Eheim Pro 4+ 350 Aquarium Canister Filter

Efficient and quiet

This is my first experience with Eheim. For the past 30 years I have used another widely known aquarium canister filter brand, however in the past two years their newly designed canister has failed four times and all their customer support would do would be to send me another filter. So, I chose to try the Eheim Pro 4+ 350 canister for my 50- gallon freshwater tank. There are no local Eheim dealers in my area, so I needed to buy on-line and Chewy had the best price. Delivery was extremely quick! I had to watch the set-up instructions on You-tube because the instruction manual was at times too vague. The quality of the build is less than my previous canisters, but who cares since the previous ones leaked? I like that the canister comes complete with filtration medium for each of the four filter baskets. However, I use Chemi-pure and could not find out which basket to place it in after asking this question on their customer service web site nor could I get an answer when I called and spoke on the telephone with their regional representative. I had to find the answer by once again going to You-tube. Once I had the canister set up it took many pushes on the primer button to finally get it to prime. The canister runs quietly and provides a strong current in my tank. I do weekly partial water changes and the canister starts up flawlessly after each one. After giving the canister four weeks of running to build up bacteria, I opened it up to place the Chemi-pure bags in and discovered the least favorite part of this design, you really need to figure out how to empty the water with the baskets still inside or the bottom medium will begin to float everywhere once that tray is exposed. I guess I have become so comfortable with the other manufacturer's design of just pulling out all trays simultaneously and then discarding the water that I'm not crazy with the idea that I either have to hold all the trays in place while I empty the canister, or have to figure out how to hold the submerged third tray in place to empty the water so as to keep the plastic bio tubes in their tray. In conclusion, this canister does not leak, is quiet, efficiently filters the water with a strong current. I took away one star because the set up in the owner's manual is poor, customer service didn't seem to actually know this product well enough to answer questions about the filtration system outside of the owner's manual, the quality of the materials used to manufacture it seem flimsy, and maintenance is not as well thought out as it could have been.