Aqua-Tech filtration systems *Bad Product Warning*.

[Crabber85]

As many of you know I keep a twenty gallon fresh water aquarium complete with live plants and for the last six months I have had increasingly more trouble with the HOB or hang on the back filters that Aqua-Tech puts out.I have three of these unit one rated for 30-60 gallons, one rated for 10-20 and one rated for 5-10.The 5-10 was bought back in 2005 for a ten gallon fresh water aquarium that I'd had for years and so this unit has now reached the end of its life span the motor has been replaced on it three times because it initially started failing to pump water around the end of 08' and so I figured the motor had gone bad and replaced it, that lasted about two years and again it began failing to pump water so after the third and most recent motor replacement the unit has been relegated to the trash pile as it just refuses to work.The 10-20 is relatively new only being about a year old if that and it recently decided to go out on me it started with this gad awful grinding noise coming from the impeller housing and so I disassembled the unit and inspected the impeller housing, rod and the impeller itself to find that the magnet that the motor engages to drive the impeller has ground the rod down to a nub so the whole unit is now trash.The final unit the 30-60 is only about six months old if that and began doing the same exact thing the 10-20 was doing a couple of months before it just started making the same awful grinding noise and again I took this unit apart as well and inspected it to find the same thing had happened to the impeller rod on it, it was ground down to a nub which caused the impeller to be awkwardly seated and thus to vibrate and make the grinding noise louder and louder, so this unit to has been relegated to the scrap heap because its simply cheaper to get a whole new unit a different brand of course than to place an order with the manufacturer for a replacement rod and housing.I went on ahead and took the time to look the problem I've been having up on the internet and I found several things including the fact that the manufacturer for this problematic line of filter kits also does a handful of other models including the Marine-land Penguin line as well as the Regent line and none of them are fit to buy as they use the same old crummy internal parts they tend to suffer the same failure issue.I even came across some info about the magnets used to drive the impellers basically the magnets are of inferior qualtiy and end up loosing a good deal of their strength after so long which causes the impeller to rattle back and for instead of actually spinning.I will not be buying another filter kit from Aqua-Tech because they are cheaply made, flimsy wastes of money.I have reverted back to my Whisper internal filters and they are doing just fine.

[jenok]

Very interesting as that is what I usually buy. I'll have to remember not to anymore. Up til' last year I had been using the same Aqua 10g filter for around 10yrs. It was actually still working but barely it had slowed down quite a bit so I decided it was time for a new one and trashed it. We bought a new Aqua tech one and so far have not had problems. I also started the other 10g tank and bought a different brand for it. So far it is working just fine as well.

[Crabber85]

@jenok, the funny thing for me is the hob filter that came with the tank is a Penguin 30gallon and it had the same failure as the Aqua-Tech line and now that I know both lines are produced by the same company the impeller failure makes more sense.According to the info I was able to obtain the Penguin line of HOB filters have an issue with the impeller housing design which causes the impeller to be improperly seated and thereby casuses extra wear on the impeller assembly basically causing the unit to have a very very short lifespan.With the Penguin filter I had, the impeller rod was so loose that it actually ground out its own seating in the end cap of the intake tube and wound up comming out of the cap completely effectively junking the unit.As I was doing my research I also found that the Penguin line actually has no bio-filtration whatsoever because the Bio-Wheel does not grow much if any at all beneficial bacteria and because of this and the overall design of the filter itself acts as a Nitrate factory.Aqua-Tech has little better biological filtration and has fair mechanical filtration though it suffers from this same poor impeller seating design as its much more expensive Penguin counterpart.Its worth noting that the Penguin line starts out at roughly $30.00 and works it way up into the $50-$60 dollar range with the high end Penguin Emperior(sp?)model being the most expensive so this brand is not worth the price tag as its no good for bio filtration and nearly as bad for mechancial.The Aqua-Tech line is just a stripped down econo line of the Penguin brand and is still not really worth the price you pay.For over a year I had not replaced the cartridges on any of my Aqua-Tech filters and my biological filtration actually improved as I was growing more bacteria on the cartridges than the Bio-mesh included with these units.Whisper made by Tetra actually makes one of the best economy line HOB filters on the market today though I'm using their internal filters I'm getting the same great results.One important thing to note with the Whisper line of filters is that if your using a sand substrate like me your going to want to use the HOB variant and not the internal as the internal filter doesn't play well with sand.I'm planning to change to a really smooth black gravel to use as my substrate cap over my organic potting soil that I use for my live plants in the aquarium.

[jenok]

You should post a pic of your tank. Sand, soil, and gravel sounds interesting. I have 2 different plants in my tanks now. They continuously grow taller so I have to pinch them off and they grow roots start all over with new plants.

[Crabber85]

@jenok, I would post a picture of my fresh water aquarium but the family laptop is on its way out it wont let us upload to our business page on Face Book(photography business which isn't doing so well right now)let alone upload anything to this website. Its needing to be replaced but right now we don't have the money as my dad hasn't been found a job since he got laid off in Nov so money is a bit tight at the moment.I'll be sure to get a picture of it up here before I change the substrate and freshen up the Organic potting soil and I'll post another picture after the changeover so you can see what the final product looks like. FYI apparently a deep sand bed with organic potting soil underneath is not beneficial or safe for the plants or the fish as the sand traps to much carbon gas which causes the whole layer of sand and soil to go toxic because the sand doesn't allow for much oxygen to seep into the root bed ie potting soil which causes anaerobic bacteria to multiply instead of what we want which the aerobic beneficial bacteria that break down fish waste and so on.These pockets of toxic gases get released every once in a while and if your not pumping air into the water using an air stone or similar these escaping toxic gases can kill the fish and the plants nearly instantly.Hence the need for me to switch from sand over soil to fine gravel over soil.

[jenok]

Gotta learn somehow too bad it had to be the hard way. I hope your dad finds something soon. I thought you posted awhile back that he did maybe I was thinking of someone else or misread the post.It the busy time of year for me so I'm making a little extra money that I'm trying to stick back for later. I definitely know the feeling though it will be that way for me this winter, unless I can make a go of it with my quail. I got my breeders license from the state allowing me to breed and sell them. The bad thing is they just molted and quit laying eggs so now I'm at their mercy waiting on eggs again. I had some set aside to incubate and hatch out about a week ago but the incubator spiked in temp several times and I ended up with 1 live healthy chick and 1 I helped out of the shell with curled toes , out of 50 eggs. Unfortunately the curled toe one died the next day and since the other was by itself I'm guessing it stressed out and died the following day.

[Keg]

@Crabber85A silly question: Wouldn't a mangrove tree grow in that environment? It might filter water and sequester carbon. But of course, not fast enough.

[Crabber85]

@Keg, its completely possible that a mangrove tree could grow in my aquarium water/conditions but the wood would make the water far too acidic in combination with the planting substrate I'm using.