ND Aquatics vs Juwel

[TwistedHelix]

Anyone experienced ND Aquatics?

I was going to get a Juwel 400 (450 litres) but it is £850 ish.

ND Aquatics do a 700 litre tank for similar pricing.

I am aware I would need a fluval fx6 or similar which is another £300 odd but TBH the bigger the tank the better and I can't pass up a 700 litre with cabinet for that kind of price new!

My main concern is the glass. They state 10mm here. That seems awfully thin for 700 litres...

The Juwel is 60% capacity and has 10mm...

 

[Ch4rlie]

ND Aquatics has something of a good name to be entirely honest.

I personally have asked for quotes for custom tanks and got reasonable prices but the delivery cost put me off, but having said that, I know of other members from this forum who have ordered and recieved ND Aquatic tanks and they indeed lavished praise on the quaility of the build of their tanks.

But I am also a fan of Juwel tanks, I have had 2 different Juwel tanks in the past and they served me absolutely fine and quaility is pretty good as well. Not to everyone's taste the style and colours but for me, it was just the job.

I think 10mm glass should be fine for a 700 litre tank btw. I have had 350 litre tanks with 5 or 6mm glass (cant remember exactly) but no issues at all whatsoever.

Personally I'd go for the 700 litre ND tank if you have the space and budget for such a tank, along with the great Fluval FX which a monster of a cannister filter

 

[TwistedHelix]

Yeah I have the room I'll just chuck the dining room table away

Budget not too much of an issue either (not being cocky just wont put a price on doing the hobby properly).

Yeah I come from a Juwel family - they are fantastic tanks, such a shame they only do a 450 litre max size.

Well I will see what their delivery is like. I don't live too far from their HQ it seems.

Glad the quality of ND is good.

I wanted to maybe get clown loaches and feel 450 litres is bare minimum for them

 

[Essjay]

I have an ND Aquatics tank and am very pleased with it.

I used to have a Juwel Rio 125 (a lot smaller than the size you want ) but the bracer bar came unstuck from the back wall and at 6 mm glass for this size the walls began to bow. Rather than risk a repair - and having to find somewhere for the fish while it was done - I persuaded my husband to let me get a bigger tank. I went with a custom built tank so that I could get the dimensions I wanted. I know the size you want is a lot bigger than my ND Aq 180 litre but 10mm glass felt like overkill after the 6mm of the Rio 125.

ND Aquatics tanks are priced at just the tank, hood or top trim, and optional cabinet. Heaters, filters and lights are extra. I've had my tank for 3 years and the lights they provided as standard were T8 fluorescent. I don't know if they can now supply T5s or LEDs.


As for delivery, 3 years ago there were two price bands - the cheaper was up to a certain distance from them and delivered by the company; the more expensive price was for over this distance, delivered by courier. As I live a long way away, I had to pay the higher charge. But they had problems with the courier and decided to deliver half a dozen tanks themselves to north east England in the same trip. They were very polite and helpful. I didn't have to do anything, they put the cabinet exactly where I wanted it and set the tank on top of the stand. The courier would have left it at the door. They did warn those buying large tanks that extra help would be needed during delivery

 

[Ch4rlie]

Indeed ND has good service. I too found them helpful and fairly quick to respond to my email enquiries.

I did get the higher delivery charge quoted, that was what put me off from purchasing their quality tank since I had a bit of a tight budget at the time.

Essay made a good point that you must consider adding costs of filter, lights as well as substrate, plants and decor and finally the cost of the livestock. It all adds up. I look at the receipts with eyes wide shut!!

 

[TwistedHelix]

Haha yeah the Juwel comes with lighting and filters and heater so that's probably an extra £350-400 but for nearly doubling the capacity I can live with that.

As to decor etc - was going to be pricey in 450 or 700-800 litres regardless so tit for tat in some respects.

I was also planning on getting a cannister filter with the Juwel anyway.

As a slight aside - Juwels use coarse/fine/carbon/bio media setups.

Reading through some fluval fx6 reviews it uses JUST bio media and no chemical media?

If I buy chemical media will it break the fx6?

 

[Ch4rlie]

No need for chemical media imho, in fact am not 100% sure what that is.

I have never had any chemicals in my filters, ever, only, sponge media, ceramics and bioballs/biomedia on larger cannisters and filter floss.
( The only chemicals I use is Seachem Prime dechlorinator and am very careful with dosages of that)

You can fit whatever you like in the filters provided its not too tightly packed and in any order you like, its all down to preferences and what you think would work best for your filter really.

It also can kind of depends on the filter cannister as well, some brands do differ in how they work ie Eheim classic has water coming in straight to bottom of cannister and water straight from top of filter to the tank while Fluvals tends to have water coming in and out from the top, though that can differ from model to model.

Personally I like to have ceramics at bottom, biomedia in middle and sponge media on top with filter floss (changing the filter floss every week) on top of sponge media.

And on another filter (Eheim classic 150) I only have poret foam sponge media as this is more of a dentrification filter set up, hence no ceramics and bio media. It works and the best thing is, there is less filter maintenance is required on this, maybe twice or three times a year maintenance is needed is all

 

[Essjay]

No need for chemical media imho, in fact am not 100% sure what that is.

In this case, chemical media = carbon


I stopped using carbon routinely as soon as I discovered it is not necessary - that was when I first joined this forum, so I haven't used carbon for 11 years. I do have some in the cupboard in case I ever need to treat sick fish and remove the medication after treatment has finished, but I also have a small cheap internal filter in the cupboard that I use just for running carbon.


You don't need to run carbon full time, though you can if you want to.

 

[TwistedHelix]

Yeah sorry I didn't mean actual chemicals but filtration of chemicals (carbon).

Didn't know carbon wasn't needed fulltime.

 

[Essjay]

It is basically a hangover from decades gone by. Back then they thought water changes were bad so only did them every few months. This allowed many things to build up in the tank, and some of them were yellow. The fish keepers did not like this yellow so they used carbon to remove it.
When we were sorting out my mother's house so she could move in with us, I found a 1960s book of 'how to...' things and one chapter was on fish tanks. The filter shown was a simple box containing carbon with a layer of filter wool on top and water was drawn through with an air pump. Things have moved on a lot since then but filter manufacturers still want us to use carbon.


You have mentioned in another thread that you are an analytical chemist (my chemistry degree is over 40 years old so you will be much more up to date than me) so I will just say that carbon adsorbs organic molecules. Water changes - provided they are weekly and big enough - will remove a lot of the organic chemicals secreted by the fish and plants so we don't really need carbon nowadays.
But a lot of fish keepers swear that carbon removes fine bits - it polishes the water. I use filter wool for that.

 

[DrRob]

I've had both ND and Jewel tanks. ND has been better build quality with regard to water on the wooden bits and the filter and lighting on the Jewel I ended up replacing/repairing. Also lost the bracing bar on the Jewel after about 8 years, ND tank is still going strong in a similar time frame.

That said, Jewel make nice tanks, with a good start up kit for a good price, but if you can afford the extra then I'd buy another ND tank perfectly happily.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Ah, carbon. Makes sense, should have figured that.

But yeah, agree totally with essay, not necessary in a filter. Only use if want to remove medication from water column.

But really, a large water change or a couple of water changes in a week does wonders instead of using carbon.