What size Ehiem -- 29 Gal Goldfish tank

[RTR]

Last night Iwas talking with my LFS owner about them. He still has no detailed order/component sheets on them, not even the suggested tank handling scales.

I am more than a bit put out w/Eheim on this. Their site still lists the discontinued models, and has nothing but a group picture of the new models. Very, very poor product management and worse PR IMHO. The are in serious danger of losing one of their more vocal supporters. The Pro/ProII fiasco was bad enough. It is beginning to appear that the management is now fully Americanized - always leap before before you look.

Tetra and Dupla are down the tubes, Eheim may be the next. I wonder how market share is doing?

 

[famman]

RTR,

What did you mean by "The Pro/ProII fiasco was bad enough. "?

I have 2 classic 2213, a 2233 and a pro II 2026.

Thanks

 

[RTR]

Because IMHO it is absurd to have two such similar lines on the market together. The Pro was released, and not long afterwards the ProII line came out with more bells and whistles. This gives the appearance that they could not get the extra features QC'd and fully functional before release of the Pro line, so made two separate and barely distinct lines. To me this reeks of poor capital investment, hard on inventory control (and sales to wholesalers) and ROI, and is confusing to the target audience. If I had investment in the company, I would have moved it out during the expected rise in the stock/bonds/whatever as a response to the new lines - which are significantly different from the line now labeled Classic, and which were needed updates to their product family.

Now they have an internal line which is supposed to have better flexiblity and be more responsive to the customers changing needs/requirements. They drop the "old" line, which was not that old, and were the most user-friendly units Eheim has produced IMO. Yet they cannot or have not bothered to get the marketing info for the new line out to the english-speaking target audience.

This is called how not to win customers while losing your core existing loyalists. Are you old enough to remember the introduction of the "new" Coke? Same deal - leap before you look, then fall on your...face.

 

[JSchmidt]

I'm several days into using a new Eheim internal -- the Aquaball design -- and I can't say I'm that enthusiastic about it. I think it probably filters OK, but there are a couple aspects I find to be a pain for an internal filters. First, removing the filter basket unit pretty much means you have to pull the whole powerhead and sponge holder unit out of the clip that's suction-cupped to the tank. The entire unit comes out easily enough, but I forsee, as the suction cups become a bit less flexible, the hanger unit will be falling to the bottom of the tank regularly. Second, the filter basket is made up of several segments that must be separated from the powerhead (both of which are starting to get a bit slippery). Each segment contains a sponge. To clean all sponges, you have to detach each segment of the filter basket and clean one of the small sponges. Rather than having one sponge to rinse, you have two or three, depending on how many you're using. Finally, while rinsing the sponges, you have to find something to do with the powerhead, like setting it on the tank lid, etc. while it drips all over...

It almost looks like they tried to make these things sufficiently modular and flexible that they can do everything. As an internal filter, though, they're a poor substitute for the 2008, 2010, etc. line. Those were so well designed, so easy to use, so good at doing what they were supposed to, that I cannot understand why they were discontinued. Stupid.

I hope Eheim gets the message...

Jim

 

[JSchmidt]

Just did a filter cleaning on the new Aquaball internal filter -- what a pain! The sections of the basket that hold the sponge are very hard to line up when you're trying to snap them back together. This thing is junk. I can't believe this is an Eheim product.

No more Aquaballs for me.

Jim