Mike, "BINGO", it's all about the money. I'll do some research in reference to more energy-efficient pumps. Our spare pump is about shot anyway and should be replaced. So, that solution should be doable. Good idea! Nancy, I didn't know the UV lights didn't last long. Our filter is above ground but is almost completely surrounded with thick landscape stones with a cover. It's also located under our breezeway that connects the house to the garage. Don't think it will ever freeze but it's good to know that we should keep an eye on it. Lsst, in the past, without fail, I've always thoroughly cleaned the pond in early spring and in the fall. In addition, I'm usually on leaf patrol all year because we have huge trees. Some that shed in spring and some that shed in the fall, so, there are always leaves to contend with here. This September my mom was ill and I spent 4 months in middle Georgia. Honestly, when I returned home and saw the pond, I was surprised ANY of the fish were still alive. The boss is excellent at building things and the technical stuff; however, if the water is clear, the boss thinks the pond is clean & healthy for the fish. I've been playing catchup ever since my return. Hardin, if I had that cold and snow to deal with all winter, I'd be a nervous wreck. I did live in NJ for 3 years in the 80's and every winter there...I WAS A NERVOUS WRECK! Thanks again, everyone. I'm always learning around here. Bon

Gary: I'm pushing 70, but in my mind, I'm still young. When people start thinking old, they start to die and I'm not ready yet. The glass fish tank I had as a child had a painted iron frame with a slate bottom, but all glass ones, usually mounted in wrought iron frames have been around for at a long time. The fanciest I ever saw was in an antique shop in Brighton, England. The proprieter claimed it was early Victorian, which would have put it at somewhere around 1860- ish. It was about 5 ft. high, with a hand blown bowl that fit into upturned arms, with all sorts of elaborate bits of metal and glass embelishments on it; cherubs, fanciful fish, vines, flowers, glass balls, etc. Frankly, I thought it was hideous. But the Victorians did have larger, metal framed glass aquariums and kept the fish alive with continual water changes, which is easy if you have an estate, a conservatory, and an army of servants. Following the Great London Exibition and the Crystal Palace, glass conservatories became all the rage among the monied, landed Brits. My own love affair with small tropicals started in the Balanced Aquarium Room of the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago in the 1940's, when keeping any FW aquarium fish still depended far more on a balance between plants and fish than mechanical filtration and one of the reasons I still strive to affect it. The better balanced the tank, the less dependence on any filter. budcarlson: A survey? Okay, but I honestly don't know that it will help you, because every fish keeper has different likes, dislikes and tanks, as well as their own notions, but for what it's worth.... a) Filter type (duh) Box, sponge, canister, UV. b) Water type (fresh, etc) Fresh c) Gravel/sand/etc It's called substrate, but in my situation, it depends. The baby, grow-out and Q's are all bare, but fairly loaded with live plants in clay pots. I use a lot of low to lower light level types in my black water show tanks, as well as java moss and naja (guppy grass) in the livebearer tanks, as cover for babies and harried fems. I've been experimenting with different substrates in my show tanks. One that's worked well is sand over Flourite, but Gary wrote of using garden soil and I'm finally going to try it in a big stock tank this summer, but it will be outdoors, so if it turns out a muddy mess, I can just stir it up to slurry and use a sewage pump to send it all through a hose to the tomatoes. d) Plants/amount As all of my tanks are Amazon or Asian, all are farily heavily planted, mostly with Cryps and Anubia, but I keep the light fairly high in baby and grow-out tanks and have many wide shallow clay pots of Vals. e) Daily/weekly/monthly/yearly maintenance (filter only) I switch box filters in baby tanks daily, so I can load on the food without fouling the tank. But I don't use loose floss in them. I cut bonded pond filter media to fit the boxes and rinse them clean, getting at least 10 -12 uses from each and it makes changing easier, as does keeping the charcoal and zeno in net bags instead of loose in the filters. But the box filter frames are bleached cleaned after each use, and why I have at least 4 dozen of them. I do them in bulk, weekly. Foam filters may go several days in baby tanks, but are all doubles or quads, which allows me to squeeze half in tank water and the other in fresh, to make sure at least one is always loaded but one very clean, as to draw the most effectively. The plastic housing of the power filters are flushed out at least bi-monthly regardless and washed completely clean as new whenever they accumulate enough gunk to make me think they aren't flowing as well. The sponge pre-filters on power filter intakes are only to trap fines, not for bio-filtration, so are squeezed out in clean water in a bowl with repeated fresh water until it's clear at least bi-monthly. f) Necessary yearly supplies Impossible to make a comparison. I load in frozen foods from F & S once a year during winter, to take advantage of the flat rate shipping. Overwrap a package in foil and seal it into a freezer weight bag and as long as the freezer holds at 0 deg., it will be as good a year later as the day it arrived rock hard via FedEx Overnight. I buy dry food in single ingredient bulk bags from Ken Menard (kenfish.com) and make my own custom mix, with something to appeal to every species I keep. I mix it up in a 20 gal. tub, then pack it into small zip bags, inside larger freezer bags and store it also in the freezer. g) Major long term maintenance issue Keep to a regular maintenence schedule and there aren't any, unless you have a glass tank that suddenly starts leaking and if it does, as long as the glass is intact, resealing one like new is easy- IF you know how, and I do. h) Advantages To what? i) Disadvantages For me, being retired, instead of freezing my ass off in Illinois, messing with fish, I could be in Aruba, eating them fresh caught. j) Realistic monetary investment per year Also impossible to make a comparison. For some, the cost of setting up a 5,000 gal. reef tank is chump change. For others, a 5 gal. Eclipse with a single Betta is their limit. k) Have you ever had a catastrophic filtration system failure, and if you remember or know, why did it happen (and how could it have been prevented). If you had a near-failure, how did you save it? Certainly. That's when I learned the Awful Truth about UG's. It happened because I did everything I was told to do, using powerheads on both uplift's and suctioning the water at changes through them, but in the end, all it took was my getting too sick for a week to do a good change and the gasses trapped under the filter plates exploded and I lost an entire breeding colony of Sterbi. If I ever had a near failure I was unaware of it, because I did something to avert it- probably a water or filter change. Unless the filter quits and you aren't paying enough attention to your tank to even notice it, if you keep the tank clean with regular water changes, a filter break-down alone- CAN'T kill your fish.

If you looked more, you could have found one. Online parts websites usually are going to sell major parts that are commonly replaced like brushrolls, bags, filters and cords. What you could have done was find a vac shop in your area who services FQ. That shop could order the part for you, if they did not have it in stock. What you did was call the FQ Distributor. They are going to try to sell you something. They asked you about an air filter, so they are going to try to sell you a Defender air cleaner. Now, if they try to sell you a new FQ, they need to back off, because the 360 is not that old. They have just recently changed the graphics on the outside of the vacuum cleaner. It is possible that they are on the "up'n up". Many years ago, Electrolux would visit customers and see if they needed any parts or supplies like bags. They would even have some parts for small repairs. Do not expect them to give you the part for free, unless they are trying to get something from you. The FQ is a very good vacuum cleaner, that will last for many years to come. The power nozzle is better performing compared to previous power nozzles on FQ. dodge1959, vacuum cleaners are not commonly fixed in the home like large appliances. They are taken to a vacuum cleaner repair shop.

It's the wrong forum to post the question and replies, but since it's not been moved, here are my 2 cents: a RO system (which includes a storage tank too) along with a permeate pump will produce good quality water at a high rate, unlike the ordinary carbon filter ones. The pump is quite important if the static faucet pressure is on the lower side. Mine was 40-45psi and the RO system was not working right; after adding the pump (and changing the RO system in the process, but I think that was not it), I now get strong pressure and flow out of my filtered water faucet. FWIW, my new system is an "Artesian" from ThePerfectWater.com Here is a link that might be useful: Artesian System.