Reef Review: Tunze Care Magnet 220.015

Posted by David Hammontree on January 11, 2015 - zero

tunze

Come on raise your hand! Who likes to put their hands in the tank to clean the glass? Ok not me or anyone other hobbyist that I know. That’s why I was pretty excited about the new Tunze Care Magnet and I just had to get one for myself and give it a shot!

Box took a little beating from the shipping carrier.

Yea for quality control

For a couple of years now I have used a very efficient Magnavore Magnet cleaner which does a great job! The only issue I have is that hard, pink algae known as coralline algae that has been growing in epic porportions in my aquarium. From my experience if you don’t clean coralline algae quick then the regular magnet cleaners will not do the trick! This results in having to break out the home improvement store razor blade and that requires getting wet! And for many that includes armpits! Yuck!

I am aware that there are already a few different types of magnet cleaning blades on the market but this was my first experience with one.

The care magnet was packed very well.

The model I purchased and am reviewing now is the Tunze Care Magnet 220.015. Right out of the box I noticed that the Tunze Care Magnet seemed very durable and well put together. Within a couple of minutes of reading and looking at pictures I was able to figure out how things worked and was ready to try out my new partner in algae eradication!

All of the pieces straight out of the box excluding the metal scraper blade that I didn’t see attached inside the owners manual. Included is extra plastic scrapers!

And here is the metal scraper hidden in the instruction material.

Here I installed the optional metal scraper blade.

These soft pads made sliding the magnet across the tank glass easy and safe.

From the very start I used the plastic blade that was provided with the magnet. While it had no problem cleaning off that pesky film algae that a lot of our tank get, it was not very effective at scraping off the much harder coralline algae. Remember even my big boy Magnavore couldn’t remove that! So it was time to add on option number two, the scraper with blade attachment. Upon installing this metal scraper I knew right away that it would get the job done. And it did! With just a couple swipes here and there and even one swipe in some instances the harder coralline algae was gone.

Cleaner with optional metal blade attachment.

Cleaner with plastic blade only attached.

The easy to grip handle made for ease of use on the glass of the aquarium.

One cool advantage of using the Tunze cleaner is that the blade allows to clean right up to the edges of your pumps and more specifically an Ecotech MP40 that I use in my aquarium. Using a rectangular magnet cleaner makes it a little harder to clean around these pumps for me. Then add in the fact that the metal blade extends out a bit further than the edge of the tool and it allows for close more precise cleaning.

Cleaning right up next to the edge of my pumps!

Another cool thing about the cleaner is that you can clean all the way down to the edge of the substrate line without the fear of picking up a rouge sand grain that reeks havoc on your beautifully polished aquarium glass! You can even go a little further down past the sand line without worry.

Clean to the edge of the substrate and beyond.

Over all I am very pleased with this magnet cleaner and it has now become a nice tool in my arsenal of algae defense. One tool that it has definitely replaced is my small hand blade and extended scraper. And at $40.77 shipped to my door it was a good buy. No more wet arms for me!