Filters

[aldaleel]

I have just bought a 200 litre tank. My current one is 90 litres. I have always used an internal filter. What do you people advise for the bigger tank, Internal or external filter. What are the pros and cons?

Thanks

 

[doresy]

External! All pros no cons

Budget.....Fluval 305

Elite......Ehiem

 

[Skins]

External! All pros no cons

Budget.....Fluval 305

Elite......Ehiem

+1, One of the main pros for external is a case of being able to accommodate a lot more media.

Keith.

 

[aldaleel]

Thank you for your recommendations

 

[daiandgems]

You also get more room in tank and only pipes instead of big ugly filter better for aquascapng.

 

[Aqua Tom]

External filters actualy increase you tanks water volume by 2-4 litres or so.

 

[AstonN24vantage]

External! All pros no cons

Budget.....Fluval 305

Elite......Ehiem

pain to start up... loud, always annoying airbubbles, need i say more? sure, power filters are smaller but theyre much cheaper, even tho i would recommend an external for 200l, if not an emporer 400 or one of the large aquaclears.

 

[OldMan47]

Turn in those tiny externals AquaTom. I don't have any externals smaller than 4 liters and most are larger than that.
The biggest advantage to a canister filter is flexibility. Almost any canister can use any filter media of your choice. Whatever you need at the time can go into it in a jiffy and things can change around whenever you find you want to change things. My externals (canisters) almost always run with a very heavy fraction of biological media. If I need to use anything else in the filter, I can remove some of the biomedia and still have plenty left to handle my fish's biological load.
The only down side I can see to my nice, silent running, canisters is that they cost too much as I expand into larger and larger numbers of tanks. The last 10 or 15 tanks have used less expensive filters of necessity. I am simply not made of money.