chvynva916 Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 "What do you guys think? I have the opp. to buy a Finnex 22g rimless glass tank/stand, plumbing/pump, and PC lighting for $175. Should I do it? I don't know what I'd do with the tank for sure, maybe an anemone/clown tank? IDK." I know I'm in the small minority here, but I think it's worth stating that I haven't been happy with Finnex's products. My first tank leaked. Now the MH hood doesn't work properly. The whole overflow system is prone to failure (as mine did last week, dumping a few gallons of kalk water in my tank and a few more on the floor). It utilizes a narrow overflow screen, three small holes in the false wall for extra flow of water from the main tank into the back, and a sponge for microbubble control. Any of these things clog, and the tank may overflow. The stand is absolutely terrible; I'd never use it again (buy the RSM stand instead, it fits perfectly). Just my two cents. Link to comment
burtbollinger Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 sorry to hear about your troubles....agreed about the stand. KJOfan, i'd say dont waste money on another tank unless you had a need. save $$$$ for the fish tank emergency fund... Link to comment
KJoFan Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 I do agree with the stand as well. It's sturdy enough, but you can't get to aggressive even with cleaning the front glass or it wobbles. At least mine does. burt, probably wise words there. I think unless it ends up being a complete steal I'll probably let it go. There's so much more I can do with my current tank (and if this creep thing doesn't clear up maybe replacing it with new or another flavor of AIO) plus I'm just getting my frag tank going. So I have alot to keep me interested at this point. Thanks guys! Link to comment
Phixion Posted January 12, 2009 Author Share Posted January 12, 2009 Anenome would for sure need MH lighting, so I'd say no go on that plan. But I agree, unless you have a specific need for the tank, save up for something else or for an emergency reef fund. As for the overflow issues, I've had my Finnex for 2 years now and it has NEVER overflowed even with things clogged/blocked. It's come close before, but never actually did. I've since fixed the issues that would make it come close, and now it never even comes close anymore. The key was cutting out every other slat post in the intake grill, and that allowed both more water to get through and at a faster rate, as well as more crap to flow through and NOT get stuck on the grate. That crap will muck up the skimmer intake however, lol! But yeah, I got my Finnex running slim and trim! Once it's setback up this week I'll consider it almost a new tank as I'm changing a few things up. Link to comment
dovla Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 KJoFan Posted Today, 05:56 PM I do agree with the stand as well. It's sturdy enough, but you can't get to aggressive even with cleaning the front glass or it wobbles. At least mine does. +1 chvynva916 Posted Today, 05:27 PM I know I'm in the small minority here, but I think it's worth stating that I haven't been happy with Finnex's products. +1 chvynva916 Posted Today, 05:27 PM The whole overflow system is prone to failure (as mine did last week, dumping a few gallons of kalk water in my tank and a few more on the floor). It utilizes a narrow overflow screen, three small holes in the false wall for extra flow of water from the main tank into the back, and a sponge for microbubble control. Any of these things clog, and the tank may overflow. The stand is absolutely terrible; I'd never use it again This entire back wall flow worries me. I have jet to start ATO with kalk after migration from Eclipse-6 is done in next few weeks. I placed two float switches in the last (rightmost) chamber above OEM pump (which btw I replaced with MJ-1200). Where do you keep your float-switch(es)? I removed the sponge and by ditching both of OEM pumps (replaced OEM skimmer with Remora on MJ-1200) I am hoping that two pumps with the same gph would expose less clogging issue – or at least that those three tiny holes would be sufficient to drive MJ-1200 in case of clogging. Phixion, did you cut your overflow before or after replacing OEM pump with Rio 14HF? Do you still keep the sponge because of skimmer? Ah, fabulous Finnex … OK, back to my son Lego’s Like masterbuilder, I also should have butchered my tank instead. Link to comment
Phixion Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 Dovla, I butchered the intake grate AFTER I did the pump swap. The pump didn't increase the frequency of how offten it would get clogged, my GHA problem pretty much took care of that bill while the infestation was active. =/ The Rio pump DID however cause the water level in the display to go up slightly. Once the intake was modded, the water level sat about a ½ to ¾ inch below the rim of the frame that the glass tops rest on. I don't use the sponge with the stock skimmer and i get no bubbles still. The spong WOULD clog up rather fast for me though, so that's why I ditched it. Even by cutting it down and reducing how much it blocked the over-flow onto the drip tray, it still didn't make much differance. I would like to note if it makes any differance, that I have the original model Finnex 30g glass tank, not the model that most here have. Mine has the fuge on the right side of the back and the pump chamber is in the middle. Link to comment
dovla Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 chvynva916, sorry about your flood. You might like to put some kind of control for the ATO. Timer or two? It seams like daily evaporation on these tanks is ~0.5 gallons, so perhaps limit of max 1 gallon would prevent flood? On Eclipse-6, I have limit of 5 seconds per kalk shot ($20 Tunze Osmolator pump) with 1 hour wait if pH went over 8.2 or 30 minutes if it didn’t, and ATO is enabled only when actinic light is off and pH is below 8.2. I already mounted float switches into last chamber where Finnex return pump is, but your flooding convinced me now to instead have them inside the fuge or probably inside skimmer chamber. Link to comment
KJoFan Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 I also have the 1st gen tank, with fuge as the last chamber. I don't have any of this media rack/sponge stuff, am I missing anything important here? Mine goes skimmer chamber with nothing else in it (hob cpr bakpak skimmer), middle chamber with return pump and maybe heater, I can't recall if it's there or in the fuge. Last chamber fuge with Chemi-pure Elite and chaeto and possibly heater. Link to comment
Phixion Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 I keep my heater in the middle pump chamber, as well as the switch for my ATO. My pH probe I keep in the skimmer chamber. With the fuge, I ONLY keep cchaeto in it, nothing else. Any filter media goes either in the skimmer chamber or the pump chamber. I also have an MJ1200 pump for my chiller stuffed in the skimmer chamber under the skimmer. Fits very well there. The floss pad drip tray and sponge both came to me seperate as they were part of a "skimmer fix kit" that Finnex sent out to all tank owners shortly after the last of the 1st gens were made. I bought one of that last few made, so that could be why my tank is so rock solid. I'd email Finnex and inquire to them about that. Link to comment
burtbollinger Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 someone just PMed me a pump question and i hit delete instead of reply....can you resend? Link to comment
KJoFan Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 Anyone have suggestions on skimmers that work well with the 30g? I've currently got a hang-on CPR one that's just not performing like I'd like so I'm considering replacing it. I have a Remora on my frag tank which works nicely. Mostly I'm curious if there are any decent ones that would fit in the chamber I might consider looking into? Link to comment
burtbollinger Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 If i needed a new skimmr, I'd get the Warner Marine H1.....if not that, then another aqua c remora or maybe a tunze 9002. Link to comment
Phixion Posted January 15, 2009 Author Share Posted January 15, 2009 Tunze 9002 FTW!! Link to comment
Orangutran Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 Hey Finnex Fanatics! Question: is the Finnex the only AIO tank that does not have a curved front/rounded corners? Link to comment
burtbollinger Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 solana is square....as is elos, but elos is dumb expensive. Link to comment
Orangutran Posted January 15, 2009 Share Posted January 15, 2009 Oh yeah i remember seeing the Solana in a LFS, i think that was pretty expensive too. Anyway, you guys can get back to Finnex talk now. :-) One day when i move into a bigger place, the Finnex will be at the top of my list! Link to comment
vg30et Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Update on my 250W MH issue - problem was with the ballast, or more specifically the igniter within the ballast. Finnex is sending out a replacement igniter but I had an old 150W ballast lying around that used the same igniter. Swapped it out and it fires up fine now. As a side note, I noticed that the 50mm cooling fan was occasionally turning slowly or not turning at all. Traced it to a leaky oil filled capacitor in the fan power supply circuit board. It's a gimpy looking board covered with a large piece of heatshrink tubing and stuffed under the T5 lights. Not surprised that it overheated. Now using an external 12V power brick. Link to comment
ttolliver Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 I also have the 1st gen tank, with fuge as the last chamber. I don't have any of this media rack/sponge stuff, am I missing anything important here? Mine goes skimmer chamber with nothing else in it (hob cpr bakpak skimmer), middle chamber with return pump and maybe heater, I can't recall if it's there or in the fuge. Last chamber fuge with Chemi-pure Elite and chaeto and possibly heater. KJoFan, I have a 1st gen like yours, mine purchased around Nov of 2006. Maybe 4-6 months after purchasing it I received a small upgrade kit in the mail. One part of the kit was a block of black plastic foam (roughly 4" or 5" cube) designed to sit in the middle back area as additional filtration. The other part was a small silencer for the extremely loud skimmer intake. At any rate, I think that brick of foam is what's being discussed here. For my part, I never bothered to put it in. I had already experimented with filtering water in that area through a similarly sized white floss style filter media. It was great for tossing in for a few hours to clarify water faster after a rock reorganization or something like that. But I never found a need to have it in there full time and felt like it blocked flow more than I liked. At any rate, I don't think you missed out on anything signficant. Well, unless your skimmer is too loud and driving you crazy. In that case you could definitely use the skimmer silencer piece. Link to comment
KJoFan Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 thanks ttolliver. I don't think I'm missing out then. I don't even have the stock skimmer it came with so I don't imagine I need the silencer for that. Link to comment
ttolliver Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 I seem to recall a comment a looooong time ago about some skimmers being of a type with a needle bearing that wore out over time. Does anyone know if the original 1st gen skimmer was of this type? Or if I'm even remembering this right? I'm getting ready for a little tear down maintenance on the plumbing (pull out skimmer and main flow pumps for cleaning, etc.) and was thinking this would be an ideal time to do maintenance on the skimmer. I've never done any aside from just good old fashioned removal/cleaning a couple times. I should say that I've never had any issues generating bubbles and skimmate. So I have no reason to suspect I need skimmer maintenance and/or replacement. Just wondering if there is some form of preventative maintenance I should be doing I guess. Thanks in advance for always great advice!!! Link to comment
NogaroBlueS4 Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 SO, I have a question, my tank has the fuge on the right if you are looking from the front, is that the first generation? Link to comment
NogaroBlueS4 Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 Alright, I guess that is good? Link to comment
KJoFan Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 The answer to that, I do not know. I'm sure someone will come along and explain the differences, good or bad. Link to comment
Phixion Posted January 20, 2009 Author Share Posted January 20, 2009 The answer to that, I do not know. I'm sure someone will come along and explain the differences, good or bad. Yeah, I think that's in debate. I've read more positives on the 1st gen than the 2nd though... CADs come with a needle wheel skimmer now, Finnex does not. I DO think the Finnex skimmer needs a better impeller however. I attempted to mesh mine using P4 Enkalmat (sp?) but it wouldn't spin, so I removed it and all was well... =/ Link to comment
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