Discus3anatic
11-05-2015, 06:08 AM
The Eheim and National Geographic products sold in petsmart are the same just rebranded from the name Eheim....
Petsmart is now selling those Eheim Aquaball internal filters.. Im a big fan of internal filters, and i use 3x TopFin 40g internals, a Top fin 20 and 2x10's in my 8 aquariums in my house.. Its a good filter, but it has issues and i have to modifiy it in order to filter the way i want it too (mainly the 40's). So i was looking at the Aquaball or National Geographics that are in petsmart now as i said.
They look like these
https://www.eheim.com/en_GB/products/technology/internal-filters/aquaball-180
The 50g verion has 200GPH flow, and like 4 chambers, 1 with a fine particle pad on the top, and 2 chambers for bio media, and 1 the bottom one with a sponge. However you can mix it up however you want and id probably just go all sponges as i use internal filters for mechanical cleanup not biological. The main issue i have with my Top fin 40's is the filter doesnt have enough power for how many slits are on the side for debris to go into.. Meaning because the entire side of the filter are slits.. It allows it to take water from top to bottom so it doesnt have the suction power i want.. This filter just has slits on the bottom tray for the foam pad.. What do you guys think? Has anyone ever used one ? Its only $40 in petsmart so i was thinking of getting one, plus they are smaller in size compared to my top fin 40's. My 40's are like 2 of these Eheims
Here is the top fin 40 i have. You can see its wider then the Eheim one, and the slits on the entire right side going from top to bottom make suction power low because it has so many ways to get water.. i can watch debris float by them unless i block up the top half slits. (Heck the top sponge on the right is pretty much useless anyway it rarely gets dirty.. just the lower one where the water flows anyway) It also has a pretty big bypass.. Inside between the foam and the biomedia section there is a tiny slot where the foam sponge doesnt cover.. So water can bypass the foam sponge and debris flows past the foam sponge and gets into the media chamber. I can fix that by adding filter floss there.. But still.. As much as i like these filters im thinking there has to be something better and more compact without flow bypass and so forth. I understand the concept of having flow pypass its so the filter can still suck up debirs even with a clogged sponge but whats the point in that if it goes to the bio media and right back out the spray bar. Its only 171gph as well and the Eheim is 200.. So its stronger... So im thinking... with only the bottom tray of the eheim having slots for it to suck up water.. and it being 200gph it should really pull debris in better then the top fin's. Im just not sure.
Im not hitting on my Top fin's.. they get to dirty so fast in my tanks i have to clean them every water change... And in my discus tank thats every 2 days lol.. So they do clean up the tank really good.. In fact they catch way more then my ehein2217 canister... but still alot of stuff floats by it, so as i said i had to modify it.. blocking half of the fins on the side helped alot.. but that defeats the point of having 2 sponges.. So i guess essentially i want the eheim because its smaller but seems like itll do a better Job..
http://www.petsmart.com/fish/filters/top-fin-multi-stage-internal-filter-zid36-20868/cat-36-catid-300088
91698
Petsmart is now selling those Eheim Aquaball internal filters.. Im a big fan of internal filters, and i use 3x TopFin 40g internals, a Top fin 20 and 2x10's in my 8 aquariums in my house.. Its a good filter, but it has issues and i have to modifiy it in order to filter the way i want it too (mainly the 40's). So i was looking at the Aquaball or National Geographics that are in petsmart now as i said.
They look like these
https://www.eheim.com/en_GB/products/technology/internal-filters/aquaball-180
The 50g verion has 200GPH flow, and like 4 chambers, 1 with a fine particle pad on the top, and 2 chambers for bio media, and 1 the bottom one with a sponge. However you can mix it up however you want and id probably just go all sponges as i use internal filters for mechanical cleanup not biological. The main issue i have with my Top fin 40's is the filter doesnt have enough power for how many slits are on the side for debris to go into.. Meaning because the entire side of the filter are slits.. It allows it to take water from top to bottom so it doesnt have the suction power i want.. This filter just has slits on the bottom tray for the foam pad.. What do you guys think? Has anyone ever used one ? Its only $40 in petsmart so i was thinking of getting one, plus they are smaller in size compared to my top fin 40's. My 40's are like 2 of these Eheims
Here is the top fin 40 i have. You can see its wider then the Eheim one, and the slits on the entire right side going from top to bottom make suction power low because it has so many ways to get water.. i can watch debris float by them unless i block up the top half slits. (Heck the top sponge on the right is pretty much useless anyway it rarely gets dirty.. just the lower one where the water flows anyway) It also has a pretty big bypass.. Inside between the foam and the biomedia section there is a tiny slot where the foam sponge doesnt cover.. So water can bypass the foam sponge and debris flows past the foam sponge and gets into the media chamber. I can fix that by adding filter floss there.. But still.. As much as i like these filters im thinking there has to be something better and more compact without flow bypass and so forth. I understand the concept of having flow pypass its so the filter can still suck up debirs even with a clogged sponge but whats the point in that if it goes to the bio media and right back out the spray bar. Its only 171gph as well and the Eheim is 200.. So its stronger... So im thinking... with only the bottom tray of the eheim having slots for it to suck up water.. and it being 200gph it should really pull debris in better then the top fin's. Im just not sure.
Im not hitting on my Top fin's.. they get to dirty so fast in my tanks i have to clean them every water change... And in my discus tank thats every 2 days lol.. So they do clean up the tank really good.. In fact they catch way more then my ehein2217 canister... but still alot of stuff floats by it, so as i said i had to modify it.. blocking half of the fins on the side helped alot.. but that defeats the point of having 2 sponges.. So i guess essentially i want the eheim because its smaller but seems like itll do a better Job..
http://www.petsmart.com/fish/filters/top-fin-multi-stage-internal-filter-zid36-20868/cat-36-catid-300088
91698