be a devil's advocate here. The hobby is growing in leaps and bounds in China, and the quality of a lot of what seems no name equipment to us has shot right up (sometimes). It's very comparable to US products, which are often made in China anyway. It helps in both cases to see the gear and how sturdy it is. I have had filters last 12 years plus, only I can't tell you the brand because they were branded with names of now defunct local stores. No competitor has lasted as long as my fluval/aquaclears though.

I like Fluval equipment (and did some work and product testing for them in the past), Eheim stuff and am hearing good things about Seachem's Tidal filters (hang on the backs). Sadly, Penn Plax strikes me as being in the "run away" category.

Eheim used to be great but as Fluval has gotten better Eheim has gotten worse and i now consider Eheim over-priced garbage.

I've heard mixed things about OASE; my understanding is they have a lot more failure points then fluval - the fluvals are very simple and at least today very well made with constant revision to address issues.

The reason I was looking at fluval filters recently is I have a 95 with a 24 inch matten filter that is giving me a lot of head-aches and give my aquarium unique nature (very acidic with ph below 5.5; small particles from leaves and such and so on I want to switch it to a canister filter. I have fluval 401 and 402 for smaller tanks and like the overall design but the 407 is on the low end of flow i want for the 95; the problem is i don't want the headache of the fx2 (I have an fx6 and while it is very reliable and has a great deal of current i don't love the cleaning or ribbon cables - i really want a 407 that has a stronger motor).

The only thing i can find between the fluval 407 and fx2 are the oase but they are 30% more expensive and have a lot of features i don't want (the 600 or 850 bio); i dont' need their prefilter as i will put a sponge on the intake, i don't want the thermo in the filter as the model doesn't fit my usage and i dont' want uv (I don't think the model has it) but the biggest problem is all these features has their own gasket and sealing points which can break or leak. While each one is very low % the more the more likely something can go wrong. The fluval really only has one around the lid and that is about all i want to tolerate.

So ..... as for china market - their lights are pretty decent esp some of the new ones like week and netlea but i havent' see much in filters; there are things like the Aquael ULTRA 1500 or 2000 which is probably some sort of chinese company but no clue if they are reliable - the thing about fluval is those little refinements they make every few years do add up to a product that work better...

 

[GaryE27 142]

I should be extra loyal to fluval as I did freelance work for them, plus since they were a local company to me before I moved east, I had an ex student who had become interested in my classroom tank's homemade filter, and ended up parlaying that into a job there. I'm always a bit nervous about saying how good I think the equipment is as I can be accused of corruption, even if I'm sincere. They don't pay me anymore and that was for fish videos in its time.

But I do have a lot of their equipment here and I like it a lot. It helps that they distribute internationally when we discuss them.

 

[anewbie]

I should be extra loyal to fluval as I did freelance work for them, plus since they were a local company to me before I moved east, I had an ex student who had become interested in my classroom tank's homemade filter, and ended up parlaying that into a job there. I'm always a bit nervous about saying how good I think the equipment is as I can be accused of corruption, even if I'm sincere. They don't pay me anymore and that was for fish videos in its time.

But I do have a lot of their equipment here and I like it a lot. It helps that they distribute internationally when we discuss them.

I think i'll try the ultramax 2000; it has significnatly more flow then the 407; is cheaper and only uses 17 watt. The design and reviews look good though it remains to see how durable the motor will be. Don't get me wrong i really like fluval and unlike eheim don't really have anything negative to say but i really want a 507 - something with more flow then the 407 but less head-ache then the fx2. Biomaster 2 850 seems interesting but it has more points of failure and no more flow then 407.

I will say that while i really like matten filter these larger 24 inch sponges are kind of painful to deal with and in my acidic environment the uplift tubes suffer frequent blockage (the little holes at the bottom become clogged - we are talking in some cases weekly using a pin to clean out each hole).

 

[anewbie]

Another intresting model is the netlea line - they have good and bad points and are really targeted at the ada folks because as we all know ada is like 10x the reasonable price point for what they sell. Still the canisterfilter seems like a reasonable design and worth considering esp with a decent dc motor (i think the ultramax also uses a dc motor to get the low wattage and the bt model allows you to control the speed). Oh well too many options for my tiny head but with 20+ aquarium i simply can't have constant clogging of uplift tubes and similar - too much work.

 

[Gradual_BT]

I'll be a devil's advocate here. The hobby is growing in leaps and bounds in China, and the quality of a lot of what seems no name equipment to us has shot right up (sometimes). It's very comparable to US products, which are often made in China anyway. It helps in both cases to see the gear and how sturdy it is. I have had filters last 12 years plus, only I can't tell you the brand because they were branded with names of now defunct local stores. No competitor has lasted as long as my fluval/aquaclears though.

I like Fluval equipment (and did some work and product testing for them in the past), Eheim stuff and am hearing good things about Seachem's Tidal filters (hang on the backs). Sadly, Penn Plax strikes me as being in the "run away" category.

Thanks for the Time / Tips / Experience sharing. Admittedly, I really like how cannister filters perform vs say the standard hang over the back filter or sponge filter. It was fun changing out the media and creating, using some different forms of media etc. I may have to unload on one of these Fluvals... We'll see. Just the cost for things these days is just outrageous... when you see a baby convict being sold for 8.99 at Petsmart you know you are in the Future...

 

[Gradual_BT]

I should be extra loyal to fluval as I did freelance work for them, plus since they were a local company to me before I moved east, I had an ex student who had become interested in my classroom tank's homemade filter, and ended up parlaying that into a job there. I'm always a bit nervous about saying how good I think the equipment is as I can be accused of corruption, even if I'm sincere. They don't pay me anymore and that was for fish videos in its time.

But I do have a lot of their equipment here and I like it a lot. It helps that they distribute internationally when we discuss them.

Gary, Appreciating all the insights and expertise here... have you ever had a leak in/from one of your cannister filters that ran into the floor etc? After my last incident, admittedly, I am a little gun-shy on re-purchasing. In my case, this is only in a 40 gallon breeder but the tubing was at near the bottom so that would have resulted in some serious water damage let alone electrical. That said, I can see myself spending a little more for a more refined/secure product.

 

[GaryE27 142]

I had one canister that leaked. Every clening was a pain, but eventually with a new O-ring, it settled. The ones I have now are watertight - fluvals and an eheim. For Hand On the Back/HOB filters, I use quite few brands, If you don't rinse the media regularly, they can overflow.