canister filters

[thegreyanenome]

so i have a friend that is looking into saltwater and is trying to find the best canister filter, i think he is going to run a 20 gallon, anyways thanks for the support r2r

 

[Peace River]

so i have a friend that is looking into saltwater and is trying to find the best canister filter, i think he is going to run a 20 gallon, anyways thanks for the support r2r

There are a wide variety of opinions on canister filters and I think that they can be useful if used for mechanical filtration (and occasionally to hold chemical filtration). I personally don't recommend that canister filters be used for biological filtration (use live rock, live sand, and water changes instead) and the media in the filter should be cleaned or changed regularly.

To directly answer your question, I have had positive experiences with the Penn Plax Cascade series of canister filters which are less expensive than some of the more expensive brands such as Fluval or Eheim. Good luck!

 

[theMeat]

With fresh water aquariums canister filters are great.
With saltwater the proteins float to surface and that’s why salt water tanks are designed with surface skimming/overflow.
Not saying you can’t be successful with a canister, but not the best plan for it.
Would be better and probably cheaper to put an overflow with a 10 or 20 gallon below it to act as sump

 

[thegreyanenome]

yeah i'm talking to him about it, we'll see if he wants to do a canister or not

 

[Homebrewer]

I’m in my 14th year of this hobby running reef tanks on nothing but canister filters. I’ve never owned a sump. Not saying they are the best solution, only saying that it absolutely can be done. I agree with the previous contributors.

To echo @Peace River, I currently favor the PennPlax Cascades. They are cheap, well built, easy to clean, have pretty generic chambers (i.e., don’t have to buy proprietary-sized filter media if you don’t want)... not a whole lot of downside to them as far as canisters go. I’ve owned Eheim and Fluval, and though they are often considered the “standard” by many I’ve had parts break on both of them. The Cascade is a good choice.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

agree with @Homebrewer. I still have a canister in the closet. I don’t use it since I have a 180 but still love em.

I ran filstar xp for my 55, 75, and 90 with good results. And really cheap to buy

. @Peace River summed up a good method for how to use the canister if going that route.

 

[Nicholas Scelzi]

Depends on the tank. You can easily run a canister filter successfully. I run a 55 gal Fowlr with a eheim 2228 canister filter I’ve had for over 15 years and still runs perfectly! I’d go eheim or fluval personally. Just make sure you buy one rated to handle tanks 2-3 times your size. so if you buy a 20 gal tank, a fluval 306 is rated for tanks up to 70 gals

 

[Xam]

I ran a fluval 206 on my 20 gallon long. It was the main filtration for its 6 month lifespan until I upgraded to a 75 dt with 20 sump. Now I use it as a wet vac of sorts to clean the sump and dt.

I have to say, the water was pristine, but I cleaned the 206 every weekend during my waterchange, and swapped carbon out every 3 weeks. You absolutely have to stay on top of it... but it only takes five minutes to rise the media off in change water and wipe down the plastic once you get the hang of it.

Without a skimmer, I would put a paper towel flat on the water surface every few days and that cleaned up the oil slick.

Sump beats canister hands down, but when it's not an option... waddyagonnado

Edit: oh you could do a hang on back filter lol, but I think canister beats that as long as its cleaned religiously.