I will not enter any argument about which filter is best. Every name brand filter that I have ever owned worked fine if I looked after it properly. When I get sloppy, as I once did with a Marineland C series filter, I have troubles. In that case, once I attached the tubing to the shutoff assembly properly, it quit giving me any trouble. I do notice convenience differences with some filters compared to others but the features I find convenient might be the next person's bane. Even a simple internal box filter running on air bubbles does a good job if it is used as intended, at less than 1/10 the price of any external, even the cheapest of them.
