EHEIM Classic 2215 External Canister Filter with Media for up to 92 US Gallons

OKAY...I admit it. Ten or Fifteen years ago I was running a 90 gallon Cichlid tank and I had a BIG Eheim canister to filter the tank. I loved it. Sold it when I got out of the hobby; sold it with the tank. So all these years go by. Now I'm into Nano tanks. Planted Aquascapes. I'm being challenged and I love that part of it.There's a YouTube Video with IAPLC Grand Prize Winner Dave Chow giving a workshop on Takashi Amano style aquascaping. At one point during the YouTube video he. says: "Trial and error. And I have so many errors. You must find yours, and then, after that, you can find your methods". THIS is where I'm at. I have years in the aquarium hobby but I'm a rookie when it comes to live plant aquascaping and I am LEARNING and that's the fun part. Sometimes frustrating that's true but then the gratification ultimately comes. Anyway...back to EHEIM. Before I went back to EHEIM, I bought 3 canister filters from what is currently a very popular brand that competes against EHEIM. I was especially attracted to this brand because it has a heater housed right inside the canister filter. How cool is that? No need for an unsightly heater in your tank! But when I received the filters and started putting them together I felt they were cheap. I did not have a sense of quality like you get with EHEIM. I made a decision to return them. I am not going to name them because although I DID buy them I never used them in my tanks. So.... I'm running a 6.6 gallon cube; an 11 gallon long, a 16 gallon cube and a 22 gallon long. I know this EHEIM 2211 Classic is rated for up to a 40 gallon tank and I'm using it on much small tanks but it works because I can dial the flow way down for these small tanks. It's so easy. So do NOT be afraid of using an EHEIM 2211 classic for your small tanks. As canister filters go, the 2211 itself is small and does not seem out of line for a small tank at least for me. For me, it's EHEIM all the way. When I received that first EHEIM 2211 I immediately felt better. German made quality. Can't beat it with a stick IMHO. The EHEIM 2211 can handle all those tanks no sweat. And it's so freekin' QUIET! I'm running one in the living room 10 feet from my overstuffed chair that I reign from each evening and I hear NOTHING. Dead quiet. Now...let's talk about PRIMING these EHEIM canisters. There seems to be a lot of confusion and anxiety and stress over priming them but it's so simple that it's crazy ridiculous. I will tell you right now how to do it in just a few sentences. LIke any canister, you will take the top off and fill it with the media of your choice. It will come with media such as course filter pads, ceramic media, etc. On Amazon you can buy carbon pads and so much more. ...OR....you can just choose your own filter media. I just bought a bag or two of Poly-Fill Polyester Fiber that I'm going to use after the next cleaning to REALLY polish that water column! OKAY. We've got it filled with filter media, time to get it running. Time to prime this baby. So it's all ready to go right? You have the intake hose running to the bottom of the Eheim canister and the out-take discharge hose ready to discharge filtered water to the tank. So..hang that INTAKE hose over your tank wall into the water. I have an empty 5 gallon bucket on the floor. I have the EHEIM canister filter on the floor with the tank above. Take that DISCHARGE hose and give it a good SUCK. Water will flow up the intake hose into the EHEIM canister and fill that canister and then exit out the top discharge right into the discharge hose which I'm aiming into the bucket. It's plain old syphoning and it'll be the EASIEST syphon you ever did. NOW place your thumb over the end of the discharge hose and hang that over your tank wall so it's discharging into your tank. NOW plug the EHEIM in. VOILA! You are primed and running. If you hear some air gently move the EHEIM side to side rocking it gently. The air will pump out. I tell you it's the easiest canister PRIME you will ever do. With the whole thing put together you are basically just syphoning water through the canister and when it starts coming out the discharge you plug the canister in. It's really BASIC and that pretty much characterizes the EHEIM canister filter in a nutshell. It's BASIC. It WORKS. It's DEPENDABLE. QUIET. I don't know what more I can say. I know that there are others out there. Fluval makes good canisters for one example. I just have my preferences, I guess and for me, it's "Go EHEIM" or go home.

I have a Fluval Edge 12 gallon aquarium, which comes with a hang-over-back (HOB) filter. While the HOB filter is okay, there are a couple of areas I'm hoping to improve on: (1) quiet water flow, (2) larger volume of filter media. With the HOB filter, if I adjust the water flow to more than half its maximum, the sound of the water return splashing onto the water surface was a bit loud (even with water level pretty close to the top), and it also has the added problem of creating too much water flow for the comfort of the fishes (a number of them would just hang out at the top corners and avoid the central "waterfall" area). With the Eheim Classic 150 (model number 2211), it creates gentle water flow with the included spray bar (which I submerge vertically due to the Fluval Edge's lack of top access) but enough circulation and I can literally see the fishes that used to hide from strong currents come into the center of the tank, and they look much more at ease.The Classic 150 is also very effective: it has maybe 5 times the filter media volume compared to the HOB filter (the Eheim spec says 1 liter). This is important because it has much more volume for biological media that supports a much larger colony of beneficial bacteria which is essential for a stable, healthy tank. The kit comes with "Eheim Mech" which are ceramic rings that occupy the first 1/5th of the volume, then a coarse filter pad, then 3/5ths of the volume is occupied by "Eheim Substrat Pro" which is a good environment for beneficial bacterial, and then a carbon pad, and a fine pad. So far I have run the filter for 2 months without needing to clean out the media yet, as the water is crystal clear and water tests fine in a pretty highly stocked tank.Before buying the Eheim Classic 150, I was considering the Fluval 107 and 207, but after reading some comments about uneven water flow pattern in the Fluval (and examining the design from Fluval's diagrams), I decided on the Eheim Classic 150. I also like Eheim in general for 2 reasons: (1) this is a brand I've been familiar since 30 years ago when I used to keep a 40 gallon and a 60 gallon tank and I know Eheims are reliable and very easy to maintain with parts from the manufacturer, and (2) I simply like the quieter look of the Eheim Classic more than the Fluval's "black everything" look (entirely subjective). (And if you don't like the green intake and spray bar, look into the clear glass or acrylic lily pipes).A final note about setting it up: There are a bit of comments complaining about the instructions and/or the difficulty of setting it up (particularly priming). It's actually very easy (but not mentioned in the instructions): (1) fill the filter with treated water, up to the brim, then put on the motor housing (a bit of water may overflow; just put a towel under the filter or do this over the sink or bucket); (2) using a suction bulb, like the one that is used for vacuuming the gravel or changing water, detach the suction bulb from its siphoning tubes and put it onto the end of the intake tube -- pump a couple of times to get the water flowing from the tank into the tube. Once the intake tube is siphoning water, put it onto the intake/bottom bib of the filter. All this can be done with the filter and intake tube inside a bucket or a pan to prevent spilling water onto the floor. Once the hoses are secured (turning the collars actually tighten the collar against the tubing, creating a very secure and water tight connection), just turn on the pump and the previously empty return tube (which is smaller than the intake tube) at the top of the motor housing will start pumping water into the tank. My kit comes with the taps/valves that allow you to stop water flow (remember to turn off the filter motor before cutting off water flow with the taps), detach the hoses, and still keep water in the tubes and therefore avoid having to prime after you clean the filter. I cut the supplied hoses so that the taps are close to the inlet and outlet of the filter, for ease of detaching the filter for cleaning. These taps/valves are totally worth the money if it's not included in your particular version. Instructions do not tell you these tricks, but once you know it, it's dead simple.Hope this helps people who might otherwise be put off by actually pretty simple procedures.