The Puffer Forum

i was just wondering if there are any tips to make my bio wheel filter quieter, my mom is threatening to make me take the tank down because all the vibrations....

any suggestions?

haha put a bird in her room .. if that doesn't work .. get a goat and a bird .. if that doesn't work ... get a goat, a bird and a pig... if that doesn't work .. get rid of the animals and she won't hear a thing

Try covering the bio wheel with acoustic ceiling tile at any hardware store. 1 sheet is more than enough

Get an Aquaclear.

aquaclear? can say I know what that is.
I have a wisper for my betta tank and it rumbles so much its louder than the bigger tank right next to it, my mom has threatened to kill the betta as well if I keep secretly turning it on at night. lol

I have an aqueon quietflow (aqeuon is a knock off brand form all glass thats slowly taking over the entire aquarium market)
Its very quiet..but if you get really close you can hear the buzz of the motor. Also, the aeration insert created so many microbubbles! I finally just took it out.

+1 My Aqueon is quiet, but the return water is very loud.

I'd try cleaning the impeller and see if that helps. If its the water flow coming out, raising the level of your aquarium would help. Good luck!

Lil' Swimz$ wrote:+1 My Aqueon is quiet, but the return water is very loud.

I'd try cleaning the impeller and see if that helps. If its the water flow coming out, raising the level of your aquarium would help. Good luck!

I filled my tank up so that the water level is above the water return, so you don't get that splashing or gargling noise. I also put some filter floss in it.

+1
the aqueon filters are great, it's quieter than the whisper silent filter

I also fill my tanks up to the return...I have a penguin bio wheel that is fairly quiet on one of my tanks.

I had a biowheel too that was loud as I don't know what. I sold it with the tank but I'm with PP, aquaclear all the way. The only thing you hear on them is the return water and if you fill it up all the way that should be minimal.

Here is a pic of what I did with my Hob to lessen the noise of the waterfall. Basically turned the water fall into a slide

Why not just fill the tank all the way?

Any hang on back filter will be noisy at times. Even Aquaclears. I just hate it when they get rattling. And the two AC500's I have will even do this horrendus "squeal" every once in a while. So I don't even use them, I think there was something wrong with that batch though. None of my other ones have ever done that, and I've had over 20 of them running at one time in the past.

And the water fall noise drives me absoultely nuts. I've been known to get out of bed and top off a tank at 4am just because I couldn't stand it. Keep the water level up and you won't have the splashing.

IMO, the quietest filters will always be cannister filters.

As far as the motor vibration/rattling, there's not a ton you can do there. I do have some of that stuff used to cushion cars from the base of the stereo, its a thin almost neoprene type of stuff, maybe I'll try that and see if it does anything.

Can you take out the biowheel? Maybe that is making a lot of noise. They aren't really necessary and IME, they just get gunked up and stop turning anyways.

My Tetra Whisper is astonishingly quiet. So is my Tetra Whisper air pump. I don't like their heaters too much, but so far I've really liked their filter.

The main reason I put that slide on my AC on that tank was I was running Co2 and it stopped the splashing into the tank which dissipates your co2 quicker. Just showing another alternative to making one quieter. IMO AC's are the best HOB on the market. If your AC itself is making to much noise you more than likely need to either replace the shaft or the impellor or both, which are both cheap and easy to replace. All my AC's run super quiet.