External Canister Filter Fluval 05 Series?

[raptorrex]

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

well put there WD!
though looking at the design of the Fluval pictured. all the design does is cause resistance to flow. the sections would need to be, absolutely divided, for it not too. overall it has the layout of an expanded internal filter. having seen the drawing, i now understand why Fluval externals flow so much less, given a specific pump power, than some other Externals.
pump at the top filters have the advantage of having to pull the water from a, much, higher point than, say the FX5. meaning less power use. for a given pump output. so the logic of having to raise water twice, makes little sense to me.

your comments on the effect of gravity, are well found. as with all filters with the fine filtration at the bottom, they all fight the laws of gravity. however cleaver the design may be, all it does is make the filters job harder. indeed with the best designed filters gravity is used as part of the function. the weight of the debris can help hold it in the areas the filter may need them. true this is helped by pads and sponges, still the effect it there and used.

@ everyone. look I'm not saying the filters don't work, even work well, just from a skim of the design, they aren't helping themselves! that being said, there is a reason Eheim/ Aquaone have a better reputation than Fluval, and others. its not hype or advertising, simply the experiences over long periods of time, of their users.

 

[Skins]

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

+1, Keith.

 

[waterdrop]

Enjoyed all the thoughtful comments guys. Thanks for the clear info GV. The idea of bringing the input water past the sponges while the sponges are in a vertical orientation is interesting. I suppose it exposes the debris to the sponge for a longer period of the dwell time. Since the sponge is an open-cell design (as I'm sure all sponges that basically work at all as filters are) it shouldn't matter which direction the sponge shape is in as long as the overall pathway is tight enough that the water must move through the sponge. It is interesting to see how even the major players in ECs promote different orders to the sequence of media the water is exposed to. I've thought at times that there's a case to be made that other than fine mechanical being placed as the final media, the order of the others may not matter much and that one can think of various tradeoffs for different ordering (eg. Eheim typically have you place the large rings as the first media the water encounters, followed by a coarse sponge cap on that first tray; whereas Fluval are having the water pass through the coarse sponge as the very first thing followed by the large rings at a later point - Rap and I have talked in the past about the primary role of large rings as being mechanical, to break up and randomized the water into smaller flow streams, thus slowing it and allowing the largest debris to be trapped prior to hitting the coarse sponge, which has somewhat smaller passageways. Fluval seems to be reversing this and I would think it would open the possibility (if you happened to have large debris, which is relatively rare mostly) of the top portion of the sponge getting clogged a bit quickly, since I believe it is seeing the intake hose water first.)

WD

 

[Gvilleguy]

What I have noticed when cleaning the Fluval 205 is that the sponge filters tend to collect more debris at the bottom, where, perhaps, the water flow is slowed down as it makes the turn to the other side of the canister. Maybe there is a pooling effect there at the bottom. But this could also indicate that the sponges do not fit as tightly as could be ideal. They do get dirty along the entire length, though.

 

[OldMan47]

Now it is my turn to disagree with others.

I have several of the Rena XP series in my fish rooms. I really love them. The "cheaply made" filters are well over 8 years old on average and have given my no trouble at all. Mine do not bypass flow the way that another member has suggested. On the contrary, it directs all incoming water to the chamber in the bottom of the canister and then the water flows cleanly up through the stack of filter cartridges. Many other designs, like the Tetra-tech / Marineland C series filters, rely on individual seals in each section to avoid the incoming water mixing with the filtered water. It is like they build a pipe out of 3 inch sections of tubing by relying on individual seals at each stage. The Rena simply brings all water down around the outside of things rather than trying to go through the middle as so many others do. That means it is easier to get a good separation between flow paths due to the simplicity of the design flow path. There are no vulnerable seals to leak water between inlet and outlet paths so things stay well separated with minimal effort.

The classic Eheim filters seem to make a direct connection to the bottom of a filter housing, so mixing flow streams is not a likely scenario. Again, it is simplicity itself. With no need for flows to pass each other inside the canister, the chance of random flow mixing is minimized. It is not the elegant solution that Rena uses but it should work just fine. The down side that I see to the Eheim classics has nothing to do with filtering ability, it is the maintenance that it might require. Since they do not use media baskets, they must be built from the bottom up each time you take them apart to clean them. I am afraid that the need to do that has put me off of trying one of those for some time now. The added cost over my Rena or even my Marineland is not something that I easily ignore. As a hobbyist, I cannot simply write off the extra cost as a production expense the way a commercial enterprise might. Instead I must take that money right out of my pocket, that means dealing with the moths that fly out of my wallet whenever I open it.

The vaseline thing is a common requirement of Fluval and Eheim filters, and maybe a few others. Being a relatively harmless substance, no harm is done using it, except that it can be a bit messy to use. I never have had to use it to get a good reliable seal on my Rena XP series or on my Marineland C series filters. For some reason they just keep working without the extra need of a lubricant. If the lubricant would help seal life, I have yet to experience the need, but an 8 year old filter canister is still young. I may yet live to regret not having used that goopy stuff on my filter seals.

 

[Gvilleguy]

Eight years on the Rena is impressive!

 

[hillmar77]

Yup your going sideways then through the chambers

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.

Yeah if you look at the flow picture then the water moves down to the bottom, sideways, then back up. But without any real way of sealing ( gaskets or O'rings) to prevent some of the water to go through the side media trays during operation hence there should be sideway flow during operation. This was what I was informed by a local aquatic breeder that was selling these filters. I kinda agree with him since I work on hydraulic systems for a living. Flow will go through the tightest tolerances ( stacked media trays) unless there are gaskets or O'rings to stop it. For example on a system that eheim uses 2028, 2075 etc uses a series of pipes with O'ring connections to direct flow from the top to the bottom of the canister then back up through all the media trays. Hence why my breeder believes the eheim have the smallest water loss.( water loss as in water flow through other chambers during operation)

 

[OldMan47]

Gvilleguy, I do not find the 8 years impressive at all. These are simply my filters and are nothing more than my filters, not any kind of experiment. As long as they keep serving me, I will continue to think of them as fine filters. If they ever let me down, I am not one to hold back on criticism. I will just as quickly post that they have failed me as I have been to say that they are serving me well. So far the only problem that I have seen with my XP series or my Marineland C series have been of my own failures. I once thought, and did not hesitate to say so, that my C series had let me down. What I found instead, after many trials and tribulations, was that I had not installed the C series the way that I should have and that was the thing causing me all of my problems. In my case, I had not set up the C series to have adequate connections between the hoses and the filter body. What I thought of as a problem of the shutoff valve not sealing properly turned out to be an inadequate connection between the hoses and the shutoff valve. Once I discovered the inadequate connection, the shut off valve suddenly seemed to be performing very well. Let's get real here, I had messed up on installing the filter and had been blaming the manufacturer for my own mistakes. Once I had that figured out, I quit saying that the C series filter shutoff valve did not work well. Instead it became a filter that I could endorse without any reservations. I still like the Rena filters better, but that is my own analysis of the features that each filter presents. I like the self priming and the clean flow patten of the Rena XP series. I find the Marineland filter is more reliant on the tubing seals than I would like for my own tanks so I rate it a bit lower in overall performance than the Rena. If well maintained, either filter will do a fine job for you. The differences we are talking about here are 4 parts preference and only 1 part true difference. A filter that I find less desirable to me is nonetheless a great filter. Please take the time to look at how each filter works relative to how your own maintenance techniques vary. My approach is not the same as every other fish keeper's and should never be taken as the authority on how your filter will work for you. Each of us has our own prejudices as to how a filter should work and that is most often a far bigger factor in choosing a filter than my personal likes and dislikes.
Even though I have no background to draw from here(no facts if you like), I encourage each fish keeper to be his own judge of what is best. Each of us must ultimately live with his/her own choices. We cannot ever really blame someone else for what we have done to ourselves. Please take the time to decide for yourself what is really best for you. It is a simple thing to say that my own choices are in no way yours. If you take the time to choose what you find a good idea and what you find totally immaterial, you will be far more satisfied with the result than you will be by blindly following my lead or that of anyone else here.
Each of us has our own prejudices and you do not have mine. I would not expect your experiences to mimic mine in any way. What that really ends up meaning is that you will not come to the same conclusions as I would when presented with the same set of facts. I am not at all dismayed by that. I really want each fish keeper to arrive at his/her own conclusions based on the facts as they see them. If your conclusions and mine are different, I truly want to understand that difference. By exploring how we differ, perhaps each of us can discover for ourselves what the other person is seeing instinctively. That may ultimately lead us to better understand the reality of a situation, by tossing out our own personal prejudices.

 

[onebto]

Oh joy another one I commented on another external filter post in this section yesterday not knowing this one was going on

It appears things are going well I take great joy in reading these debates and sometimes I even learn something .

I may be wrong but it appears to me that some people take it a bit personally if someone else talks down the filter they have sat under there tank running fine and dandy for the last couple of years as I said I may be wrong it was just an observation.

Ill big up the Fluval 405 as I have one and they are great Sideways up ways or down ways I do not give a "Guess what should be here" it filters water and does a dam good job of it to.

Enjoy the debate Peeps I shall be reading with interest

Regards onebto.

 

[raptorrex]

Now it is my turn to disagree with others.

I have several of the Rena XP series in my fish rooms. I really love them. The "cheaply made" filters are well over 8 years old on average and have given my no trouble at all. Mine do not bypass flow the way that another member has suggested. On the contrary, it directs all incoming water to the chamber in the bottom of the canister and then the water flows cleanly up through the stack of filter cartridges. Many other designs, like the Tetra-tech / Marineland C series filters, rely on individual seals in each section to avoid the incoming water mixing with the filtered water. It is like they build a pipe out of 3 inch sections of tubing by relying on individual seals at each stage. The Rena simply brings all water down around the outside of things rather than trying to go through the middle as so many others do. That means it is easier to get a good separation between flow paths due to the simplicity of the design flow path. There are no vulnerable seals to leak water between inlet and outlet paths so things stay well separated with minimal effort.

The classic Eheim filters seem to make a direct connection to the bottom of a filter housing, so mixing flow streams is not a likely scenario. Again, it is simplicity itself. With no need for flows to pass each other inside the canister, the chance of random flow mixing is minimized. It is not the elegant solution that Rena uses but it should work just fine. The down side that I see to the Eheim classics has nothing to do with filtering ability, it is the maintenance that it might require. Since they do not use media baskets, they must be built from the bottom up each time you take them apart to clean them. I am afraid that the need to do that has put me off of trying one of those for some time now. The added cost over my Rena or even my Marineland is not something that I easily ignore. As a hobbyist, I cannot simply write off the extra cost as a production expense the way a commercial enterprise might. Instead I must take that money right out of my pocket, that means dealing with the moths that fly out of my wallet whenever I open it.

The vaseline thing is a common requirement of Fluval and Eheim filters, and maybe a few others. Being a relatively harmless substance, no harm is done using it, except that it can be a bit messy to use. I never have had to use it to get a good reliable seal on my Rena XP series or on my Marineland C series filters. For some reason they just keep working without the extra need of a lubricant. If the lubricant would help seal life, I have yet to experience the need, but an 8 year old filter canister is still young. I may yet live to regret not having used that goopy stuff on my filter seals.

lol, we will have to disagree on how good the separation if incoming water is, vis a vie the pipe through middle and drawing water down, around the media. but both systems work, however efficiently.

i see your point about the maintenance of a Eheim Classisc. however with cleaning intervals of, six months or more, its hardly an impediment. i find the main problem is loss of bio media, over time.

my first cannister, Hydro Prime 30, is now 7or8 years old. its never once let me down (though i let it down by breaking an impeller during cleaning). it shares the same configuration as the Classic 2013 et al. except the input pipe is at the top. therefore it draws the water in a similar way to the Rena. any how, i still have one running strongly, without problems. but i have come across many who have had real problems with it (reliability). so am i right, or are those with problems? well, on balance, it must be all those with problems.

one point on Vaseline, you should never use it on a aquarium filter. though i have to say its only Fluval i have ever needed a lubricant for. none of my Eheims need it, neither does the Hydor. either way you should use a SILICONE lubricant, as filter makers will/do say. I doubt very much it will affect your aquarium. it will, however, destroy your sealing rings. all be it over time.
final point on cost. all my Eheims cost less than £55 including media. so actually, my moths don't see much daylight! I dont however have very many tanks, i understand that would have quite an effect on finances.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, nice post OM47. It's always good for us to remember that our own individual needs and preferences often overwhelm the actual differences between products we are comparing. So a couple of the most important aspects of value that we give each other by posting are that we share informative bits of fact about the products (that might otherwise take fellow members a long time to dig out) and secondly that when we share honest stories about our experiences we can "see through each other's eyes" so to speak and through at we often learn, either in direct or indirect ways.

[And of course, lol, we do well to remember that by simply sharing and being friends, we enjoy the chance of bringing some cheer to someone else's possible frustration or bad day! ]

Interesting point up there about the Rena delivering the intake water to the bottom of the filter box by going around the outside edges of the media trays. I'll have to take a look at a Rena or at an exploded diagram. It would be interesting to see the details of this, although the basic idea sounds simple enough. In my Eheim Pro I've always thought the silicone gaskets that ensure that the downflow pipe that takes the intake water and delivers it to the bottom of the box were slightly ill-fitting. Each media tray has an inch or two of this pipe built in but at the top of each sits a silicone ring gasket that fits forms a lip over the top edge of that section of pipe, thus sealing it to the bottom of the pipe in the next filter tray up, or to the pumphead at the top. Perhaps in the Pro "II" or Pro "3" lines, this has been changed to more of an O-Ring design (mine in round like an o-ring but also forms a lip over the pipe top-edge).. perhaps Raptor knows that detail. Anyway I've never had a problem with it but it was one of the only details that didn't seem totally tight-fitting to me.

Also interesting about your lubricant comments Raptor. My Eheim has never "needed" lubricant based on my own experience, I just have always lubricated all the silicone parts based on the advice of Eheim in the owner's manual, using the little packet of silicone lubricant that came with the filter. I then started using Vasoline sometimes (despite knowing that pure silicone lubricant would be better) because of seeing a few comments from members that vasoline was really just as good. It had occurred to me that I could easily find silicone lubricant at the hardware store but I always doubted that it's data sheet would give me any information about whether it was toxic in any way for an aquarium. (Gee, I guess I'd have to ask a chemical engineer of a company that makes silicone lubricant which product should be nontoxic in an aquarium setting! What do you guys think? seems like I remember a long-ago post where someone knew a good safe brand of silicone lubricant for filter seals, but I'd never find it now.) I also thought that some members felt that Vasoline was fine but that, like the filter manufacturers wanting to sell you media, they also want to sell you their little packet of stuff. But not being a chemical engineer myself I really don't know!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

WD, the biggest problem that I have had with my Marineland filter was when I managed to lose one of the rubber seals for that "hose through the middle" arrangement. What I had to do was to decide where in the flow path I was willing to let some of the water bypass the filter. In my case I chose to let the very last bottom filter be the one that saw some bypass. Since I had mainly a particulate filter in that stage, I decided that allowing a bit of bypass flow would really harm nothing. If large particles tried to bypass, they would end up plugging the bypass flow much like the rubber gasket would have, by getting trapped in the narrow confines of that fitting. A filter made up of the debris that a filter should remove is always a second best arrangement but it can be quite effective for particulates. By making sure my biological filtration was not being bypassed, I was comfortable enough experimenting with it.

 

[FishyWishie]

Well for my new 370L tank I've turned into a Eheim fanboy

1 x Eheim pro 3 2080 for the biological side of things
1 x Eheim 2217 for the mechanical side of things

That said the fluval 405 that I currently use on my 240L has done a great service and touch wood will continue to do so once the tank is relocated.

I agree very much with OM47 we all have our own bias and theres no 'right' answer I havent moved to eheim because of snobbery or a dislike of fluval merely my finances atm meant I could choose what I felt was the best combination of filters for me with the plans I have for the new tank.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, OM, a small mishap of my own making was the start of my own little filter problem a while back that I just got finished completely dealing with. During my usual filter cleaning procedure one day I managed to let the empty filter box slip out of my hands and it fell at an awkward angle and one of the open clips that normally holds the lid on was the first thing that bumped somewhere. It flew off and when I examined it I found that some of the gray plastic had broken. In fact it had two little gray clips that grabbed an axle and one of those had broken.

I of course needed to get the thing back together, filtering, and get on my way, so I was quite concerned whether the single gray clip piece would hold the powerhead against the filter box without leakage. It did. When I thought about it I was very pleased with the Eheim design where the 4 big gray clips on the corners each had two internal grabbing clips and I was able to break one of the pair on one of the clips and everything still work! But of course then I found myself worrying that the next time I did a cleaning it would break for good and for the period during which I procrastinated, I found myself going longer than I really wanted before cleaning. So I finally placed the parts order for a new EZ-clip and took the opportunity to order an extra ceramic shaft and endcap set for my impeller, feeling that's probably a good spare to have on hand (I've always worried about that ceramic shaft slipping out of my hand or rolling off the sink edge during impeller cleaning and now I can relax a bit about that. )

So everything is back to normal. At my current age I'm a much more methodical and careful person when working with things but this was certainly an example to me that mishaps can still happen despite lots of concentration, so the careful planning of spares (especially for people who only have one or two tanks and thus fewer overall spare pieces of equipment) is important.

The web search engines are certainly great for finding even obscure parts at discount prices and some of my parts have come that way. But I've also been pleased that even though I own one of the european eheim models not normally sold anymore in the USA, the US eheim parts operation so far has always delivered even the more rare items within a day or two to my doorstep after ordering.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[raptorrex]

Yes, nice post OM47. It's always good for us to remember that our own individual needs and preferences often overwhelm the actual differences between products we are comparing. So a couple of the most important aspects of value that we give each other by posting are that we share informative bits of fact about the products (that might otherwise take fellow members a long time to dig out) and secondly that when we share honest stories about our experiences we can "see through each other's eyes" so to speak and through at we often learn, either in direct or indirect ways.

[And of course, lol, we do well to remember that by simply sharing and being friends, we enjoy the chance of bringing some cheer to someone else's possible frustration or bad day! ]

Interesting point up there about the Rena delivering the intake water to the bottom of the filter box by going around the outside edges of the media trays. I'll have to take a look at a Rena or at an exploded diagram. It would be interesting to see the details of this, although the basic idea sounds simple enough. In my Eheim Pro I've always thought the silicone gaskets that ensure that the downflow pipe that takes the intake water and delivers it to the bottom of the box were slightly ill-fitting. Each media tray has an inch or two of this pipe built in but at the top of each sits a silicone ring gasket that fits forms a lip over the top edge of that section of pipe, thus sealing it to the bottom of the pipe in the next filter tray up, or to the pumphead at the top. Perhaps in the Pro "II" or Pro "3" lines, this has been changed to more of an O-Ring design (mine in round like an o-ring but also forms a lip over the pipe top-edge).. perhaps Raptor knows that detail. Anyway I've never had a problem with it but it was one of the only details that didn't seem totally tight-fitting to me.

Also interesting about your lubricant comments Raptor. My Eheim has never "needed" lubricant based on my own experience, I just have always lubricated all the silicone parts based on the advice of Eheim in the owner's manual, using the little packet of silicone lubricant that came with the filter. I then started using Vasoline sometimes (despite knowing that pure silicone lubricant would be better) because of seeing a few comments from members that vasoline was really just as good. It had occurred to me that I could easily find silicone lubricant at the hardware store but I always doubted that it's data sheet would give me any information about whether it was toxic in any way for an aquarium. (Gee, I guess I'd have to ask a chemical engineer of a company that makes silicone lubricant which product should be nontoxic in an aquarium setting! What do you guys think? seems like I remember a long-ago post where someone knew a good safe brand of silicone lubricant for filter seals, but I'd never find it now.) I also thought that some members felt that Vasoline was fine but that, like the filter manufacturers wanting to sell you media, they also want to sell you their little packet of stuff. But not being a chemical engineer myself I really don't know!

~~waterdrop~~

any commercial silicon based lubricant is safe in a tank. though you can check its "food grade". i notice Eheim call their silicone lubricant "vasoline", on their site. perhaps how the misunderstanding came about. but Petroleum Jelly is death, over time, to silicone rubber seals. they mention that too.

uk food safe silicone lubricant

US food safe silicone lubricant

UK foods safe silicone lubricant

it has to be said, i cant find one that is not food safe. though many don't mention it. prices are not, too, bad either.

it may be interesting to see how many use Vaseline and how many use silicone. then see how often each has to replace their seals!

personally I've never found need to lubricate. i warm all seals prior to removal and refitting. but, ultimatly, i think its the long periods when you don't touch the filter that do the trick. things dont need maintained, anywhere near, as much if you don't mess with them.

as to the Pro2 Pro 3 seals. the pro three has a separate down flow, and has a o ring gasket. Pro2 have the same gasket as the basic Pro (same part number too)