My review of the Aqua One 'Advance' 2450 canister filter

[Greggy]

Hi Team,

Last night I set up my new Aqua One 'Advance' 2450 UV-C canister filter, and I thought I would share my experience and overall thoughts about this filter. I have the 2450 running on my FW 6x2x2 Discus community tank in tandem with an Eheim 2228 canister filter as I gave back my (faulty?) Eheim 2227 Wet/Dry canister filter because it refused to stop blowing a constant stream of micro-bubbles into the water.

Is the Aqua One 2450 UV-C any good? Read on to find out!!!

SPECIFICATIONS
The Aqua One 'Advance' 2450 UV-C canister filter has the following specifications (for more info click here http://www.aquaone.co.uk/aquis_advance.php )
- Rated for use on FW and Marine aquariums up to 350L
- Operating flow rate of 1100LPH (Max of 1500LPH I assume is when empty)
- Maximum head height of 2.2 metres
- Built-in 9Watt UV sterilizer
- The canister holds 22L
- 4 media baskets (the 2250 model uses only 3)
- Consumes 62W of power
- Includes spray bar and intake assembly with optional surface skimmer
- Includes two 1" (25mm) ID hoses
- Includes a few joiners, elbows and tubes to customise in-tank installation
- Warranty is 2 + 2 years (2 years extra upon registration to 4 years total)

One can't complain too much about features and what is included, except that the size of the aquarium that the unit can manage is quite small at 350L Eheim rate their 2228 filter as capable of running a 600L tank, so there is a big difference in the maximum tank size suggested. However once one looks further into the 2450 you begin to see why it is rated so low for its physical size.

PRICE – IT’S CHEAP
I had an Aqua One 'Advance' 2450 UV-C delivered to my door for AUD$309.00 which I thought was quite reasonable. If you wander around your LFS you may see some of Aqua One's smaller range of canister filters cost even more than this. The unit includes media, but I will stop short of saying it includes ALL the media you need (more about this below).

SIZE - IT'S BIG!
You can tell it's a big filter the moment you see the box it comes in. The unit itself stands about 50cm high and is approx 33cm x 33cm wide – this is one big filter for the money! But is size everything? Although it holds 4 media baskets, the amount of media supplied is very poor, as all 4 media baskets still looked half empty even once I'd filled them with the supplied media. Perhaps this is why it is only rated to 350L Come on Aqua One - provide the correct amount of media for the large baskets! The foam pads for each basket (2 course blue pads and 2 fine black pads) are fine, but the pitiful excuse for ‘bio-nood’ (tray 1) and ‘ceramisub’ (trays 1 and 3) is almost laughable. The trays could probably hold twice as many ‘noodles’ and ‘ceramic media’ than what is supplied, and the quality of the supplied ceramic media is questionable. Next time I’m due to change out the media I think I’ll fill the baskets with Eheim media as this is just so much better. The fourth (bottom) media tray also has some pre-shaped filter wool, but the amount supplied is so small I don’t think it will do much. There is so much more capacity to install extra filter wool that I think I’ll add a bunch of it myself during the next service. For the price of bulk-purchased filter wool Aqua One could have provided a larger amount – I would be happy to pay the extra 20 cents!!! All the media baskets do have ‘handles’ but the trays are quite flimsy compared to the robust trays used by Eheim. The big 2450 canister itself does hold a lot of water (it seemed to take forever to fill up using 2L jugs of water via the access point at the top of the intake tube) so a better idea is to start the siphon effect and let the water do the work instead! Oh well I suppose now I have an extra 20-odd litres of water in my tank  Because of the filter’s size just make sure you have the room under your cabinet to allow it to fit with all the hoses etc. Nothing worse than getting it home and saying ‘uh oh’.

INSTALLATION
I was hoping the Aqua One 2450 would have been as neat and slick as my Eheim 2228 in terms of its fittings and installation procedure, however I was wrong. All the fittings etc are adequate, however they have a ‘cheap plastic’ feel to them. I know they are plastic (of course) but the quality is simply not there like it is with the Eheim fittings. Also I could not use the surface skimmer feature as the water level of my tank is such that it is too low for the lowest adjustment of the surface skimmer. I don’t consider my water level to be that low (I cannot see the waters surface from the front of the tank under the hood) so I really I think Aqua One need to increase the amount of adjustment of the surface skimmer as I doubt anyone keeps their tank water just an inch or two below the top of the tank, especially on a big 6x2x2 tank which this filter would be aimed at! All the fittings went together ok but the fittings don’t seem to quite seal correctly, with a few of them dripping (leaking) water back into the tank on the return side of things. This is no big deal as the drip lands in the tank water but over time it makes me wonder if calcium deposits might accumulate where these ‘leaks’ occur. The spray bar is modular in that it can be made up of between one and three sections depending on the room you have. For me two sections were adequate. The rather thick intake and outlet hoses (each are 25mm inside diameter) are quite long & flexible which is lucky since they have to make a few turns to get into the cabinet etc. The manual states to shorten them to what you need but instead I made a small loop before attaching them to the filter’s power head as I believe you can’t have too much tubing when it comes to ease of getting the filter in & out of the cabinet with a minimal amount of fuss. The multi-hose connector on the top of the filter can be detached but it is much easier to do this with the filter out of the cabinet, as after all thick hoses will only bend so far! The filter itself needed to be washed out and all the media flushed (of course), and this was rather simple, but removing the power head was a bit of a worry as you really need to pull up hard on the locking flaps and I wondered which would let go first, the o-ring seal or the locking flap(s) themselves! Eventually it came apart ok and putting it back together was simple enough although the Eheim filters are just so much easier/better in this regard. In the end it cleaned up and installed ok but did leave me wondering about the overall ‘lack of quality’ that I was beginning to feel from this unit.

FILTER PERFORMANCE
Well after it was installed and filled with water, I checked for leaks (there were none) so I fired it up! It all seemed to do what a canister filter should do, but the trapped air inside the filter took several minutes to clear up. After about 10 minutes the filter was running well, I had adjusted a few things here and there and still no leaks so I was happy. I can only assume the 9Watt UV Sterilizer is working because a little green LED told me it was on, but I doubt this feature is of much use for me. You can manually switch off the UV if you need to medicate etc by means of a tiny switch on the side of the power head (next to the green LED). It does seem to flow more than my Eheim 2228 (which is rated at about 1050LPH) and you can see the intake strainer really sucking up and collecting particles in the water, much more than the Eheim 2228 did when it was first installed. I guess the flow rate is somewhere between 1100LPH and 1500LPH but no doubt this will drop as the filter gets dirty. Since I only installed it last night I can’t say anything about its biological filtering performance but it is an impressive mechanical filter (and the actual reason I went with the Aqua One 2450 if truth be known). When I got up this morning the tank was noticeably clearer with virtually no bits and pieces of plant material or other ‘floaties’ in the water. It has certainly done a better job of cleaning up the tank than the Eheim 2228 could do on its own. Over time the filter will establish its own beneficial bacteria population but until then its more or less only providing mechanical filtration and a small amount of UV sterilization. As I said above, when it comes time for the filters first service I’ll replace the cheap & nasty Aqua One media with quality Eheim media. This will probably boost its tank capacity above 350L. In terms of current flow, my six ‘new’ Discus (2x Blue Diamonds, 2x Marlborough Reds, 1x Brilliant Turquoise and 1x Red Turquoise – all captive bred juveniles) don’t seem to mind the Aqua One 2450 now that I have partially aimed the spray bar back towards the glass. From watching where things float around in the tank I’m still getting good water circulation this way but the Discus no longer have to ‘surf’ every time they come to the front of the tank to eat! Also the plants are not being knocked around as much this way. So this told me the filter is flowing significantly more water than the Eheim 2228.

NOISE – NOT BAD BUT…
The Aqua One 2450 doesn’t make too much noise, but its far from quiet, well Eheim quiet anyway. With my Eheim 2228 you can only tell its running when you have your head near the filter itself, and even then it’s just a soft hum. With the 2450 you can hear it running the moment you open the door of the cabinet! Thankfully it is quiet enough so that you don’t hear it when the door of the cabinet is closed. I think if I didn’t have a cabinet that kept the noise away I would be a little disappointed, as after all it is 2007 and if a company like Aqua One cannot design a silent water pump by now they probably never will. It’s not loud enough to worry about in a busy part of the house, and like I said with the cabinet door closed I don’t hear it at all. But for those of you who keep fish tanks in your bedrooms I would not advise you get an Aqua One 2250/2450 canister filter. Get an Eheim instead or you’ll be sleep deprived.

OVERALL SUMMARY AFTER DAY ONE
Well it seems to be doing an OK job so far, but what can one really tell after less than 24 hours? All I know is that it is doing what it should, and not making too much noise in the process. There is no doubt it is a strong mechanical filter, as for its bio-filtering performance only time will tell. But will it? Since I also have a very efficient Eheim 2228 on the tank I’ll probably never really know just how good a bio-filter the Aqua One 2450 is. Maybe one of you guys (or girls of course!!!!) who are about to set up a new (big) tank can take a risk as I did and do your own testing of an Aqua One 2450, although I would advise you to replace the supplied media with (more) quality media from Eheim or equivalent. And don’t forget to add more filter wool too. I like my new Aqua One 2450, but I love my Eheim 2228. Does that sum it up well enough?

PROS
- Cheap… it leaves you thinking “I’m glad I didn’t buy an Eheim 2250”
- Includes media
- Strong water flow for excellent tank circulation
- Hoses are quite long and flexible
- Modular design of the spray bar etc
- 4 Media baskets can be filled with whatever media you want to use
- Nice long power cord
- Built-in 9 Watt UV Sterilizer might help to kill some nasty bugs in the water
- 2+ 2 Warranty (4 years in total)

CONS
- Cheap… it leaves you thinking “I wish it I had bought an Eheim 2250”
- Does not include enough (quality) media
- Strong water flow might upset your Discus unless you adjust the spray bar around
- Surface Skimmer does not have enough adjustment (to be used in my 6x2x2)
- Spray bar pipe fittings are ‘cheap’ to the point of leaking into the tank
- High (62 Watts) power consumption – I need my own power station!
- Attachment of power head to canister can be tricky

Thanks for reading this far!

Regards,

Greggy

[Roy]

Did you look at the Fluval FX5 ?
I would have thought it was a better alternative for a large tank.
But a good review, tells us what we need to hear.

Roy

[ILLUSN]

a bit of vaseline on the o ring makes it eaiser to attach and remove the head.
how's it running now after a couple of weeks?

[Greggy]

The Aqua One 2450 is still going well thanks ILLUSN. No leaks and it has not missed a beat. It has removed most of the 'floaties' in the water from some of the plants that didn't like 30 degrees and desintergrated but right now the tank is looking quite clear. I'm battling a bit of a brown algae bloom right now but it seems to have subsided and the BNs are getting on top of it again. I just have to be careful with the amount of nutrients in the water.

I have yet to open up the 2450 to clean it, as I recently opened up my Eheim 2228 canister filter after about 6 weeks of running and just had to replace the fine white (floss) filter pad, the rest of it was still quite clean. The 2228 was still flowing ok but I was was keen to see how things were going inside it.

So far the 2450 has done a good job in tandem with the 2228. On the weekend I tested some basic water parameters (before changing the water) and found:

Ammonia - Nil
Nitrites - Nil
Nitrates -Nil or maybe 1ppm (more or less below detection limit)
pH - Approx 7.2

Nitrates had actually dropped from my previous reading which suprised me as I have had slightly higher readings before, however I think my plants are gobbling them up which is a good thing. I'm still doing weekly 20% water changes although the weekend just gone I did a 33% water change to keep the tanins low from my drift wood.

So far all 6 discus are fine although one of them is still shy compared to the other 5 who are absolute food vacuums! All the other fish are ok except I lost one Peppered Cory the other day for an unknown reason however maybe the Peprered Cory didn't like the high 30C temp.

So over all I'm still happy with the Aqua One 2450, although I might change my mind when I have to service it... watch this space!

Regards,

Greggy

[ILLUSN]

no worries mate keep us posted

[Greggy]

Well, after owning the Aqua One 2450 canister filter for some time now I can say that it has the folllowing problems that Aqua One really need to resolve before I would ever consider recomending them to another fish keeper:

- Bypass. The design of the filter is such that alot of water can bypass the filter media and this is the filter's biggest problem. I literally get small leaves on the inside of the spray bar, meaning that if dead leaves and otjher plant matter can make it through to the spray bar there is no chance the filter is ever going to stop minute particles getting through. (And no the filter is not over-packed with media and is installed correctly). The shape of the media baskets allows alot of water to travel around them instead of through them, so the debris from the tank gets an easy ride straight back to the tank where it rots inside the spray bar and causes even more debris & mss in the water column.

- Filter direction. I'd like to see Aqua One reverse the flow of the flter so that tank water enters at the bottom of the canister and moves upward, as alot of muck accumulates at the bottom of the canister, and this is the area where the supposed 'cleaned' water is gathered ready to be returned to the aquarium.

- Servicing. Removing the head of the filter is difficult because it is very reluctant to come off. Lifting the flaps that help remove the head resulted on of them breaking their plastic hinges and thus removing the top now requires me jamming a screwdriver in to prize the top off.

- UV-C. When running the filter's built in UV-C device it warms the water by about 1 degree C. You can actually feel the extra warmth in the power head when the UV-C is switched on.

- Power Consumption. At 62Watts this is a power-hungry canister filter compared with Eheim filters.

Overall I'm very dissapointed with the Aqua One 2450 however you really do seem to get what you pay for. I find it had to believe that even in the year 2008 a company like Aqua One cannot design a simple, cheap yet very effective canister filter. I think they need to have a really good look at their design and perhaps imitate what Eheim did with their Classic series. I mean who really cares if the inlet of the canister filter attaches to the bottom or the top of the filter? Perhaps if the manufacturers want both outlets on the top (because us consumers like it better that way?) they should build an external (to the canister) inlet route for the tank water so that it goes in at the top (via built-in taps), travels on the outside of the canister and then enters the canister from the bottom. This to me would be the best design.

So what will I do? Well I'm gong to replace the Aqua One 2450 filter with what I should have got in the first place... an Eheim 2250 Classic. I would have gone with the mighty 2260 however there is not enough room in my cabinet to fir one, and I'm sure an Eheim 2250 Classic and my existing Eheim 2228 Professional will do an excellent job of keeping my 6x2x2 clean.

So look out for my review of the Eheim 2250 Classic in the comming months!

Regards,

Greggy

[ILLUSN]

Sorry to hear that greggy, my thought on the previous generation aquis 2400 were similar, if you 3/4 fill the baskets the bypass is cut significantly, but interms of media capacity, its only got slightly more then your 2228 ( i think about 1.5L with the baskets filled to the correct height).

you'll love the 2250, remember you can always up grade the pump later for more flow (at a significant increase in power consumption). did you consider the pro3 2080? (only 30w and big enough to rival a 2250)

[Mr Discus]

Sad to hear that you are not overly impressed with the Aqua One 'Advance' 2450 UVC canister Greggy.

I am running an Aqua One 'Advance' 2250 UVC on my 3ft display tank, and I must say there are several things that I agree with you on, but several that I disagree on.

You are right about the 'cheapness' of the spraybar fittings, and also the lack of filter media that you get in the box. The thing I agree with you most on is the 'bypass' factor. I find the same problem with my 2250, it is not terrible, but definately not as efficient as it could be.

Power consumption is a little higher than comparable filters of its size, but I love the fact that the unit comes with a UV lamp in it, however undersized it may be!

When you think of the power you would use to run a totally stand alone UV steraliser with pump or slave canister, you realise that the power consumption is actually not too bad. It definately keeps the cabinet less cluttered but having it all in the one unit.

As for the noise, I can't comment on the 2450, but the 2250 is whisper quiet. I actually have to put my hand on it sometimes to make sure it is running, thats how quiet it is.

The flowrate is great on the 2250, as you said with the 2450.

Overall I am happy with the 2250, like you said about the 2450 you get what you pay for, but I think the 2250 is great value for money, and the 4 year warranty definately reassures you.

I hope this little speel helps anyone looking at the 2450 or 2250 Aqua Ones.

[ILLUSN]

Mr Discus
the 2250 is an EHEIM classic 2250, not an aqua one, there is 0 bypass (its not possible theres no filter baskets)

http://www.aquariumsuppliesaustralia.com.au/store/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=448

if you dont have enough wattage for the uv to sterilize the water all you'll do is cultivate mutant pathogens with the capacity for antibiotic resistance. (at uni it was about 1:1000000 mutant Strept were resistant to penicillian after uvc exposure).

sterilizers like this are only really usefull for greenwater problems and not for disease control.

[Mr Discus]

ILLUSN, I think we got our lines crossed mate.

I was at no point referring to the 2250 Eheim, rather the Aqua One Aquis 2250 UVC. I was posting in response to Greggy's remarks on the 2450 and I thought it would be interesting for anyone reading to hear my views on the 2250 model (smaller model of the 2450).

I guess you thought I was referring to the Eheim?

I agree about the UV issue. But I guess any UV on a filter like this is better than none.

Hope that clears any confusion up.

[ILLUSN]

No worries mate, sorry proably a little tired last night, All good :)