hi all

I'm planning on setting up a 150 liter paludarium in my bedroom so i was wondering what the best quiet external filter for my scenario would be

cheers superico

I find eheim to be super quiet but the quietest would be a sunsun in my opinion

ive got two filters, i got a aquaone cf1200 in my bedroom, its not to bad, i sleep fine, i got a sunsun equivilent one down stairs witch is just as quite if not more quite :spop:

my eheim 2224 I have to put my hand on it to see if its even working. Have to put my ear right up against it to hear anything. SUPER quiet :thup:

Eheim for sure :thup:

I got a Sunsun mid last year and its the quietest and best filter I have owned.

ehaim

My Eheim filters are the quietest and fluval 2nd quietest after a good clean.

my eheim 2224 I have to put my hand on it to see if its even working. Have to put my ear right up against it to hear anything. SUPER quiet :thup:

+1 my 2224 is def the quietest

the only thing between the sunsun and the ehiems in my eyes is the price , sunsun maybe slightly noisyer but its 1/3 of the price

wow

that was some really fast replys

im probably going for the eheim :thup: because price doesnt really matter and i trust German brands more than Asian brands(no offense meant)

thanks :bounce: :bounce:

just thinking how much do they cost(the 2224s)

just thinking how much do they cost(the 2224s)

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=462514868

Can't you just set up a timer to switch off the filter at night if it's too noisy?

i have found the aqua one CF's to be very quiet when new, they tend to get louder as they wear the impellor. I replaced an impellor in an old CF and it was very quiet again. As long as you prime them properly they are very quiet.

Can't you just set up a timer to switch off the filter at night if it's too noisy?

Bad idea. If you switch off the filter like that you risk losing the bacteria and crashing your tank. Filters should be left on 24/7 unless being cleaned/serviced.

wow

that was some really fast replys

im probably going for the eheim :thup: because price doesnt really matter and i trust German brands more than Asian brands(no offense meant)

thanks :bounce: :bounce:

Totally agree with you about on the brands Eheims are brilliant. I'm 14 too and I seriously don't mind paying more money for quality products. It is well worth it. I have two Eheim 2213's on my tanks and they are brilliant filters. I have never had any problems from them, and they are very easy to clean and maintain. My Aqua One CF-1000 was quite, but it started leaking and so it is sitting in its box in the closet now. Also they don't come with very good filter media. And I hate to think what the SunSuns come with - I had a box of SunSun "Bio-Rings" and I put them in a bucket and they made the water chalky white. I repeatedly tried to clean them but they still kept making the water cloudy, and also they broke extremely easily. The Eheim media is much better quality and just needs a super quick rinse and is ready to use.

that's good to know

i will get an eheim

thanks again for all the advice and opinions

superico

Bad idea. If you switch off the filter like that you risk losing the bacteria and crashing your tank. Filters should be left on 24/7 unless being cleaned/serviced.

That's the usual perception but it's not that straight forward. Bacteria etc are not only in your filter, but everywhere in your tank, sand, gravel, plant roots etc, and they can be enough to keep the ammonia levels down. There are some people who run their tanks with no filters at all except plants/substrate and some water current as in nature. As to whether your bugs will die off overnight, they are actually pretty resilient living inside their biofilms. In an anaerobic environment some will switch to denitrifying activity instead, and others will adopt different metabolic pathways. And others will go into an inactive state. There's a news item here about this http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=4780 though not specifically talking about turning off a cannister. Some people have reported that their cannisters were fine after 72 hour power blackouts with no ammonia spikes.

Anyway, if anyone had a noisy filter and wanted to see what happens, just try it during the day and monitor the ammonia levels to see what happens.

But the bacteria can't recolonise a filter in a day if they all die off over night and the filter is turned on the next day (I think?). And so if the filter bacteria keep dieing off, doesn't that defeat the point in having a filter?

That's my point ..they don't all die off just because the water stops circulating for a few hours.

No I mean the bacteria inside the filter.

The flow doesn't tend to bother the bacteria inside the tank because it is weak compared to the flow in the filter. For example, you can have a flow rate of 1200lph. All of that flow is distributed throughout the tank, and is concentrated inside the filter canister. The bacteria in the filter are used to much higher flow than inside the tank. So when you turn the filter off, the filter bacteria all die, but the bacteria in the tank are OK because they are used to weaker flow.

So this is what I mean...

Filter gets turned off. Bacteria inside it die off. There is still bacteria in the tank. But can they recolonise the filter again during the day in just a few hours? And if there is bacteria in the tank, doesn't that defeat the point of the filter if the bacteria inside the filter are always dieing off? Why have the filter at all if you are just going to kill the bacteria it contains which is the sole point in a filter in the first place?

Bags a bob each way. People under estimate the the resilience of filter bugs I think. Most bacteria are a bit like rats and cochroaches---they will be around after humans manage to exterminate themselves. However, the purpose of a filter is to have it running all the time because this will give it maximum eficiency.

Eh, why turn off the filter if it's quiet?

So this is what I mean...

Filter gets turned off. Bacteria inside it die off.

Your assumption is that the bacteria/bugs inside your filter will die off instantly. They don't. Some might die overnight, but others will go into a resting phase, some will start denitrifying instead removing nitrate from their environment, and eventually some will spore .. and still be alive millions of years later.

More likely than not, your filter and its microbial population will be fine overnight. You might lose a few million bugs which then become food for the other billions. But to be sure you could test it.

I was just discussing the scenario where you had a noisy filter, and what you could do about it. Or, what happens in a power failure.