i consistently hear 2217 for the Eheims. They have, indeed been around forever and seem built like tanks. They are also affordable, if you know where to look. My 2 concerns are:
1. It looks like a pain in the toockus to clean/replace/maintain the media with no baskets, etc.
2. There is no automatic siphoning.
Other than that, I like the idea of extreme reliability, etc. I used to have Sacem canister filters back in my Pet Shop days. They were the brand the store carried (I never hear of them anymore). Sacem was an Italian company that was later bought out by PennPlax and then apparently disappeared in my absence. They reminded me alot of Eheim Classics, down to the green canister, tubing, etc. They were fairly reliable, but often got noisy and were painful to start the siphon. Maintenance involved disassembling the whole mess and replacing all media. It ended up being a big fishy pile of canister guts and filter floss. Not too fun. But I can handle it!
Any thoughts on my 2 concerns? As much as I'd love some high-tech cool looking filter with all the bells and whistles (think Eheim Pro III 2080 w/ built-in heater and microprocessor, etc.), in reality, what I need is clean water, appropriate flow rate and reliability. It would also be better to have working filters that I can actually purchase with the money I have available to me that to have a phantom filter that I can never afford holding up the progress on the tank.
Thoughts please? What about 2 2215s? That would be about 320 GPH and save me about $65.00. The main reason I was looking at the 2224 was the self priming and the $87.00 cost as well as filter baskets. but they do not seem to have the enthusiastic following of the Classic series, nor do they have the track record. Hmmm.... decisions, decisions... Thanks very much for the feedback.
