What canister filter

musho3210

On my planned 55 or 75 gallon heavily planted tank i am planning on using a combination of a canister filter and an emperor filter. Since the tank will be heavily planted and the emperor filter will be in use, what company and model number canister filter should i use? Ive heard good reviews of Ehiem but they seem costly, ive heard ok reviews of fluval and they seem somewhere in my budget, ive heard not so good of the rena series and they cost just a tiny bit less than the fluval, and the magnum, well i dont really know much about them but ive had good things happen with the marineland products

magic_marty

We have the magnum 350 pro and so far its been real good.It keeps the tank real clear and with it in the bottom of the stand we can barely hear it running with the tv off and with the tv on we don't even know its running.The only prob i have had is it was sucking air around the lid and the was causeing it to lower its volume in the canister.Witch i fixed by removing the lid and putting some of the silicone lubricant that came with it on the O ring on the top..It was prolly my fault because i didn't lubricate the O-ring when i assembled it from the box..The good thing about the pro version is it comes with 2 bio-wheels, a very nice feature..

musho3210

i probably wont go with the pro version if i chose the magnums, the emperor bio-wheel will provide me the bio-filtration. Also in the canister, i dont really see how it is assembled. I know there is this vertical bio-wheel looking thing that is teh water polisher, and thats all i know, is there any other place to put the desired media in? I dont think i will use activated carbon unless ive finished medication the tank and stuff since it might take some of the plants nutritents out. Also there seems to be a lot of empty space in that filter, would i be able to fill up that space with anything like spounge or ceramic material? Thanks for the reply thoug

magic_marty

the magnum comes with 2 filter cartridges, one is a media type witch you can put carbon/bio-balls ect...and it has a blue filter sleeve that slips around it. The other one is a very fine micron filter cartridge that polishes the water to a very crystal clear state.

Yea you won't need the pro version beings you already are going to use emperor for bio-filtration. I can't comment on the other canisters cause i have never owned any of them, the magnum is the first canister i have any experience with and so far (fingers crossed) its been good experience..


Oh about the space , theres really not that much once you get the cartridge in,But with the cartridge in and the canister dry it takes a gallon of water to top it off to the top rim..Some of the space you might be seeing is prolly the bottom where the motor and impeller is located.Unlike other canisters most of them have them mounted on top..

Follow It Home

I am upgrading my filtration system on one of my tanks to the Eheim Ecco unit. I have seen and heard extremely good things about it. My friend has it and it keeps the water extremely clear with simple maintenance (he just changes the media once a month). He has never had any problems with it and has had it for about 6 months. Hope this helps.

Sleepy

I used Fluval once and I won´t do it again. This thing is giving you a hard time to restart it as soon as you had to do something inside the filter. Anyway, after six months it broke and I bought a Cascade 1000 which was the only one I could buy in a short time at Petsmart.
To be honest, I like this one. It works, it´s quiet (otherwise than the Fluval one) and there are no problems to restart it. It even is installed in a few minutes.

It is important that you choose a system where you´re able to lessen the streaming.
Especially if it comes to plants and insistens algae.