DannyBradley;359871 wrote: For ease of filter maintenance, you can't beat the Hagen Fluval line. They seperate the sponges from the media horizontally which makes it a breeze to change your media or clean your mechanical filters. You also will not hear them running. The 4 sponges are on a tray that slides out vertically for easy clinging and all the media is stored in the other side of the canister in multiple chambers, the number depending on the size of the filter.
Dakota's going to hate me, but Magnums are the worst designed canister filters. They're glorified water polishers, annoying to clean, will sometimes not start for inexplicable reasons, and only work as biological filters if you hang the huge biowheel attatchment to your tank.
Eheims are top notch quality, but annoying to clean because everything is stacked vertically and contain significant amounts of loose media just begging to end up all over the floor.
Fluvals are the quietest and most intelligently laid out. They're also extremely dependable, but I don't know if I'd say they make better pumps than Eheim.
Nah, I actually understand what you're saying. They are a pain in the butt to change out the media, but they are the only canister I know of that offers a diatom filter to polish the water, which is the main reason I run one.
I bought my first Magnum 220 in the 80's, ran it on and off for years, didn't throw it away until 2007, it still operated, just the clips on the canister broke off. since then, I purchased two Magnums, sold them both and bought of them one back.
On my last 30 gallon tank, I ran both magnums, one with the diatom filter, one with the media chamber (talk about a crystal clear tank!!!!) before that, I used one magnum and a rena filstar but junked the filstar because after waiting a month to clean the filters out once, I noticed the filstar was only slightly dirty while the floss sleeve of the Magnum was almost clogged. The filstar wasn't filtering (literally) crap!
Danny, maybe I need to revisit the Ehiem, as back when I bought my first magnum, the Ehiems design allowed for about 60% water bypass. I'm certain they come along way. My magnum is like a Ford truck, I made up my mind early on what I like, and always stayed with. Maybe that could be revisited, but Magnims still rock!
