Marina S15 Hob Filter

[coldcazzie]

I've been given one of these filters by a friend who bought a new tank and didn't want the filter. Comes with 3 cartridges, a zeolite one and 2 carbon ones. Needless to say if I were to use it I'd throw those out and fill it with floss/noodles/bioballs or something, although there's not much room so it'd have to be compact media. I can't really find any information about how powerful the powerhead is that comes with it, except that everywhere states that it's suitable for "tanks up to 15 gallons" which doesn't really help me.

Does anybody have one? Are they any good or not? I'm trying to work out if it's worth my keeping it, or if I should just throw it/stick it on ebay. I've sold my smaller tanks (the 5-7 USG ones) so I don't have any tanks now that it would reasonably filter, but I do have 2 ~15G ones, one of which has a fluval 2 and the other doesn't have anything, and this might do at a push, bearing in mind they are unlikely to be used for anything other than quarantine/hosp tanks.

Thoughts?

 

[VaegaVic]

They've only just come out on the market so there's still very little information about them.
However, I've seen the tanks that these come part as and it's designed to be cheap and cheerful.

The tank only has 1 15w bulb for 60L, flimsy plastic and is just generally designed to be cheap more than anything else.

I wouldn't expect the filter to be absolutely brilliant because of this, but you never know.
Use it in a 10L tank and you may be quite surprised, use it in a tank it was "designed" for and you may be quite disappointed.

Also, I wouldn't expect the flow to be anything special as it is a HoB, I'd still keep it for spare parts or possible for a hospital tank as it's perfect for that.

 

[coldcazzie]

Yeh, hence my comment about the smaller tanks I had being sold - it would've been alright for one of them.

Just unsure whether it's really worth keeping when it's likely to be woefully inadequate at filtering the size of tanks I have.