Everybody on the New Year's Eve move
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Should've just saved yourself next years pain and got the 180 gallon now15 gallons of fresh imagitarium salt water in with a heater and power head. It's happening
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Keeping the cannister? Not the end of the world, but they require some special attention so they don't become a liability a few weeks down the road. They either need very frequent cleaning - possible weekly or more - or they need to be loaded with something other than mechanical filtration and used primarily for flow and chemical media.
No idea what your budget is like, but check out the Tunze ReefPack 250. It's an all-in-one system, containing skimmer, filter, heater and ATO in one set of compact housings. Perfectly "oversized" for a 20-40 gallon reef like yours. $215 price is not free, but it's great for what it does IMO.
http://www.tunze.com/US/en/products/details.html?user_tunzeprod_pi1[prodid]=0250.000


In fact, I'd even qualify that further.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the cannister, per se, and you're doing it right, as I said.
If you don't mind the weekly cleaning cycle you're doing and the pads make it quicker and/or easier - then use em. I have no problem with that at all. Smart!
BUT...
If you need the canister to run without maintenance on a longer cycle, take out the pads and make it as free-flowing as possible.
If you have a sand-bed and live rock in the tank, you could even remove some or all of the rubble from the canister - it's not really needed when you have the other two.
Reduce whatever is in there down to the minimum or zero, in other words. It should flow a lot more water that way - great for the tank, and for keeping the canister cleaner, longer.
Depending on what ends up in there, a canister can actually be nearly maintenance-free.

