allpondsolutions HOB-500 Aquarium External Fish Tank Water Filter for Coldwater, Tropical or Marine Aquariums, for Tanks Up to 250 Litres – Includes Filter Foams, hose and Spray Bar - Full Kit

Excellent value for money. The filter has separate baskets, so you can customise your media, although it does come with different grade sponge filters, from a porous sponge, down to a water polishing wool.The unit is compact, easy to put together, and the size of it looks smart on the side of my 125L tank, although it is rated for a higher volume tank.It comes with a spray bar, which I haven't used, so can't really comment, and a jet. The jet is pushed onto a rotating ball fitting, which is useful for getting the desired surface agitation, and you can adjust the water direction and pressure a good amount as both the inlet and outlet are also adjustable.The filter picks up a good amount of debris from the tank, and the multiple baskets are easily removed, cleaned out and replaced. Remember to prime the filter before turning on initially, and after maintenance as if you get an airlock it is noisy and splutters. Even with it filled, I've experienced this a couple of times, which is my only complaint, but I am also not using the factory filter media which may play a part. Once it has blown it through the system, which usually takes a few hours, it is so quiet that the only way I know it's working is because the vallisneria is dancing along the back of the tank in the flow.The performance is excellent for the price, and it works just as well, if not better than products more than double the price of this.I like the fact that you get the convenience of an external filter, the size of an internal filter, in a compact package that hangs on the back of the tank, allowing you to use the full footprint and volume of the tank for aquascaping and planting.There's bad reviews, but for a medium sized open top tank on top of a reinforced ikea kallax unit, it fits the bill perfectly, as I don't have to have it in a separate cabinet, or elsewhere.For a similar installation as my one, I would definitely recommend this filter.

Set up in 120l cold water tanks . Working well after 2 weeks . Easy to set up and clean out . Doesn’t make a lot of noise , the tank is in my bedroom .

I've been running this filter for 3 months now on a 35ltr Betta Tank. I figured, hey, it's cheap enough, not the end of the world if it's rubbish.And colour me pleasantly surprised, it's good!It was initially quite noisy, I gave it some time, rocked it about to loosen trapped air, but it was definitely a mechanical noise. I opened the entire thing up, unscrewing the lid and everything. Greased the impeller and all, but still noisy. Figured my gamble hadn't paid off, unplugged it, plugged it back in for some reason and viola, quiet! No idea how and why that worked, but it's been quietly working away ever since. I was a bit scared to mess with it in case it became noisy again, but eventually I had to give the filter media a rinse. The noise came back on reassembly, but again, unplug, replug and all was quiet again. Make of that what you will.I have yet to have any leaking issues personally.It is admittedly an awkward filter to maintain if you don't have much room around whichever side of the tank you put it on. It's quite heavy due to it having such a large capacity canister, and the design requires you to lift the whole thing away from the tank to unclip the canister for maintenance. Definitely would place it somewhere easy reach and lift if you have weak wrists, arthritis etc. And it can be fiddly/frustrating getting the layers of baskets to stay clipped together when removing/replacing in order to maintain the correct water flow through the canister.I also don't believe the flow adjuster valves are entirely airtight, as it can be a bit of balancing act between the in and out flow valves to get it so it doesn't suck a tiny stream of air in through them.However, outside of the mentioned issues, when it's all set up and doing it's job, it's a great filter for a very reasonable price. It's very adjustable, feels well made, has lots and lots of room for stuffing with filter media and happily chugs along doing it's job! :)

I had problems with this filter. After being in use for several days, it started making a horrendous loud noise. After investigation, I found this to be because the water level didn't stay full, so it couldn't function properly. The customer service was not great. They finally sent a replacement, but that too had the same fault. Again, I returned the item and got a replacement and this one worked fine. They seem to think it was a mistake I was making with setting the filter up, but it wasn't. I have kept tropical fish now for several years, so I don't make amateur mistakes. So, although the third one I received worked fine, im giving a low star rating as the customer service was not good, and the agent I emailed with was actually quite rude on some emails, stating "we'll replace it one more time but then you'll have to order a new one"

Absolutely brilliant filter ,wish I had bought one ages ago . Does exactly what it is supposed to and does it well -great waterflow ,so I am running mine with it turned down a little . Initial issue with air in the system was easily solved by unscrewing the outlet pipe whilst filter was in place and topping up the water a bit more-I gave the box a couple of taps whilst doing so and waited for the air bubbles to surface before putting in a little more water ,slowly ,untill no more air was coming up . Really not a problem . This filter is just so quiet ,I have caught myself checking it is still running a couple of times ! The big deal for me is the fact it holds four or five times as much bio media as my imternal filter did -I filled mine up with alfagrog (after bashing the alfagrog around a bit to make the bits smaller !) and put a coarse sponge in the first basket ,below the top one . I also popped a sponge sleeve around the intake ,really shocked at how much debris that collects after a few days ,but it is easy to pop it off and sqeeze it out and ,hopefully ,should mean the sponges in the filter itself dont need clearing very often . Unexpected bonus being my shrimp seem to think that inlet is a good place to graze ,so I get to see them a bit more (very heavily planted tank ) . Honestly ,I was prepared for this filter to be just OK ,maybe not brilliant after reading some of the other reviews ,but it was the only external filter I could find within my budget , arthritis in my hands was making fiddling about with the internal filter a pain (literally !)so bought it anyway - the one I have is brilliant . 4ft tank ,lots of messy bottom feeders ,just no problems with water clarity now at all . I

Simply the best filter I have purchased, thoroughly recommend,

I have this filter for my Axolotl, and I find the filter is really loud and crackly. I has an initial problem which might have been air bubbles which took a while and the seller helped me out (thank you), but still 2 months on it’s quite noisy. However for the price I wasn’t expecting an amazing one, and will be upgrading in the future so it’s a good stop gap.

Great filter for the price, water parameters have held steady since installing a week ago on a 190l tank.Watch pimp my filter review on you tube for guide to setting up media as all that's included is fine floss. I am running mine with course in top tray, medium in second, fine in third, floss with a carbon scrubber in fourth then two trays of bio rings. Had a power cut yesterday, filter restarted itself now problem once power came back on.

Ottimo per le prime settimane, montato su un 80litri…dopo un mese circa, per funzionare perfettamente e senza rumori fastidiosi, necessita una pulizia settimanale, impensabile per un filtro acquario… attenzione alla presa UK, serve adattatore