SeaChem Large Aquarium Fish Tank Filter, Tidal 55 Gallon (200 Liters) by Sicce

8/19/2021: I've had this filter for a few months now for a 40-gallon and it's doing a great job of keeping the water clean. I test the water every now and then and it's doing great against nitrites and nitrates. The Seachem matrix combined with the sponge is doing a great job, and there's extra room so I added a carbon pad. It's also super convenient when it comes to cleaning. Maintenance is such a breeze with this. I clean the media basket once a week with a water change, and clean the impeller if the water in the filter basket looks dirty.The filter is extremely quiet. When I first started using it there was a buzz from the motor, but it gradually disappeared and now I cannot hear it unless I lean in. I had the same experience with the Seachem 35 so I'd say not to worry if the filter is a little noisy at first.This one has a waterfall sound when the water flowing out hits the aquarium water. Not super loud because there is a flat surface that breaks the speed of the water before it enters the aquarium. It's just like a trickling kind of sound. I find this sound relaxing. I work from home and the aquarium is close by so I enjoy hearing it in the background. The Seachem 35 does not have the trickling sound, maybe because the water force is not strong enough to start with.I originally bought this as a backup to an Oasi canister filter, but now I realize I should never have gotten the canister filter. The canister filter was a nightmare to maintain. Weekly water changes were OK because Oasi makes it easy to clean the pre-filter, but further maintenance was such a pain. You have to clean the tubes with a super long brush and clean all the sponges in the canister. I usually did this with a bucket of filter water in the bathroom and usually it was a mess and a lot of hard work. Those days are so over. Listen, I took have watched a lot of Youtube videos of people taking about what a breeze it is to maintain a canister filter. Well, it's not a breeze.One day I hope to upgrade to an 80 gallon, and if and when I do, I plan to get two of these going instead of a canister.I highly recommend this filter.

Great HOB filter. Relatively quiet and has good adjustability. The removable media basket is great and I love that it doesn't use cartridges.

I’m using the Tidal 55 for my 10g nano reef, it’s been running for about two months.The intake tube is almost too long for my 12” high tank, it sits about 0.5” above the sand bed. Thankfully, I can channel most of the flow through the overflow grate instead. Works out pretty well.The noise is there if you’re paying attention to it, but otherwise it’s a dull hum in the background. The aquarium is about 5 feet from my bed, but it doesn’t bother me.The removable media caddy with the built in drip tray is very handy. Lets you clean your media without leaving a trail of water to the sink. Decent amount of room, though I don’t think you’d be able to hide a heater inside.The flow isn’t super strong from what I can see, I’ve got it running 100% in a 10g tank, and it only moves the soft corals a little bit. May add a small power head down the road, not sure yet.The appearance is good pretty clean and non-obtrusive, though I wish the flow adjustment knob was black like everything else instead of bright blue.Overall, quite happy with this filter. Might even be a step above the Aquaclear 70.

Amazing filter! Highly recommend. It's one of the only ones I've found that look good that have customizable media baskets, which are an absolute must for me. I'm very much not into sinking additional money every month on replaceable filter cartridges, especially when I don't even know what's in them. I was able to stack the coarse sponge layer (came with the filter) , a bag of purigen (bought separately), a bag of matrix (which came with the filter but I added extra material I bought separately), and a polishing filter pad (bought separately) on top. Though for some reason the polishing pad likes to float at the very surface and trigger the maintenance indicator, so I needed to find some sort of weight for that. A major pro is the adjustable flow rate. I have this on a 29 gallon aquarium and use it at full flow for all but feeding time, when it gets turned down for a few minutes so food doesn't get flushed all through the tank, and it's just right for what I want.The only negative thing I have to say about this filter is that the second night I had it running, it suddenly stopped working sometime overnight. I tried everything to get it going again, including testing the outlet it was in for power, trying a different outlet altogether, turning the outlet off and on again, adjusting the flow rate on the filter, removing the media basket, and so on. I'm not sure what the problem was, but after completely disassembling it (removed pump casing, pump itself, and impeller inside pump) and rinsing everything under warm water, it worked just fine after reassembling and has continued to work fine since.