When you press the auto-syphon button, it will push on the water making it rising to contact the impeller (supposing you well filled the canister as I explained above). Actually, you have to close the canister, fill it with water from the hoses opening and then plug the hoses. Now, if you understand how their canister is built, it is very easy to solve it. Here should come their auto-syphon button.
Now, if they got emersed during waterchange, the spontaneous auto-syphon on hoses plugging won't work. If you keep all inlet/outlet extremities submerged during maintenance, it will auto-syphon as soon as you plug the hoses, without you do any thing Don't know about ProIII and electronic models None of the off-the-shelf solutions seem to quite suit me, so I'll probably build my own "canister" next time around.Īll Eheim auto-syphon stuff never worked. In years past I had a HOT Magnum and thought it was a really good filter. I only use it occasionally for polishing and such.
diatom filter that's a major pain, but with some mods it serves it's purpose well. Nowhere near as elegant as the modern Eheims, but it works for me. It's low-tech priming provision works well for me. If you side-load the siamese connector at the canister, it will leak.
I've got a vertical "spraybar" that runs the full depth of the tank so I don't have any surface agitation and still get good circulation in this odd-shaped tank (Perfecto/Marineland 70 Corner).Īnyway, the XP3 is also easy to service and quiet in operation, but it seems a bit less forgiving of hose routing. The inlet/outlet fitting kit that comewith it is nice if you've got a typical tank and/or requirements, but I had to build the outlet plumbing (after the hose) from scratch to accomodate my CO2 equipment and flow needs. I've had a Rena XP3 on my 70 for a couple years now and it's been a fine filter.
I don't have any experience with the FX5. It's in my bedroom and it's absolutely silent. Parts are plentiful, thought I've yet to need any for the newer model. The 304 on my 55 is rock solid after five years and I think it's easy to service. They are still a pain to prime, but I need to do that so infrequently that it's a non-issue for me. The early units had a tendency to get brittle over time and leak or divert flow, but the newer ones seem to have those problems licked. I've been running Fluvals for about 15 years. For the cost I should have no issues snagging a wet/dry in the same range, although lots of people don't seem to be using them anymore for planted tanks. The marineland looks pretty good, but it seems noone has actually used it yet. The FX5 has a lot of flow but I have no idea beyond that. I read a lot of people loved the nu-clears but Tom also mentioned the eheim 2260 was easier to service. I'm just basically looking for the models I should avoid, or things like "the handles always break or the media trays are sharp" so I can get an idea of whether or not I even want to deal with it. I'm not sure how well that will work in practice. This will give me something of a sump as the water level in there will drop before the main water level in the tank.
However, if I get a tank with a built in overflow I can put the intake on a canister at the bottom and just make sure I have a high water level in the wier. I could skip that and go with an eheim, marineland, or FX5 cannister.Ĭan anyone give me their gripes on any of that equipment? I really like the whole sump idea since the water level is rock solid. I could use the same type of pump and go with the nu-clear cannisters. I could go the wet/dry route with an eshoppe rig powered by something like a maxijet pump. Since I don't want to waste yet more cash buying things that won't readily transfer to the new tank I'm looking for opinions on some stuff. Right now I'm growing out some discus in a 45 and I'm finding I need a little more filtration. It'll be at least a 75 and hopefully a 120.