Buy Sale Hagen Fluval Canister Filter FX5

Best filter I've ever used.
I've never had a clearer aquarium in my life. Set up was simple, the filter did not leak a drop thus far. Easy cleaning, some of the best water conditions I've ever been able to provide for our fish. Only con I can add is the dvd provided did not work on my computer (running xp) but was easily able to find a youTube video with set-up procedure. I got a better price here on amazon than an aquarium wholesaler nearby. I have a 55 gallon corner tank, and the filter is probably overkill, but others I know who use it on their 300 gallon tank said they've only had to replace media one time over a period of a year. Will vary, I'm sure, on media you use, and amount of fish (they had quite a few in theirs!) I'd reccommend this filter to anyone, 55 gallon on up, it will provide a stunning environment for your fish. Simply the easiest, most efficient cannister filter I've ever seen. Not to mention Quiet! Only sounds I hear from my aquarium is the soft sounds of bubbles from the water pump I use to enrich oxygen. If that is off, and the door is closed on the cabinet...silence.

Excellant Filter!!!
I own two of these filters, one being 4 years old and the newest one, a month old. I have not had any problems with either of them. If you've had problems with yours, you probably got a lemon and should've returned it during the warranty period.

This filters has a lot of flow and the motor runs very quiet. I use one for a 75 gallon turtle tank and the older one for a 110 gallon fish tank but the FX5 is rated for up to 400 gallon tanks. I also own an Eheim Pro3 2080 (5.00 thru Absolutely Pets - Amazon.com) which I bought around the same time that I bought my first FX5. Eheims are the luxury cars of aquarium filtration and like luxury cars, you'll pay a pretty penny for them. But they'll last you for decades with virtually no problems...unless you get a lemon. But for the money, you cannot beat the Fluval FX5 and it outdoes the Eheim Pro3 in flow and mechanical filtration. The Eheim equivalent to the FX5 is the Eheim 2262. The 2262 is a powerhouse...even more so than the FX5...but at a premium. Are you ready for the price? 6.28 plus shipping (.41) from All Pet Depot (Amazon.com). That's actually a great price. It was originally 5.52 and this filter retails for over 0.00 at your local fish store.

So, if you're on a budget and you need mega filtration, for the money, the FX5 is the filter to consider. Currently, it is selling for 9.99 with free shipping thru Pet Supply Outlet (Amazon.com). It's gone down from 9.99 since I bought it. This filter retails for 9.99. If you're considering it, I'd get it now.

Now this is how a filter is supposed to work
I have had various filters before, several different ones in this tank. I use an Eheim 2227 wet and dry filter for digesting ammonia into nitrates but I need a good mechanical filter too. I also have a UV sterilizer, so anything that would grow in the water gets sunburn and dies. The tank contains four large african cyclids and a very large plecostomus. Between them they make a mess and the plec is always stirring up junk which then floats around for ages.

In the past I have used Marineland Magnum 350s and a Fluval 304. Neither of those really caught all the particles that were circulating in the tank. Neither of them had fine enough media to capture everything, they just recirculated the fine stuff. Adding the polishing filter to the 350 reduced the water flow substantially and resulted in an expensive and blocked filter element in the garbage after a few days, it did not provide any sort of long term solution.

Am am looking to move up to a bigger tank, something like 120-200 gallons from my current 65, so I was willing to consider filters that would be overkill. If there is such a thing. I had been looking at the FX5 for some time but had discounted it as too large. Reading other reviews I saw that although the headline flow rate is 925gph the rate drops to more like 600gph when stuffed with media. Well that's not that unreasonable for a 65 gallon tank. Finally, last Sunday I moved a few things in the tank and it ended up cloudy again. I had disturbed the gravel to add some plants and now the particles would be floating around for ages. The combination of under gravel filter and mechanical filter just weren't catching fine material. Short of washing all the gravel I didn't have a lot of options.

So I ordered the FX5 on Monday. By Tuesday afternoon it had been delivered, so much for 2nd day delivery, it took less than 24 hours to cross more than half the country.

I thought the A218 was the kit of the FX5 plus the pre-filter and biomax media, but those weren't mentioned so I also ordered the fine filter, polishing filter and the two boxes of media.

Assembling the filter body is easy. I took off the lid and removed the filter stack then washed all the foam blocks and replaced them. I rinsed off the pre-filter and biomax material and added them to the top and bottom baskets. I also added a media bag full of carbon above the biomax. In the middle I added a stack of fine mechanical filters, I put the polishing pad at the bottom, then hand cut two pieces of phosphate and ammonia absorbing material I had to hand for the middle and added the fine pad to the top. I re-stacked the baskets and returned them to the housing. After adding 2 gallons of water to give the pump something to work on, as stated in the instructions, I put the lid back on and secured it.

The supplied pipe should be enough for most normal installations, though having said that I only ended up discarding about two feet. But my tank and stand are fairly tall, probably 5'6" from the floor to the rim. I attached the two cut-off valves to the pipe then connected them to the filter which was in its intended location. I ran the pipes up to where they would enter the tank and cut them to the required length. I then clipped them to the tank lip fixtures and jammed the inlet and outlet on the end. The bottom of the inlet pipe has two suction cups to keep it in place, so I secured it to the inside of the tank.

OK. Ready to go. When I plugged in the filter it began slowly pumping out a mixture of water and fine bubbles. Oh... that's not what I hoped for. But they said it needed to prime and I expect there was about 3 gallons of air in the body, so let's leave it and see what happens. A few minutes later it stopped making noise and bubbles, moments later it belched out a stream of bubbles and the water level dropped a few inches. Ah. So that's the priming. A few minutes later, with one final large bubble, the filter started for real. No more bubbles and no sound that I could hear over the PC.

At this point my tank was a soupy mess. I had taken the opportunity to clean out the other filters and pump heads and that had disturbed a lot of fine particles that my other filters would not have caught. Ten minutes later it seemed to be improving. An hour later there wasn't much sign of anything floating in the water. This morning the tank is crystal clear.

In summary this filter works the way they all should. The pump is at the bottom, so it doesn't get noisy and cavitate when there is any air in the system, any bubbles that are present will mostly sit a foot above the pump at the top of the housing and cause no problems. Even those are allowed out by the daily purge.

One down side for the fish is that if they don't eat what I feed them then the filter will.

There are no real down sides to this setup. When it is full of water it is heavy but they provide two ways to drain it for servicing. The pipes all fit together well and all joints seal properly. The valves and connectors are easy to operate. The main pipe connectors have a double 'O' ring seal. The area of the first level of filtration is huge, basically the inlet water flows all round the outside of the stack of three baskets and filters in towards the core. Once through the foam filters it flows up to the top of the container and is sucked down through the three media baskets. At the bottom it is sucked in to the pump and that drives it up and out of the outlet. There's no way for any significant amount of water to pass through unfiltered.

Loaded the way I have it the flow rate is maybe 600gph. That isn't too much for this size of tank, though it's a lot more than most people use. The fish don't have any problems finding a relatively quiet spot, but there's a lot less chance of things actually stagnating than there used to be with my old units.

I considered this against the Eheim 2080. In the end I chose the FX5 because it flows more water and has larger mechanical filter area and I already have the biological side covered with the Eheim 2227. For me this was a good choice. If I find any issues in the long term I'll report back.

Fast shipping great buy.
The fx5 comes with hoses too. You will need to buy some carbon (at least) to get it up and running. Oh yea, and the pump is silent. One more thing make shure this big pump fits!!!

Great option for larger setups
I've been running the FX5 on a 125 gallon turtle setup for about two months now. Setup is very easy, especially if you have previous experience with canister filters. I saw another review that stated that the filter was noisy, but mine is pretty quiet even when the tank stand's door is open and the filter is exposed to the room. My flowrate has been relatively high, especially considering that it is packed with biomax and polishing pads. It is important to note that unlike other Fluval canisters, this beast actually filters water from top down, so you'll want your finer media like polishing pads in the bottom basket.

I docked a star because I am not a big fan of the design of the internal media baskets, nor do I like the cheap plastic 'T' rods that are used to pull them out. Also, despite the stop valves on the intake and outtake hoses, be ready to clean-up water when detaching for routine cleaning.

Although the Eheim Professional Canister Filters are arguably better for certain purposes, you aren't going to beat the value of the Fluval FX5. The features and specs you get are equivalent to several much more expensive filter options.