# quiet filtration for 180 gal?



## empath

Hi all,
My boyfriend just fired up his brand new 180 gallon fish tank. It's really beautiful but there's just a teeny weeny little problem...I can't hear anything over the VERY LOUD filter system. He hooked up a wet dry filter system and neither one of us can hear each other think...

Anyone out there have a suggestion for a whisper quiet filter system for a tank this large?

Thank you for your help. Please email your response(s) to [email protected]


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## djrichie

Check to see that its properly set up. Wet/Dry Filter make very little noise and that is usally blocked by the tank stand cabinet. The only thing I can think of that would be causing noise in that system would be the water pump, everything else is gravity fed. no noise from there.


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## Toms Fish Room

A lot of times the noise from a Wet/Dry Filter set up comes from the overflow. I sounds a lot like a toilet flushing constantly. That's because the water is dragging air down the drain hose & makes a slurping or gulping noise. If you have the type of overflow that hangs on the back of the tank (non drilled tanks) you can take a peace of 3/16" rigid tubing & place it inside the drain pipe. You will have to play with it to find the sweet spot where it stops that gurgling sound (on my 55 gallon with a hang on the back overflow, I stick the tube about 12" down inside the drain) - That allows air to escape from the drain (or standpipe). I use an old fashioned spring clip laundry close-pin to hold it in place & keep the tube from falling any further down into the drain. Same thing can be done if you have a tank with a built in standpipe. If you are handy, you can make a "Silencer" - A guy named Richard Durso has a website about how he Built a device to solve his noise problem www.dursostandpipes.com/ just click on the DIY section. Also visit his old website Richard Durso's 180g Reef Tank Page There is another guy named Ken Stockman who made a more compact version - unfortunately his website seems to have disappeared, however I did find reference to his design at R. Durso's 180g - Ken Stockman Standpipe
There is yet another guy, named Hofer who came up with an even slimmer device he calls "Hofer Gurgle Buster" he shows how to build one on his site; Hofer Gurgle Buster 

Another cause of excessive noise comes from the pump that returns the water from the sump up to the tank above. I once made the mistake of plumbing a sump's return with rigid pvc pipe - it amplified the noise the pump made - I replaced that with flexable tubing & that solved that problem. Another cause of noise from the return pump sometimes comes from the pump sitting directly on the floor of the sump. In my case the sump is made of glass (Home made DIY wet dry) & the vibrations from the pump on the glass drove me crazy. To solve this I placed chunk of rubber under the pump between it & the sump bottom.

Hope this helps


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## petlover516

i say go with fluvals. They are pretty quiet and they do a good job filtering. The puny corner filter is also a good type of filtration. Tigers, too.


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## dingdong

You could get an fx5 or 2.


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## DarkRevoultions

You could get a penguin filter 

You know, those ones that have the little bio-wheel. Just fill the water up to the top, but the filter will always have bubbles. It will just sound like a small water fall. Like the water isn't going to be too loud at all really.

The motor isn't loud either. I have an aqua clear filter for my 29 gallon tank, and it isn't loud either 

Although I wish I should've gotten the penguin filter  but I was too clouded by the aqua clear filter  now I regret it.

if you have a big penguin filter, then the filter will be able to filter out more than 150 gallons per hr. I don't know how that works... but it usually says that for the flow rate on the description thing..

Check them out


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## DarkRevoultions

OH, and I forgot... you can get canister filters, and UV filters. They are top of the line on filters next to the penguin or many other brands. Aqua clear is okay too..


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## Dmaaaaax

Dude, they have a 180g tank! Penguin....lol 

They ideally want about 700-900gph filtration at a minimum.

I would try to find the problem with the overflow/sump as Tom mentioned, but if you cannot get it quiet enough I would second the FX5 or look at the one from Red sea, but you will need a seperate pump for it. As large as they are, you would probably want 2.


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## aspects

penguin/emperor filters are garbage no matter what sized tank you have. lol. the aquaclear system is way better. its like a HOB canister. idk why yours is cloudy. you must not have set it up right.

1 more vote for we/dry sump or Fx5. alternatively, id suggesto 2 AC110 HOB filters. but you can do a diy sump for pretty cheap


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## DarkRevoultions

So I'm guessing the penguin bio-wheel isn't really good?? I thought that the bio-wheel exposes nitrites or nitrates into the air :S 

I have an aqua clear and it does keep my water clear... but I like penguin filters too. Which one does a better job?

My friend uses penguin and it does the same job as mine pretty much O_O


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## petlover516

ive never seen very good reviews on penguin/emperors either. i like my whispers, which really stands for its name. but wet/drys are usually the best filters out there


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## aspects

DarkRevoultions said:


> So I'm guessing the penguin bio-wheel isn't really good?? I thought that the bio-wheel exposes nitrites or nitrates into the air :S
> 
> I have an aqua clear and it does keep my water clear... but I like penguin filters too. Which one does a better job?
> 
> My friend uses penguin and it does the same job as mine pretty much O_O


Allow me...

The bio-wheel is a great concept, but because marineland's design sucks, its nowhere near as effective as it claims, and is reduced to nothing more then a gimmick.
Its supposed to act as a wet/dry of sorts, by providing the bacteria with more oxygen. Unfortunately the design is faulty and the whreel often stops spinning for long periods of time allowing the wheel to dry out on one side and killing the beneficial bacteria. The side left submerged still has bacteria on it, but is not receiving the extra oxygen, so its the same as just adding another filter cartridge to house bacteria. 
The small penguin filters rely on the water coming out of the slide to turn the wheel. When the filter cartridge starts building up debris, the amount of water coming out of the slide is reduced. Often to a level that does not allow the wheel to operate properly or at all in some cases. The wheel also sits in a plastic track that is poorly designed. I don't know if its friction from being plastic on plastic or the size of the track, but a lot of them won't allow the wheel to spin freely out of the box. This can be remidied by adding a lubricant... But should that be necessary?
The larger emperor bio-wheels incorporate a spray bar to move the wheels. While its a bit of an improvement from the penguins, it also has its faults. The spray bar gets easily clogged, and often leaks, again leafing to no wheel movement and ultimately, dead bacteria colonies.not to mention the extra noise from the spray bar.
Then there's the media itself. The biowheels are esentially a folded piece of porous paper, and though porous as it may be, it doesn't provide anywhere near as much surface area as the aquaclear110 which boasts an amazing 4l of media space. (Same as a lot of canisters) and the included bio-max pellets provide tons of surface area on their own. Alongside the sponge and whatever other media you chose, the aquaclear provides much more media space. 
And of course, there's the flow rate. The aquaclear 110 pushes 100gph mpre then its marineland counterpart (emperor400 @ 400gph). And to put it simply, higher flowrate= more suction at the intake= better mechanical filtration.

That's only a few of the reasons the aquaclear is infinitely better. I didnt even touch on the long term money saving of not replacing cartridges or the patented re circulation feature built into the aquaclear filters. (Pretty nifty if I must say so)

...The choice is clear

...AQUA clear. Lol


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## Dmaaaaax

Off topic, but how quiet are the Aquaclears?

Has anyone tried the new hang on the back Renas? They have removable baskets and comes with porus pellets for bacteria.

I am currently using this for my smaller medication tank and it works great as a surface skimmer but it is fairly loud even when you turn off the surface skimmer feature:


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## DarkRevoultions

Dmaaaaax,

Aqua clear filters are very quiet. You don't always hear the motor, unless you go REALLY close to it.. then yeah you'll hear the quiet motor 

If your water level isn't so high to the point that it is touching the place where the water flows out to create bubbles and a water current, and your water is just high enough but lower than the black strip, then you'll be able to hear the light water flowing. It isn't too loud..

I always clean it every week, so I can prevent gunk from building up inside the filter and clogging the sponge.

You can buy them  they aren't too cheap really. Although I prefer a different filter so then I can experience what other filters are like.

I probably go for a filter that is fit for a bigger size. Like if you have a 50, or 55 gallon then you can get an aqua clear 70 because the bigger the filter, it does a better job at keeping the tank clean. That is what I think


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## aspects

E


Dmaaaaax said:


> Off topic, but how quiet are the Aquaclears?
> 
> Has anyone tried the new hang on the back Renas? They have removable baskets and comes with porus pellets for bacteria.
> 
> I am currently using this for my smaller medication tank and it works great as a surface skimmer but it is fairly loud even when you turn off the surface skimmer feature:


The impeller housing doesn't make any noise. If your waterlevel drops below the slide, you will hear rhe water falling out from the filter into the tank, but that has nothing to do with the filter itself. If you keep the water level at the slide, its a very quiet filter. I don't hear any of mine running and I have quite a few of them. One has been running for 8 years and is still silent. Keep in mind that these are very powerful filters, so the longer you let the water level drop, the more you will hear the waterfall. But it can be quite relaxing sometimes.

I have used the rena hob filters along with the eheim, tom, tt, penguin/emperor, resun, and a few other brands out there. In my experience, no hob filter has come close to matching the AquaClear system.


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## Dmaaaaax

Thanks you 2....Sorry to have "borrowed" your thread empath.


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## DarkRevoultions

aspects said:


> whreel often stops spinning for long periods


Does the bio-wheel stop even if you rinse the entire filter cartridge out all the time like every week or so?



aspects said:


> When the filter cartridge starts building up debris, the amount of water coming out of the slide is reduced.


I encountered the same problem with my old pet cetera filter cartridge. But, my friend rinses out the filter all the time. Usually that always keeps the water flowing through the filter cartridge. 




aspects said:


> aquaclear provides much more media space.


So then if there is more media space, then that would mean that the water would be able to filter through the sponge, charcoal and/or bio beads?



aspects said:


> aquaclear 110 pushes 100gph mpre then its marineland counterpart (emperor400 @ 400gph). And to put it simply, higher flowrate= more suction at the intake= better mechanical filtration.


Can you please explain more about the gph? I'm not really familiar with it.. the people I bought the filter from said that aqua clear is a very good filter that works a lot better than the penguin.. so then I bought the Aqua Clear filter instead of the penguin filter.



aspects said:


> aquaclear is infinitely better.


Will penguin and other side filters break earlier than the regular aqua clear filter brand?


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## aspects

DarkRevoultions said:


> Does the bio-wheel stop even if you rinse the entire filter cartridge out all the time like every week or so?
> 
> 
> 
> I encountered the same problem with my old pet cetera filter cartridge. But, my friend rinses out the filter all the time. Usually that always keeps the water flowing through the filter cartridge.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So then if there is more media space, then that would mean that the water would be able to filter through the sponge, charcoal and/or bio beads?
> 
> 
> 
> Can you please explain more about the gph? I'm not really familiar with it.. the people I bought the filter from said that aqua clear is a very good filter that works a lot better than the penguin.. so then I bought the Aqua Clear filter instead of the penguin filter.
> 
> 
> 
> Will penguin and other side filters break earlier than the regular aqua clear filter brand?


I will either make a new thread or PM you the info when I get home from work so this thresd doesn't get too far off track.

To the OP:
2 ac110s could do the job, but I'd highly suggest the Fx5.


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## DarkRevoultions

aspects said:


> I will either make a new thread or PM you the info when I get home from work so this thresd doesn't get too far off track.
> 
> To the OP:
> 2 ac110s could do the job, but I'd highly suggest the Fx5.


Okay. Thank you


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## bigOlover2

ugh i disagree i have 3 penguin 350 hob filters on my 125 oscar tank in addition to fluval x5 and they are very good and extremly quiet


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## Oldman

Back to the subject at hand. There are no filters as effective as a well designed wet / dry system. Most of the better HOBs try to imitate one or another feature of them but can't because they don't have the large sump to work with. If you can use some of the tricks already given to cut the noise of your wet dry to a nice level, that will be your best choice. The next best choice, if you give up on the wet/dry, would be a nice big canister like the Rena XP4 or the large Fluval already mentioned. Canister filters are so quiet that you must put a hand on them to see if they are running, at least my Renas are.


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## bigOlover2

agreed oldman lol the best filter would be wet dry in this situation as there biological filtration is unmatched compared to the bio wheel but hob make a nice addition to other filtration and can certinally keep the tank cleaner


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