Ugf Vs Hobf Let Me Know

[Duff83]

i did a search to no avail, so forgive me if this is a repeat post and kindly send me to the right direction...



iv always been w/ the understanding that ugf's are far better than a hobf... can any one out line the pro's and cons of the ugf vs the hobf. i just picked up a 10 gal tank for a nursery upgrade from the 2.5. i also plan to partition it to have 1/4 of it be a birthing section. i have a small sponge filter that is in the 2.5 nursery tank atm, and i just dont feel like its working to my expectations. also not sure if it would suffice for a 10 gal.

 

[nmonks]

For a breeding tank, sponge filters should be adequate. Be careful about judging the "feel" of a filter -- use your nitrite test kit and check the darn thing is working! If it isn't, then add another sponge or box filter, as you prefer. Air-powered filters are particularly good when rearing fry, partly because the gentle current doesn't suck the fry up, but also because sponges especially harbour infusoria that the fry will graze on.

As to undergravels versus hang-on-the-back filters, the pros and cons are essentially these:

Undergravel pros:

• Very good biological filters
• Easy to clean/maintain
• Cheap to install
• Gentle water current
• Effectiveness really only limited by the size of the tank, so a big enough undergravel filter can work well when used for big fish

Undergravel cons:

• Mediocre mechanical filters
• Essentially incompatible with plants that have roots
• Can't be used with burrowing fish
• Substrate options limited to gravel

HOB pros:

• No real advantages; they're inferior to just about every filter type on the market of equivalent price and wattage

HOB cons:

• Inlet and outlet pipes close together (poor circulation)
• Usually locked into using proprietary media modules (expensive, waste of space, often include redundant things like carbon)
• Can't fill the filter with whatever media type/brands you want (e.g., just biological media)
• Limited biological media capacity
• Totally overwhelmed by large/messy fish

At best, I'll admit that HOB filters are widely sold, not expensive, and generally easy to maintain. But that goes for other filter types too. I have absolutely no idea why anyone would buy one. You rarely see them sold in the UK or Europe except at the really low-end of the market; it's perhaps telling that neither Eheim, Sera nor Fluval make the things. For some reason they remain incredibly popular in the US, but for the life of me I can't see why.

If money is tight, an undergravel filter is almost always a good choice. Properly configured such a filter works incredibly well, and it's shortcomings can largely be worked around.

Cheers, Neale

 

[keenonfish]

Hey nmonks my UGF used to offer fantastic mechanical filtration! Crystal clear water as long as I kept up with gravel cleaning

 

[Tolak]

Being a sort of hardware freak is the only reason I can give for going against what nmonks has to say on some of those points.

One of the biggest problems with UGF's is channeling, where over time the substrate becomes plugged, limiting flow through the areas of least resistance. These plugged areas, having no O2 or food source, hold very little nitrifying bacteria. With UGF you have to do a tank teardown at least once yearly, thoce UGF plates look like a mud puddle beneath the substrate.

Eheim does make a HOB filter; http/www.eheim.de/eheim/inhalte/index.js...tail_27413_ehen

There are, like anything else, really good HOB filters, and lemons. The lemons are as nmonks stated. The best you can use just about any media, and are good mechanical filters, often better than canisters. For more messy fish I like to use an Aqua Clear HOB set up for mechanical filtration and a canister set up for bio filtration. Use the filter in the area where it shines.

This is my setup for free standing tanks. Most all the filters in my fishroom are air driven sponge & box filters. I used to run HOB filters, but it was getting to be an electrical hazard.

HOB filters are rare in the UK, one of these days I'd like to try shipping a few AC HOB's to someone in the UK for a thorough review. It sounds like the ones that are available aren't very good.

 

[three-fingers]

If money is tight, an undergravel filter is almost always a good choice. Properly configured such a filter works incredibly well, and it's shortcomings can largely be worked around.

Cheers, Neale

Eheim do make HOB's, though I don't know how good they are, there's a couple at my work.

There was a thread a while ago that showed Aquaclear HOB's (made by Hagen) are nearly as good as canister filters, the only downside is the circulation is poor due to the outlet and inlet being so close - but this is easy to fix with a mod. I'll try find it and edit this post.

They are widely available in the US, but not here for some reason.

I'd say HOB's are better than UGF's overall, but for a fry tank the gentle flow of an air powered sponge or UGF would be better.

edit: Here's the thread http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...slower&st=0

 

[nmonks]

Hey nmonks my UGF used to offer fantastic mechanical filtration! Crystal clear water as long as I kept up with gravel cleaning

Note I said "mediocre" not "bad"! I agree; a properly maintained UGF can produce crystal clear water. But a big external canister filter will generally do a better job of cleaning up behind fish that produce a lot of solid waste, things like large plecs, goldfish, etc. Specifically, you have the problem that a UGF takes the solid waste into the gravel where it isn't always obvious, and it's less easy to clean the gravel than it is to squeeze out a mechanical filtration sponge inside a canister filter. Also, as tolak says, maintenance may include a yearly strip-down if you're going to ensure good biological filtration for long periods. But all that said, for community tanks with small fish, UGFs can work very well, and in their "reverse flow" mode can be superb. Reverse flow UGFs provide excellent biological and mechanical filtration, and I can't recommend them highly enough for things like Malawi cichlid aquaria or basic marine aquaria (e.g., for coldwater marines) where strong water flow and the use of calcareous substrates are particularly useful.

Eheim does make a HOB filter; [URL="http/www.eheim.de/eheim/inhalte/index.js...tail_27413_ehen"]http/www.eheim.de/eheim/inhalte/index.js...tail_27413_ehen[/URL]

Wow; news to me! Never seen that here. Thanks for sharing.

My argument against HOBs isn't that they're useless, but rather than at any given price point, the alternatives seem, to me, to be better. An external canister is better for cichlids and goldfish, a sponge filter better for fry, an undergravel better for low-cost community tanks, an internal canister for mid-range community tanks, and so on.

I guess my bias comes from my university days (early 1990s) when we had labs using them and they were just hopeless. But that opinion keeps being reinforced by my experiences over at Wet Web Media where I help out with the daily advice column. More often that not, when someone has a finrot problem from water quality issues, and then they tell me they have the right filter for their aquarium, it turns out that filter is a HOB unit. Perhaps the manufacturers are wildly optimistic about water turnover through these units or something. But in any case, there seem to be a lot of (largely American) aquarists who've bought HOB filters that somehow don't do the job they're supposed to. Give me a decent Eheim canister filter any day of the week!

Cheers, Neale

 

[K-Holed]

I started out the hobby using an UGF and I found them to be great until I wanted to plant anything. There are undoubtably filters on the market now that provide all the benifits of an UGF whilst solving it's shortcomings, but as a low cost and simple filteration system it's hard to beat. It's true that they do need a tank tear down every year or so, but if you're wanting to use them in fry tanks, this shouldn't be a problem.

 

[fatheadminnow]

[*]No real advantages; they're inferior to just about every filter type on the market of equivalent price and wattage
[/list]
HOB cons:

• Inlet and outlet pipes close together (poor circulation)
• Usually locked into using proprietary media modules (expensive, waste of space, often include redundant things like carbon)
• Can't fill the filter with whatever media type/brands you want (e.g., just biological media)
• Limited biological media capacity
• Totally overwhelmed by large/messy fish

I have to strongly but respectfully disagree with some of this.

The AC filter that I have is HUGE, and I can put anything I want in there.

Bio-balls, ceramics you name it, you can put it in there.

Right now I have ceramics, tons of foam pads and filter floss, and there is still plenty of space left over for more stuff, and this is only an AC 70!

Also, HOB filter are really good for mechanical filtration, better than some other types of filters.

I guess this list is more opinionated than factual.

-FHM

 

[nmonks]

I guess this list is more opinionated than factual.

A bit unfair. I'll accept that the Aquaclear HOB appears to not suffer the usual HOB shortcomings I mentioned with regard to capacity and proprietary filter medium modules. In which case, maybe they're great filters. Never used one. But the common HOB filters I have come across with "bio wheels" and other nonsense are really not terribly good value. They may be adequate filters, but for the money, there are better filters out there.

My argument is based very much on a broad-brush appraisal of the two types of filtration system, not specific models.

The thread mentioned earlier on comparing the Aquaclear HOB to a similar capacity, but higher cost, canister filter is interesting but far from proves anything. For a start, no mention was made about the canister being pressurised, whereas the HOB is not. That has a dramatic impact on mechanical and to some extent biological filtration. HOB filters simply do not provide the same quality of mechanical filtration as canister filters.

The higher pressure "hose" of water that comes out from a canister filter can be adjusted in various ways, for example using a venturi or a spray bar. If you have fish that need a strong current to swim into, then a canister is great. The sluice of water from an HOB may create some current, but there's not much you can do with it in terms of spray bars, etc. It's also much easier to set up a CO2 fertiliser that adds to the canister filter outflow, but I can't see how that would be done with the sluice from an HOB.

Another benefit of canister filters not mentioned in that thread is that they're discrete. You can hide one underneath the tank with no problems. If you need to, you can lower the outflow beneath the waterline, so there's minimal rippling, which is good for planted tanks where CO2 concentration can be lowered by splashing. Properly set up, they're much quieter. By contrast HOB filters lock you into having the filter at the back of the tank, invariably with a sluice pouring water into the tank. The aquarium needs to stand further forward from the wall, wasting room space. If you have fish that jump or otherwise escape, you can have problems because that part of the tank is essentially open.

Canister filters can also be incorporated into reverse-flow undergravel systems, giving perhaps the best all-around filter performance in the hobby. You can't do this with an HOB filter.

One benefit of HOB filters may be better oxygen availability, since they're not enclosed or pressurised. Depending on the design, more oxygen could get to the media directly from the air rather than via the flow of water alone. I'm not sure it's a major benefit, but it's a theoretical one.

I'll also accept that HOB filters are easier to maintain, and for that reason perhaps better than canister for casual aquarists disinterested in maintenance. This doesn't make them any better than, say, internal canister or sponge filters though.

So while a good HOB may well be fine for community fish, there are good reasons why experienced aquarists still use canister filters. If HOBs were as good as canister filters of equivalent turnover but at one-third the cost, why wouldn't everyone be using them?

Cheers, Neale

 

[Duff83]

well here's the thing, and i greatly appreciate the replies as im learning that fish keeping can and is a lot more detailed then treat water, get filter and heater and put fish in... and i like that fact. i like the challenge of creating the perfect environment to harbor living things. its kind of fun and relaxing... my fry tank was up graded from 2.5 to 5.5 gal, and i kept the sponge filter. i wont go to anything else for them... its my main tank im trying to configure. im not buying anything now, but eventually i will. i have a 29 gal, but i purchased a 60 gal hob filter for it, when i had oscars. i knew how messy they are so i doubled the GPH w/ the 60. now its doing a fine job, but i just want to educate my self as far as biologically and mechanically, what is best. i haven't even scratched the surface on canister, because quite frankly, i don't know if im ready... both financially and mentally. seams like a lot of money and time goes into them. when i set up my 75 gal w/ native fish, then ill def be looking into the canister, but that wont be for the better part of at least a year.


please keep the replies coming. feed me all the info you can. i greatly appreciate it.

 

[nmonks]

as im learning that fish keeping can and is a lot more detailed then treat water, get filter and heater and put fish in... and i like that fact.

It's actually not any more complicated that this, unless you want it to be. Buy a filter appropriate to the type and number of the fish you're keeping, and just add water!

i knew how messy they are so i doubled the GPH w/ the 60. now its doing a fine job,

That's pretty standard operating practise for the larger cichlids. The "turnover" is often a better indication than anything else when buying filters. Go for (at minimum) 4x the volume of the tank for community fish, 6x to 8x for cichlids, big catfish and goldfish, and 10x or more for marines and freshwater fish that like strong currents, such as Tanganyikans and hillstream fish. In other words, if you had a 20 gallon tank, you'd get a filter rated at 4 x 20 = 80 gallons per hour for community fish, and so on.

i haven't even scratched the surface on canister, because quite frankly, i don't know if im ready... both financially and mentally. seams like a lot of money and time goes into them.

I'm not sure they're awfully expensive or difficult to maintain. Fluval filters are very competitively priced, and I've used them many times. Eheim filters may be better in the long run, but you can still expect 5-10 years of service from a Fluval.

when i set up my 75 gal w/ native fish, then ill def be looking into the canister, but that wont be for the better part of at least a year.

I'd have thought for cool water fish, where oxygen and circulation are often critical issues, a canister filter with a high turnover would be mandatory. In the meantime, try and track down "North American Native Fishes for the Home Aquarium" by David M. Schleser; it's an essential book for anyone keeping cool water fish, whether North Americans or not.

Cheers, Neale