Penn-Plax Cascade 150 Power Filter – Hang-On Filter with Quad Filtration – Great for Freshwater and Saltwater Setups

The story of my review may be like a few others . I ordered the first Penn Plax Cascade Aquarium and it arrived on time and by appearance not damaged. Putting it together was easy. I put it in my 20gal fish tank. I plugged it in and the motor and impeller started up and it started to work just fine. I then checked on it about an hour later and the motor was humming and the impeller had stopped. I took it out and checked the directions and all was correct. I put in back into the tank and it ran for about a minute and then the impeller stopped working. I tried to hand turn the impeller by hand but it would not work. While the unit worked initially it seemed to be doing a good job and the motor was very quiet. So I put in a return request. I received a response within a few hours. I returned the unit and within 3 days my replacement came. I put it together and plugged it in and tested it in my sink. It worked just fine. I then put it into the tank. Again it worked fine. I checked on it in an hour and it was working perfectly. I have now had it 2 weeks and I love it. No problems, motor quit and it does a good job to keep the water clean. I like the option of being able to adjust the water flow. I would highly recommend this product. My only advice is that after you put it together test it first before putting it into your fish tank. I was impressed with Amazon's return policy. I have been buying from Amazon for more then 6 years and purchased almost 80 items, this was only the 2nd time I had to return an item. I gave it 5 stars because not matter what the item is or where you purchased it you will get lemon from time to time. In the end the new returned item worked great.

Really nice, filters the water really well and really quiet at that

Nice and quiet, although outlet not as adjustable as advertised. The intake should be fully submerged, or the motor becomes damaged and sounds awful

The adjustable flow is nice but the range of adjustment is pretty small. The Tidal by Seachem can be adjusted all the way down to a drip (probably not great for the motor), but this filter doesn't let you adjust the flow very much. Other than that, it's a great filter. Very very quiet. I picked up the 35 gallon version and have it on a 20 gallon on my desk. I can't hear the filter at all, aside from the water movement itself. This filter is not self priming (meaning you have to fill it with water when setting it up or after you clean it) but it's not a problem at all, just scoop up a little tank water and fill up the filter, then plug it in. The Tidals are self priming which is nice, but they also require the tank level to be quite full since they skim the surface, which means I have to shut them off before doing a water change. The Cascade I can do my water changes and leave the filter running through almost the whole change, but it does not skim the surface. Could be a con for some, but is a pro for me since I have a lot of floating plants that clog up the Tidal constantly. Not really a point against the Tidal though since that's the intended design, and it works great if you don't have a lot of small floating plants.This filter works great for Betta tanks. I wrap some coarse sponge around the inflow to prevent anything from getting sucked against the grate. The grille on the outflow is great. At higher flows it evenly distributes the flow and softens it slightly, on lower flows it turns the outflow into split streams, which won't annoy or stress Betta :).

filter worked less than a week then the motor stopped working