Comments on ebay canister filters?

Scorp1us

Members
I have a eheim pro II and I'm looking for supplemental filtration. I'm tempted to get a cheap one off ebay. I can get a 100g (300goh) for $50. Are they more trouble than they are worth?
 

verbal

CCA Members
I have a eheim pro II and I'm looking for supplemental filtration. I'm tempted to get a cheap one off ebay. I can get a 100g (300goh) for $50. Are they more trouble than they are worth?

What is your goal with supplemental filtration? If you primarily want more water movement, but a quiet tank a power head with sponge filter is probably your best bet. If you want mechanical filtration, adding a HOB is probably the way to go.

It seems the ebay knock-off canisters are ok, but you will likely be disappointed with the quality compared to your eheim.
 

JasonC

Members
I have heard lots of good things about SunSun canisters, which I think are exclusively available on ebay for dirt cheep. Plantedtank.net even has a fanclub for them.
 

Scorp1us

Members
I can't seem to get my tank crystal clear. There's a lot of suspended particles, however in my eheim I have a lot of it deficated to chemistry. I was thinking a second filter just for clarity would help. My NO2 is zero, my NO3 is non-zero.
My ammonia is > 0 but less than < 0.25 which is the best my kit measures.

And someone said one eheim Pro series 2 (the larger one) was not enough for 120 gallons.
 
Last edited:

jonclark96

Past CCA President
Sounds like you are having a mini cycle in your tank. Ammonia should be zero. The bacterial bloom could be causing the cloudy water. Did you do any major disturbance of the gravel lately or a major filter cleaning?


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
 

Scorp1us

Members
I have been messing with the rocks on top of the substrate because my fish continually rearrange it, and the rocks collapse. Sometimes I move a bunch of sand around in fixing it, but this is on-going. If it's always going to be this way I need to do something.

But that still doesn't fix the particulates that are floating. I had some luck with adding filter floss. But the rate it takes for it to clear up is abysmal.
 

Scorp1us

Members
Well I picked up a JEBAO which is an Eheim knock-off, so I only need to stock one kind of filter supplies. I'll let you know how it goes.

Also, it looks like there was a small cycle going on, today the water is much better, but the particulates are still in suspension.
 

secuono

Members
Sunsun and the copy cats of the Sunsun are awesome. I have one pushing water straight up 4.5ft w/o any issues. Only thing would be the screw caps for the hose connection. I would use metal hardware screw ties instead.
 

MarkK

Administrator
Staff member
Try some "clarity" from seachem. I find in my grow out tanks the juveniles produce a lot of particulate from time to time and Clarity really helped. A small bottle is only like $6 at a local fish store and all you need is a capful per 20 gallons or something like that. Fish do not seem affected.

Supposedly the action of the product is to make smaller particulate clump together so that it is more likely to be trapped by mechanical filtration. I am not sure of the action but it did help. It took like 24 hours to see the effect.
 

Avatar

Plenipotentiary-at-large
There is no better living through chemicals

Not in this context anyway. You could buy and use a "clumping" agent however often its required or you could go for the one-time all-time fix and simply put a piece of porous but dense foam over the intake. The best pieces I've ever used are from an old sofa cushion cut to shape.

Whether its silt or bacteria, the foam will take care of it, although for the latter it will take longer Once it's established you'll never have the problem again for longer than a couple of hours no matter how you stir up the tank. It's that easy.

I first did this fifteen years ago for the owners of my favorite sushi place in San Francisco. They had two big 150 bare bottom koi tanks in house under some service contract and they couldn't get the water clear. Shortly after I put a fat soda can sized piece of foam in each tank they decided along with the service guy that I was a magician and I ate even better than before.

Am still using a piece of that same foam from 15-20 years ago that's been submerged for at least five and other than changing color it doesn't appear to have degraded a bit.

So next time you see an orphaned couch on the street, imagine the best filter foam ever made. :D
 

mchambers

Former CCA member
If you can't find an old sofa, an Aquaclear foam insert will work well as a prefilter. Cut an X in the end and slip it over the intake. Poret foam works well, too, but is harder to find.
 
Top