Stick With Internal Juwel Or Go External?

[Bluetooth]

Hi Guys.

Quick question to you all.

I have a juwel trigon 190L tank and am running the internal juwel filter atm with all the stuff, 2 fines, 1 cirax, 1 corse, 1 nitrate, 1 carb, 1 poly.

What i want to know is, is this system any good? PFK states that the juwel filters are one of the long term setup etc but i wanted to know what you guys feel. Im only just getting back into fish keeping and dont have any long term plans right now.

I have a fluval 304 on standby if i want to switch but i dont want to waste time having to cycle that since the juwel has been running nearly 2 weeks now.

Thanks all for input =-)

B

 

[River Dog]

Personally, I would run them both, never hurts to have more filtration.

 

[bae1994]

hi i find the actual filter box huge ugly and a pain in the #14### to work with

if you do go with the external you could put the filter media in the external

i if it where me id take the jewel filter out as they fetch goodish money and use a external

 

[keenonfish]

They do indeed seem to be very good filters, but as above ugly as hell. I would swap mine for an EX-1200 if I had the cash without delay!

 

[Bluetooth]

Personally, I would run them both, never hurts to have more filtration.

Wouldnt one filter be stronger than the other though? the bioflow 6 in my tank is only rated at 600l/h but the fluval is topping 1000l/h?

I need to get some more hosing for my fluval if im to run it also lol.. i forgot how expensive this hobby was

 

[pirate monkey]

I have 3 juwel tanks, my 96l runs the juwel filter, I like it in there and have it covered up with plants. The Trigon 350 I have the juwel internal and a Tetratec Ex1200 as well - can't over filter especially with a large plec! I worried before the external that the internal wan't really coping. I guess it depends in your stocking, what do you have/intend to have?

Our Rio 180 I removed the filter as using it for marine and don't need it but was easy peasy to remove, and makes the tank look nicer. Although now I have no where to hide the heater.

What I would say though, the Trigon internal filter is a pain in the butt to maintenance cos it's right in the corner and I can't reach to get the bottom sponges out myself! (OH has to do that..) You might find it easier with the 190, and if you're taller than me.

As for switching couldn't you just put the juwel sponges in the 304? Or just run them together for a couple of weeks.

HTH

 

[Bluetooth]

Thanks for the reply

Im 6'3" and the bottom sponges are sometimes an issue but i have coped OK so far. However my stocking is primarily cichlids and they arent really fully grown at the moment so im planning on keeping 2 filters running at all times, the juwel internal and an external, i got my dads fluval 304 running but within 24 hours the impeller snapped in half (very old filter noiw) so im looking around on ebay and have my eyes on a few 304's and 305s that might turn out cheaply, dont really fancy spending a lot of money on brand new filtration lol

atm im stocked with 3 angels, 2 convicts, 1 green texas, 1 male gbr, 1 honey gourami and 4 corys

 

[pirate monkey]

Yeah with those cichlids I'd keep both running.

Hope you manage to get a filter for a good price, ots of bargains around at the moment!

How big is your texas at the moment?

The reason I ask is (you may already be aware)
1. They do grow rather large (~12"), a Trigon 190 may be a little on the small side long term
2. Whilst they can be tolerant when smaller, they turn into right little buggers at around 6" in which case you might need to think of having it in a tank by itself

We had a texas for a few months, lovely little thing it was, then one day just realised he was an agressive fish and attacked everything in sight, including our 10" sailfin Bear in mind he was about 6" in a tank with a GT (same size), an 8" sev, a firemouth and some others. He went back to lfs! I know other people on here have had the same issue.

A real shame as they are stunning fish Could you post a pic, would love to see it!

 

[Bluetooth]

There she is, only 4" at the moment, i do plan on getting a nicer tank in the future however at the moment with christmas and such coming need to save save save lol.

Also the misses needs a bit of convincing, dropped the idea of a nice 300L tank into her mind but she kinda looked a bit mad at me =-)

Regarding the filter i have a couple of bids standing on ebay atm for a 304 or 305 whichever turns up cheapest =-)

 

[pirate monkey]

They're so cute when they're small, such big eyes lol!

Mmm I guess it must be hard to convince people who are not into fishkeeping that big tanks are great, don't know how you'd get around that one! Lucky for me and him indoors we're both mad about fish

You could always go for a Trigon 350 to match your 190 although I find as the footprint of the tank is fairly small relative to the volume it does limit your stocking somewhat. I've seen a few of them going cheap on ebay and free ads!

Here's a pic of our texas when we first got him

 

[Bluetooth]

Thats gorgeous.

Mine is quite skittish, its confident enough to be out in the tank and sifting around in the gravel etc but it is scared of my female convict who is only like 5", she chases it quite a bit but the texas just stops and looks around for stuff to do.

Also doesnt fin up very much unless its feeding, but when it does feed it feeds so much it looks like it has dropsy lol.

only thing with a big tank is the weight also, im on a first floor flat so 400kgs is a fair whack of weight so i dont know if it would be safe etc

 

[pirate monkey]

Thanks, we were gutted to get rid of him, but didn't have another option...

Ha ha she sounds funny! My GT and sev don't tend to fin up much either, but when they do they look awesome! To be honest I think that was probably a lucky shot to catch the texas with his fins up. The look like punks, don't they

I can see the problem with a first floor flat and a large tank... I think ours worked out to be close to a ton! I did read a thread yesterday about adding extra joists in etc to support really large tanks, might have been in marine section. It can be done but I probably wouldn't myself A structural engineer would be able to give you advice there!

Oops we've gone really off topic from your OP!!

Hope you get your filter sorted, good luck

 

[treefella83]

i binned my filter for the trigon 190 .
it is a good filter but takes up a lot of space so over a period of 3 months i swapped it for 2 x fluval 205's and never looked back

 

[Bluetooth]

i binned my filter for the trigon 190 .
it is a good filter but takes up a lot of space so over a period of 3 months i swapped it for 2 x fluval 205's and never looked back

Yea, at the moment i have a couple of auctions being watched for fluval 304's and 305's so im hoping one is going to turn out cheaply which they are at the moment.

As mentioned my dads 304s impeller went bye bye so hopefully when the spare turns up ill be back up and running.

Got myself some more german blue rams yesterday, got myself 3 females and 2 males to add to my 1 male, 2 are already courting which is great =-) just need to get this other filter in to clear up the tank =-)

 

[SJ2K]

My 2 cents, personly I removed my juwel internal and got myself an eheim external, best move. The juwel did the job but at the bare minimum, flow rate was only just enough and the huge black box inside the tank was an eyesore. Switch it for an external, you wont regret it.