One of my oscars had to be moved into a 55 gallon tank, he is only 3" so for now its fine. I had an old filter but decided to get a better one. I bought a marine penguin 350B Filter for up to 70 gallon tanks. It has chemical,mechanical, and biological (dual bio-wheels). Will this be enough to keep the water good quality?

They don't sell those type of filters in the UK so I can't actually give you any advice on experience. However, they have got a good reputation so I don't see you having any problems with water quality. This is of course if you are sensible and don't overstock your tank. The only thing that worries me about these type of filters is how efficient they are at dealing with very large adult Oscars. Even small Oscars produce a lot of waste which does hang around in the tank. You need extremely good filtration to remove this type of waste. This is why canister filters are very good because they have very good suction which normally come in the form of pipes which reached down to the substrate. Just keep an eye on the tank, you may have to use the gravel vac a little more to remove the very large solid bits of waste

I know nothing about bio wheels however the fact that it might not take large fish waste into the filter i dont think is a disadvantage (or an advantage). Whether the large waste sits on the bottom of the tank or in the filter shouldnt make a difference as long as you clean the gravel as often as you clean the filter. The sponges remove the large waste to stop it clogging the biological material. The filter just converts ammonia and nitrite into nitrate. The tank will look cleaner if the large waste is taken into the filter but the filter will need cleaning more often

I noticed a lot of waste stuck on the end of the tube. It was too big to fit through the grates. Can I take that piece off?

Cant you just remove the stuff causing the blockage by hand? I dont know bio wheels so i cant say about remove the piece that gets blocked up

I mean the tube that sucks the water from the tank it has a plastic grate on the end of it. Then the water goes into the chambers where the large debris is filtered out then spins the wheel and returns to the tank.

I love Biowheels. I prefer the Emperor line but I use a Penguin on my Quarantine Tank. I believe that there are two slots in those filters so that you can double up on the cartridges. I would do that. After your first cartridge gets nasty, take it out and clean it, and make sure you break the screen on the back of it and remove ALL of the carbon inside there. This will allow you to have plenty of extra media in the tank to polish the water. Plus since you've removed the carbon you can use it over and over, almost forever.

Don't remove the strainer from the intake tube. There is actually a decent amount of suction on the end of that tube. The strainer is there to protect you fish from injury. My fish knock off the tube in the middle when they get feisty. More that once I've have feeder fish get chewed in my impellers.

Why remove the carbon? And just throw it out?

Jelimafish wrote:


Carbon is used to remove odors from the tank if you keep your tank clean there will be no odors.

It can give you false readings when you test your water.

It may be the cause of HITH disease (one theory)

It doesn't last long and needs to changed frequently which gets expensive.

About the only use it has is to remove meds from the tank.

You can make your own filter cartridges for the penguin HOB and if it has a second media holder you can fill that with biological media to help promote the nitrification process. The bio wheel itself is very good at doing this but should not be cleaned no matter how nasty it looks you can rinse it in tank water once a month but don't rinse it in tap water or you'll loose all the biological goodness.

I use carbon. It does make a difference in the clarity of your water. I will admit that the difference is hard to notice unless you have a side by side comparison. The reason I was suggesting to remove the carbon from the extra cartridge is simply to save you some money. Without the carbon in the cartridge you can wash it out and use it over and over. Otherwise you running the risk of the carbon breaking down and leeching the all the chemicals it's absorbed back into your water. Those filters are recommended to be replaced every 2-3 weeks. That's a little excessive. I stretch mine out about six weeks. Never leave carbon in the system over 90 days. That's from personal experience.

Bottom line, you're going to have people argue about carbon all day and night. Try it both ways. Whichever works better in you system is the right way to go. But with your setup, I got ten dollars that says you're gonna want the carbon.

Thanks for the advice, ill be sure to do that. Do you think I should just invest in a good canister filter?

There is no such thing as overfiltering an oscar tank. I've never used a canister. But plenty of folks on here do, and they love them.