Anyone have experience with eheim canister filters

[GR00VY]

I was looking at an eheim professional canister filter, the 250 and 350. I have a small 29 gallon tank. Currently running an aquaclear 70 as my main filtration. I was just entertaining the idea of turning it into a refugium sometime down the road. Are canister filters as bad as some say they are, specifically the eheim professional series? What kind of maintenance schedule is required with canisters? I am not committed to this. I was just thinking down the road possibly.
Thanks.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

I ran a 40 gallon live rock and invert tank for years with one of the older professionals. Eheim is a sold piece of equipment. I would recommend changing the prefilter and final filter pads every couple of months. Rinse the bio media with tank water to flush out the gunk during water changes. Avoid power outages as the filter is sealed and can go low oxygen and foul the biological filter in a matter of hours. Result is a dead biofilter dumping it's hydrogen sulfide poison into your tank...not good.

If you want a refugium it is better to use a sump system versus the aqua clear 70 and Eheim. You could use a glass 10 gallon as your sump for very little money.

 

[bblumberg]

+1 to what Lowell said.

I have many Eheim canister filters in my FW tanks. They last essentially forever, require little maintenance and cleaning only 1-2x per year. They do an outstanding job of mechanical and biological filtration. However, canister filters have limited utility in reef tanks since they are more or less nitrate factories (because they do such a good job of getting rid of NH3 waste). I use one in my SW quarantine tank just to ensure that NO3 levels never get too high. You might consider replacing the Eheim media with Siporax which will give you some amount of NO3-N2 conversion.
Bruce

 

[Jaebster]

I had some sort of eheim canister filter 35 years ago for my arowana 125g tank. Also had 2 ocean clear filters on it. I digress... anyways, the eheim wasnt fancy like the professional series. Worked great but because of canister format, didnt clean it or change out media nearly as much as I should have. If you have a choice between canister or sump.... go sump.

 

[GR00VY]

With this particular tank, there will be no sump. The glass is not drilled for it and I do not want hob box because I hear those can overflow if things go wrong, power outage etc. sometimes I am away from my house for 3 days or so at a time because of work and I need something as bomb proof as possible. Right now hob aquaclear is pretty solid. Maybe I will just stick with this until I upgrade my tank. Anyone know if there hob overflows that are good to go?

 

[Lowell Lemon]

With this particular tank, there will be no sump. The glass is not drilled for it and I do not want hob box because I hear those can overflow if things go wrong, power outage etc. sometimes I am away from my house for 3 days or so at a time because of work and I need something as bomb proof as possible. Right now hob aquaclear is pretty solid. Maybe I will just stick with this until I upgrade my tank. Anyone know if there hob overflows that are good to go?

I built hundreds of siphon overflows and the only thing that causes a siphon break is air bubbles trapped in the siphon due to air pumps or aerator in use on a powerhead. An easy prevention is to make sure you have enough flow through the siphon to purge the bubbles or attach an airline to the top of the siphon with a check valve and attach the airline to the aeration inlet on a powerhead. I have run set ups for years without any failures due to power outages or related events. In practice they work quite well. Nothing in life is full proof including hang on the back filters or canisters.

The other option is Tunze internal filters. They are super and very reliable.

 

[GR00VY]

Well I tried the tunze internal filter and the on I got is complete junk. Thing doesn’t work at all. Starting to contemplate selling off stuff and switching to freshwater and running a canister filter. Getting tired of spending money on broken stuff. I don’t have space for a sump. My hob aquaclear doesn’t work. My tunze filter doesn’t work. I am thinking a canister filter with a fresh water tank maybe the way to go.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

Well I tried the tunze internal filter and the on I got is complete junk. Thing doesn’t work at all. Starting to contemplate selling off stuff and switching to freshwater and running a canister filter. Getting tired of spending money on broken stuff. I don’t have space for a sump. My hob aquaclear doesn’t work. My tunze filter doesn’t work. I am thinking a canister filter with a fresh water tank maybe the way to go.

What seems to be the problem with the Tunze?

 

[GR00VY]

Bought a tunze Comline 3163 and have a question

So I filled it with Seachem matrix, filter floss, and a sponge. I plugged it in and I noticed when the lid is closed the water gets sucked in and runs down the very inside of the filter leaving the rest of the sponge dry. When I open I’m the lid it fills with water. There is enough space for...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Lowell Lemon]

Sorry for your experience but @rvitko is the best source of product information and support for Tunze. I do recommend using Tunze products for the internal filter as they are designed to work specifically with their filter housings. PM me if you get stuck with the filter from BRS. I might be able to help you. I use both Tunze and Eheim and believe in them both due to the many years of trouble free service they have given me and my old costumers in the aquarium industry.

Don't give up yet you are still to young in the hobby for that! It is a hobby so structure your expenses according to your ability to experiment and grow. Equipment does not make the hobby grow the hobbiest does! Take care of the animals first and learn their needs. Some of the best aquariums I have ever seen were very simple and stocked on the lighter side. Example would be two clown fish in an anemone with shop lights and macro algae in a 50 to 70 gallon tank with undergravel filters driven by air pumps. The guy had a dozen tanks with various species of clowns and he was breeding them for fun. The salt spray from the air stones was a mess but the fish and tanks were fantastic!

 

[GR00VY]

Sorry for your experience but @rvitko is the best source of product information and support for Tunze. I do recommend using Tunze products for the internal filter as they are designed to work specifically with their filter housings. PM me if you get stuck with the filter from BRS. I might be able to help you. I use both Tunze and Eheim and believe in them both due to the many years of trouble free service they have given me and my old costumers in the aquarium industry.

Don't give up yet you are still to young in the hobby for that! It is a hobby so structure your expenses according to your ability to experiment and grow. Equipment does not make the hobby grow the hobbiest does! Take care of the animals first and learn their needs. Some of the best aquariums I have ever seen were very simple and stocked on the lighter side. Example would be two clown fish in an anemone with shop lights and macro algae in a 50 to 70 gallon tank with undergravel filters driven by air pumps. The guy had a dozen tanks with various species of clowns and he was breeding them for fun. The salt spray from the air stones was a mess but the fish and tanks were fantastic!

I was just frustrated and ranted a bit. I am still chugging along. I actually was able to get a replacement part for my aquaclear so I have that back on and it is running good. I am gonna see what brs says about the tunze. If it can work I will use it if not I will just stick with the aquaclear. I am just using a filter for mechanical filtration with the sponge and with Seachem matrix. Either way I have a filter up and running.