# aqua clear vs whisper ex series



## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

the whispers are about $20 cheaper, and rated 50gph higher per model, they also come with clam shells that you can use to customize media. If there a reason why an aqua clear would be a better choice?

I see good and bad reviews for both filters, and i know the huge plus about aqua clears is never having to replace the media, but i add a layer of finer media on top of the sponges anyways, so it would be about even media cost wise for me.


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## John27 (Jun 6, 2010)

Take it from a guy who owns BOTH.

The Aquaclear is closer to it's actual GPH rating, I would even venture to say that in actuality, the Acuaclear pumps more water even though the whisper is rated higher.

The Aquaclear is also quieter and has better media customizability.

However, the whisper is by no means a bad filter, it is very very quiet (just not as silent as say an AC110), it also has great mechanical filtration with this "scrubber" pad it uses, on my tanks that have that I clean it weekly in tank water, as it's also my biological filtration. However, I prefer Aquaclears setup for bio filtration as it almost gets a wet/dry effect with bio media on top.

If it were up to me, I'd swallow the 20 bucks and get the AC, but, the Whisper is not a bad filter, if you got the Aquaclear you'd essentially be paying for a little convenience, both will do the job, I should however, mention that my Whisper has seemed to slow down over time, I haven't had the Aquaclear long enough to judge that.

-John


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

thanks, the one issue i have with aqua clears so far is that i have to move the bio media to get to the mechanical, it don't like that, i enjoy getting to just pull the media basket out of my emperor and rinse it out and replace it which is the appeal of the tetra, also I am looking into getting two, so it's more like i'd be saving $40 or a whole filter in some cases, I am looking to add extra filtration to two tanks, so bio isn't a huge concern considering that my tanks all have strong bio filters as it is


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## John27 (Jun 6, 2010)

Some people move their biological filtration on the AC's to the bottom, maybe that will help. Honeslty biological media is kind of a "hype" yes it's necessary but people should understand how it works, biological media is one of those things that works, or it doesn't, with the bio bag on bottom your still going to have a colony of nitrifying bacteria and you will still have a cycled tank, no problem, then you can just yank your sponge once a week (or however often you clean) and voila. Personally, I just toss the bio bag in a bucket of tank water, then pull out the caddy and clean everything, then reinstall the bio bag.

-John


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

i keep all my bio media after my mechanical on all filters, that way it gets less debris in it


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## aquariam (Feb 11, 2010)

John27 said:


> Some people move their biological filtration on the AC's to the bottom, maybe that will help. Honeslty biological media is kind of a "hype" yes it's necessary but people should understand how it works, biological media is one of those things that works, or it doesn't, with the bio bag on bottom your still going to have a colony of nitrifying bacteria and you will still have a cycled tank, no problem, then you can just yank your sponge once a week (or however often you clean) and voila. Personally, I just toss the bio bag in a bucket of tank water, then pull out the caddy and clean everything, then reinstall the bio bag.
> 
> -John


Moving the biomedia to the bottom will cause it to behave as a dispersant rather than biomedia. (talking about the biomax rings here/ceramic rings). Eheim does this as a bottom layer on most models. The rings act to disperse the flow of water so that it will not channel and will flow up evenly through the remaining media.

IMO biomedia is not necessary in an aquaclear. running all the layers with foam works fine and lasts for years. You can use the biomedia in the top layer if you wish. Having to move it isn't a big deal.


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

i just don't like disturbing biomedia when i work with my filters because half the purpose of that media is that it lies undisturbed


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## John27 (Jun 6, 2010)

cjacobm

Yeah your right, the bacteria will latch onto a number of things but if you constantly cleaning your sponge with tap water then I got 5 bucks as to where they are! (Besides the substrate of course). A lot of people have two filters for this reason though, maintain them at alternating intervals, that way if you do disturb something it's no big deal.


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## kmuda (Nov 27, 2009)

Your biomedia needs cleaned as often as your mechanical. By this I mean the biomedia should regularly be rinsed in a bucket of tank water. If you do not do this, the internal pores of the media quickly becomes clogged and it will eventually become no more effective than using gravel as biomedia.

Because of the internal pore structure, a single bio max type ring contains the surface area equivalent of 2" of gravel in a 10 gallon tank.

I'm not sure where the "leave your biomedia alone" concept comes from, but it's certainly not a philosophy I adhere to.

But the key is to have more than sufficient filtration. I regularly (weekly) replace a significant percentage of my biomedia, taking the removed media, rinsing it in the sink, and then boiling it to clear the internal pores. This cleaned media then goes into storage for reuse. Each month, about 1/3 of the media in a canister gets replaced, but I generally have two canisters plus HOBs on each tank.

Directly in response to your question, when it comes to HOBs (specifically as bio filters), only two filters overcome the physical dynamics that limit an HOBs effectiveness. Those would be the Aquaclear lines and the Emperor/Penguin line. The Aquaclears do it my having a significant bed depth (much less than a canister, but better than any other HOBs) and Emps/Penguins do it via the biowheels. Other HOBs can "serve the purpose" but are vastly inferior (as to bio filtration).

So... in my book, if using only HOBs for filtration, you should not be looking beyond these two product lines.


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

well i also think biomedia is quite overrated, but to properly serve its purpose it needs to me left alone for the most part. I rarely rinse my media, never replace it, and when you look at my media, it's fairly free of debris because i pay such close attention to my mechanical media, all my tanks have run healthy for a long long time, so to each is own when it comes to that sort of stuff


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## exasperatus2002 (Jul 5, 2003)

Good information everyone Thank you.


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

my question was really directed towards the reliability of the tetra, i had an old whisper that worked forever, i finally got rid of it because it was too small for any of my tanks and the magnet was scored pretty bad from sand, the sand was way too fine in that tank and the multies loved spitting it into my intakes


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## kmuda (Nov 27, 2009)

cjacob316 said:


> well i also think biomedia is quite overrated, but to properly serve its purpose it needs to me left alone for the most part. I rarely rinse my media, never replace it, and when you look at my media, it's fairly free of debris because i pay such close attention to my mechanical media


Bacteria, like all living things, dies. Even if absolutely zero debris makes it to the media, the dead corpse of bacteria pile up on top of each other, to be consumed by heterotrophic bacteria, which leaves a slime coating in place, while taking over ownership of that particular space. Overtime, this will completely fill in the pores of the media, rendering it no more effective than smooth gravel, and the space that is left is occupied by heterotrophic bacteria and not the nitrifying good guys. Your media may appear perfectly clean, but what makes it "effective biomedia" are the microscopic pores that you cannot even see without a microscope. It's these pores that get clogged (even with massive mechanical filtration) rendering the media comparatively ineffective.

As an example, I have probably 20 liters of SeaChem deNitrate prefiltered by (behind) a 20 Micron cartridge. No detritus makes it through a 20 micron cartridge. A 20 micron cartridge will even catch Ich. Yet, I only get 6 months out of the media before it must be cleaned because the internal pores are clogged by bacteria corpses and slime. I have measured and documented this.

I do not think biomedia is over rated at all. It's the single most important component of filtration, deserving of attention near what you provide your fish. Sure, you can take the minimal filtration approach and this will work under ideal circumstances. Where it fails is in emergencies and unforeseen circumstances.... When you have to medicate, bringing up a hospital tank, if you forget to dechlorinate, recovering from a power outage, etc.....

It sucks to invest so much time, effort, and money into a tank only to have it wiped out because of a cycle caused by unforeseen circumstances. So plan for those unforeseen circumstances. My approach is over the top filtration with massive amounts of biomedia in use, regular biomedia cleanings and replacement. I clean (boil) and rotate 1/3 of the biomedia in each canister, each month. As a result, I've survived two week power outages without a cycle (there is a method here), medications, forgotten use of a dechlorinator, broken down filters, etc....


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

yeah but people kept fish before all this stuff existed and sponge filters work, so sponge biomedia in a filter should work as well

which make me curious about the foster smith designed hob's, they come with the clam shells and bio sponge as well as floss, and they have a built in surface skimmer which is what's a little appealing about them, but i might just go with the penguins. I've owned two of them and both i had issues with eventually, but i guess i'm willing to take another chance on them...


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## kmuda (Nov 27, 2009)

cjacob316 said:


> yeah but people kept fish before all this stuff existed and sponge filters work, so sponge biomedia in a filter should work as well.


If it's of any help, I was one of those keeping fish in those days. 

Absolutely, sponge filters work. I have at least one in every tank. Generally combined with 2 canisters and an HOB. The HOBs I use are Penguins. Primarily because for the cost of an AquaClear 110 I could add a few more bucks and get a canister. I find Penguins produce the best bang for the buck, albeit they can be noisy when new.

Nor do they make them like they used to. My old ones are built out of a solid, thick, heavy plastic. You could throw them off the roof of the house onto concrete and they would bounce, then go on the tank and fire right up. The new ones would shatter on impact.

But if using HOBs only, my vote would be with a biowheel type filter as they overcome the inherent dynamic limitations of shallow bed filters (which includes all HOB filters).


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## smitty (May 7, 2004)

There is no comparison between an Aqua-Clear and Whisper. The Aqua-Clear is the much better filter. First it does not keep nickle and diming you just rinse out the sponge which will last a couple of years.


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

you guys do know that there are some bad reviews out there about aqua clears right? one of my lfs won't even carry them anymore because they continuously had problems with them seizing up. and since the tetra comes with a clam shell, there is no need to buy the media made for it, a 5 dollar roll of quilt batting can last a long long time

and i wouldn't be surprised if hagen cuts out the ac's with their new filters coming out because they want to get more money out of people.


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

anyways, I just picked up a penguin 200, I already have a mature biowheel to fit it, and i need to start up a 40 breeder, so imo this was the best choice in the end


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## John27 (Jun 6, 2010)

cjacob316 said:


> you guys do know that there are some bad reviews out there about aqua clears right? one of my lfs won't even carry them anymore because they continuously had problems with them seizing up. and since the tetra comes with a clam shell, there is no need to buy the media made for it, a 5 dollar roll of quilt batting can last a long long time
> 
> and i wouldn't be surprised if hagen cuts out the ac's with their new filters coming out because they want to get more money out of people.


There is no perfect product, there will always be the odd bad one, or (alot of times) the idiot person who purchased the product and is using it incorrectly or has done something to damage it (like keeping it running while adding sand to a filled aquarium, doing a 75% water change while it's still running and allowing it to run for 10 minutes dry, etcetera). In the end though, I think you will find more "spontaneous failures" from Whisper than AquaClear, and aside from reliability, the AC series gets more done.

The Penguin sounded like a good solution too, I've heard they are noisy, but other than that they seem to review good.


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## smitty (May 7, 2004)

Thanks John. But I have heard the bad mouth story before about Aqua-Clear. I have been at this for 25years and I am speaking from experience. I don't understand or know your local fish store. I had one here that stopped carrying them for the same reason according to them. Only to find out later from there old manager that it was not the reason. The reason was because Aqua-clear dictates the price based on the size of your store. and they were at odds with aqua-clear over the pricing. this was back in 2008. If you listened to them is was the worst product on the market. I said bulls.... . I went there in may 2010 they now have an entire shelf of Aqua-clear it is the main filter they carry. Last week they had a sale the AC110 power filter $70.00. Believe me nothing change on behalf of Aqua-clear in the past few years.


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

they sell the new fluval hob's, so it can't be an issue with pricing since they are the same company and would have the same policy with prices

i just think this whole aqua clear obsession is odd, i had to add marineland brand floss to my aquaclear to get it to perform better... and the prices on aqua clears are high compared to other filters which is a huge turn off to me. I own two, they are decent, but they are hard to commit to, or spend the money on.


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## John27 (Jun 6, 2010)

cjacob316 said:


> they sell the new fluval hob's, so it can't be an issue with pricing since they are the same company and would have the same policy with prices
> 
> i just think this whole aqua clear obsession is odd, i had to add marineland brand floss to my aquaclear to get it to perform better... and the prices on aqua clears are high compared to other filters which is a huge turn off to me. I own two, they are decent, but they are hard to commit to, or spend the money on.


Your very right to be cautious of products that have alot of hype, sometimes companies take advantage of their reputations and lower the quality of their product thinking their customers will still think it's reliable, and they can sell them at the same price, increasing their margin (Weber just recently did this in a big way, let me tell you as a guy who sells, services and assembles Weber grills, they are JUNK compared to what they were a year ago). However, in my experience (including with a brand new AC110) that doesn't seem to be the case.


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

they don't do as good a job filtering as you might think, after i added that blue bonded filter floss, that stuff is catching a lot of stuff the sponges miss, and I have two sponges in my ac110


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## kmuda (Nov 27, 2009)

cjacob316 said:


> and the prices on aqua clears are high compared to other filters which is a huge turn off to me. I own two, they are decent, but they are hard to commit to, or spend the money on.


I agree there... which is why I don't use AquaClears. I can get a Penguin 350 for $25 or spend a few extra bucks (compared to an AC110) and get a decent canister. Hagen has managed to price the AquaClears into a "dead zone" (in my opinion), although their reputation (which is deserved) continues to sell them.

My opinion, as stated..... if you are going to shell out the cash for an AC110, might as well add $20-$30 onto the cost and buy a canister.

For those "GPH" Tim Allen (more power) folks, you could get 2 Penguin 350s for the cost of 1 AC110 and be running 700GPH on a system that can basically utilize the full flow rate.


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

kmuda said:


> cjacob316 said:
> 
> 
> > and the prices on aqua clears are high compared to other filters which is a huge turn off to me. I own two, they are decent, but they are hard to commit to, or spend the money on.
> ...


i agree about the canister vs the ac110, the only reason i own one is because it only cost me $40 used, I got the penguin, now just need to get the clam shells. the clam shell coming with the tetra is what made it so appealing. and since i want a finer floss in my filters, the whole cost free sponges are not a huge plus for me... or maybe i'll try those green pads people rave abuout. just don't boil them right?


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## smitty (May 7, 2004)

I was given a couple of piguin still no comparison. Aqua-clear has not chnaged anything with the ac power filter. You said that they now make the fluval HOB filter. Just want to let you know aqua-clear does not make fluval. Hagen makes aqua-clear, fluval, and laguna.

cjacob you must did not read what I said. The old manager said that the quality of AC's was not the issue. Also I visited that fish place in Lancaster back in april. Met a sales rep there and we talked about the store in question down here. He said it was a dump fiasco and the store in question acted as if they were this major major vendor who could dictate there policies. I just did not think it was a need to go into that. Matter of fact me explaining to you is going a step too far since what do you know about there pricing policies. Sounds like you may not have the money to buy the better product or you own stock in one of the knock offs. If you want aqua-clears to filter better simply turn down the flow by moving it to the right.


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## KaiserSousay (Nov 2, 2008)

*If you want aqua-clears to filter better simply turn down the flow by moving it to the right.*

Huh :-?


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

apparently they work better when not fully flowing, what's the point?

man i read what you said, but just because your one store had pricing issues, doesn't mean mine did, you don't know everything although you make it very clear you think you do. to be quite honest, you come off as very insulting and have been talking down to me quite a bit.

hagen makes fluval and aqua clear. i would think hagen controls what goes on with it's company. my lfs said the filters seize up, did everyone who had issues with aqua clear pricing make up the same problem to tell people about? i doubt it. because my store isn't the same as your store, so whatever story you have simply does not apply.


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## KaiserSousay (Nov 2, 2008)

*apparently they work better when not fully flowing, what's the point?*

You and I have been kicking around here for quite awhile.
We have seen how loyal a bunch AC users are.
Must be a reason.
Could quality have gone down, maybe.
I have not seen a flood of postings about bum AC filters showing up on any of the forums I visit.
As you found with your experience with the Whisper line, pretty much any filter can do a good job if treated right and modded with care.
Give an update after you run the penguin for awhile, if you would.
I am pretty pleased with the 350s` I am using now.


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

the first brand name filter i ever bought was a penguin, a 100, it ran great for a while, still running, but it took a beating in a shelly tank from the sand

i also owned a 200 for a while, but sold it for cash for a canister, at the time i was only running a couple of tanks so i didn't need the extra filter, but i still have it's biowheel running on my emperor 280.

the only issue i have with penguins so far is that they do not come with the clam shells. but even after buying them, you come out better than the ac cost, and with better mechanical filtration imo. if ac's were better priced I would buy them. like *kmuda* said, they are in a dead zone

i will however point out that penguins have a lower profile so less space behind the tank is required for them than other filters


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## RDTigger (Jul 4, 2009)

I started on AC's and have had great success, but if used properly Penguin/emperor and AC's are the best choices on the market for HOB.

The AC offers great MOD abilities to mechanically filter my tanks and that's my big concern. Most Bio-filtration happens INSIDE the tank, not the filter. I want clean water that is aesthetically pleasing to me. I have not liked the idea of a bio-wheel seizing up on me and creating a disaster.

That being said a clogged AC sponge will cause the basket to lift and creating a backflow out of the HOB and onto the floor. In most cases Operator Error is the culprit. Running any pump dry will shorten the life the equipment, especially the motor.

AC/Penguin>Tetra Whisper


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