arapaimag,
How has your experience been with Fluval FX5 filters?
How often do you crack them open to clean the media?
Do you use it as a primary filter on any of your larger tanks or is it a secondary filter most of the time?
I have an FX5 and really like the unit.
Thank you.
The FX5 and me have a love/hate relationship.
I don't use them on the big tanks. But did use one and a large tetra pond cannister filter while I was switching over from the 600lb multimedia filters to the 30" bead filters.
On my small tanks I have the following canister filters:
24 FX5's
6 Marineland c530
5 Reaction 4 with ultra violet light
3 Tetra pond filters
and 2 wet dry filters
For air pumps I use:
I large blower (Does 600 to 700 tanks) with a second one of the same size as back up
4 linear air pumps
about 60 small 2 outlet air pumps (Most of my tanks have these as back ups in case the blower fails.
and a few penguin and whisper hang on filters
The Fx5 is a good pump when it works but I will NEVER buy another one.
I had problems like many others did in the first year of their introduction as a huge number of their computer chips where faulty.
This they replaced at no charge.
However I've had 4 stop working in the 2009 to the present period among my units bought in 2008 and 2009.
hagen is the distributor/owner of Fluval.
I contacted Mark Hagen (Whom I have known for several years through my bird collection) explained the problem and requested to return them to the store where I bought them.
He wanted me to package them up and ship them to Montreal Canada to be inspected instead.
I was having problems at the time as I had virtually no use of either arm/hand due to surgery and broken wrists. Could not drive etc. So I could not do the shipping etc.
I was very upset because Hagen like other distributors of many products (Tv's, computer games etc) don't want you to return the products to the store where you bought it but mail/ship it to their headquarters at your cost to see if they might fix it.
In contrast, I had a problem with a Marineland C530 in 2010 and contacted their distributor in Ontario, Tropic Aquaria located in Brampton area.
I explained my mobility issues. They checked their trucks delivery routes and told me no problem they would pick up the damaged one and drop off a brand new one as a replacement right to my house. Two days later the driver came, dropped off the new one and apologized for the problem with the defective one.
So with this huge difference in service you can see why I choose Marineland now.
With all my filters I keep clip boards in the fish rooms and record the date everyone of them has their material changed, impellers replaced etc.
The fluvals need changing based on bioload of the tanks they are installed in. Some require a clean out every 2 to 4 weeks while others can go 6 to 9 months if the bio load is small.
I owned and rode many motorcycles when I was able to. Among the older collectables I had some desmo Ducati's made in the 60's. They were small fast four stroke 250's. They had what was called a magic black box. When this failed the motorcycle would not run and from that period they were not reliable so it could happen anywhere at anytime. The Fluvals I bought remind me of very much of those bikes.
If Rolf Hagen Sr (Sad to say he died in the fall of 2011) was still running the company when I contacted them (His sons were running the company then) I never would have had a problem as he always was good to me.
The Fluval is a powerful pump and I do like them when they work.
I'm glad you like yours and it is working well. Hopefully you will not have the issues I've had (with 4 out of 24) and like I said I think/hope they fixed their chip problems.
, if only we were fish keepers 10 million years ago.
