I have a 55 gallon with with 2 comets, 2 shubunkins, and 1 common, all around 5" long. I have an emperor 400 that's been doing a good job until the last month or so. Now I know I need more filtration, and the eheim's look good, but they are EXPENSIVE! With the setup I have, will another Emperor 400 work, or is the eheim worth the investment?

Robin

Since your tank is really full (or will be when your fish grow) you are going to need one smashingly efficient biological filter on that tank. The Emperor 400 is a great filter, and if you stuff the baskets with biomedia, it makes a wonderful biological filter. If you like them, an additional one should do wonders for the tank. It filters 400 gph. That is better than you are going to get even on the larger Eheims.

The Eheim is a huge workhorse in biological filtration. I do not think it does much worth noting in the mechanical at all, and I do not use charcoal or anything in mine for chemical. Because it has so much room for media, you can pack it chok full of good stuff for bacteria to grow on. This is a wonderful thing for a full tank. The Eheim is extremely easy to clean - the hoses have automatic shutoffs and it has a built in primer pump. I love mine for those reasons. I do not have enough room on the back of my tank for another HOB filter so I have the cannister under the stand. I have an Eheim plus two Emperor 280s in the 56 gallon tank.

There are "generic" Eheims that some here have been pleased with that are cheaper.

I think it comes down to what you want to do with the tank and filtration, what type of space on the back of the tank is available, whether you are fine with seeing another HOB filter, and whether you are willing to work with a cannister.

Two 400s would do a fine job. They will be noiser and take up more room than the cannister/400 combo. Two 400s will put more water through per hour. The Eheim has unbeatable biomedia platform. The spray bar from the Eheim agitates surface water well. The 400s can agitate if you let the waterfall spash a bit and do not mind the noise.

I hvae never had a 400 break or fail. I have never had an Ehiem break or fail.

the eneims suposed to be the best and i belive itbut i have a ac300 and a rena xp3 on my 46 gal tank for over a year both very quite brought ac 300 local fs was a bit pricy but on line a good buy brought my rena xp3 from drfoster's for $87 and has plenty of room for media easy to clean and to prime and very quite. so it kind of depends what your personal prefrence would be

I've looked at the rena xp3, and it looks like a good pump. I really liked the amount of bio-filtration the Eheim's offered, plus the "prime and pump feature" that looked easy to use.

I also love my emperor, it's fairly quiet, and has done a good job. It's also VERY easy to maintain. I have room on the tank, although I think I would prefer a cannister for looks.

Hmm, since noise isn't an issue for me, and if 2 400's will do the job, I think I'll go with that for now, and save my pennies for an eheim 2028 sometime in the future.

Thanks for the imput, Bruce and daryl!

Robin

i have eheim 2026 pros on both of my tanks with an emperor 280 on the 46gal goldie. eheim, while a tad expensive, is a well thought out filter that is very easy to maintain. i only clean mine once a quarter or so.

Look on EBAY!! I paid $50 for my Eheim 2213...

I agree that eheims are worth the price--mine (2026 professionel canister) is so easy to use and clean. It is also very quiet.

I guess buying used on ebay is an idea. Although I prefer to have a bit of a warranty.

I got mine from bigalsonline.com and it is worth every penny.

Wait , you bought it a month ago, thats great. You can return it and get a new one !!!

I currently run an Eheim Pro 2026, I've had it about 4 or 5 months and it replaced my broken Emperor 280. I think it was worth the money, it requires less maintenance, doesn't disrupt the view of the aquarium and it absolutely silent. They have bright green tubing and that's a little weird. I was really scared to buy a canister filter because I'd never owned one before but it really isn't hard to use at all. I think it provides at least equivalent biological filtration as my Emperor and the clarity of the tank water is similar so the mechanical filtration is probably equivalent as well. It also has a nice spray bar to agitate the surface of the tank so I was able to remove my air stone. I run a "bare bottom" (it has little sections of gravel, some 1-2 inch rocks, driftwood and a couple of silk plants) 20 gallon tall with two large moores, Japanese trapdoor snail and java fern.