Please Help Me Decide on a Canister Filter

[Jweiner]

I have a 20H (sand bottom) aquarium with primarily tiny fish (Espie rasboras, Sparkling Gouramis, Pygmy Corys and a few dwarf shrimp). I currently have a HOB filter, but I want to upgrade to a canister filter. I can't decide between the Eheim Classic 150 and the Classic 250. Size-wise, the 150 seems appropriate, but I'm not sure if more filtration would be a better thing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mambee]

The 150 is probably the better choice because your fish wouldn't appreciate too much turbulence. Eheim makes a pretty good prefilter which would keep baby shrimp and small fish out of the filter.

 

[Jweiner]

Are you not able to adjust the flow on the 250 model? Also, as I am sorta new to all this, when you refer to an Eheim prefilter, are you referring to something that goes over the the intake pipe or something that goes in the actual canister?

 

[mambee]

None of my Eheim canisters have flow adjustments.

The prefilter goes on the inlet tube:

Eheim Accessories

 

[Hunter73]

My Eheim Professional 4+'s all have adjustable flow rates.

 

[NickNaylor]

Can't comment on the Eheim filters, but I have a Fluval 206 for my 30-gallon and love the thing. It's pretty quiet, has adjustable flow, and has a pretty large (in my opinion) volume for media as well as three trays built in. I haven't had any trouble with it so far. And for ~$100 on Amazon, I didn't think the price was that unreasonable.

 

[Jweiner]

NickNaylor - how is the intake on the Fluval? I have small fish that I don't want getting sucked in.

 

[NickNaylor]

NickNaylor - how is the intake on the Fluval? I have small fish that I don't want getting sucked in.

As it comes, it would probably be a problem if your fish are quite small. However, you could fix this pretty easily I think: either by adding a sponge at the end, or by rigging some kind of mesh to surround the actual intake. The former would probably be easier.

 

[Jweiner]

Cool thanks - I'll check it out.