are eheim wet & drys any good ?

[Pauly]

Heys guys , at the lfs they have a near new eheim professionel wet & dry 2227 canister for sale cheap .
Has any one had one of these before ?
Are they any good?
The wet and dry system seems more like a gimmic to me , although the bacteria gets some O2 , the pump will only be working half as hard as it is half full half the time.

[holotype]

Yes they are good but they can also be a lot of fuss to maintain. The wet/dry action is by no means a gimmick, but then again this filter could be considered overkill in many applications. I wrote this reply on another forum.

I have had two of these filters (2227 & 2229) and they are quite good provided they are kept very clean. As soon as the media trays start to clog up, the fill / drain rate is affected and the float activation suffers, resulting in erractic surges or none at all.

I now run them both only on a tank that has a sealed internal background with a 1" gap at the bottom beneath 6" of gravel. The filter pickups are behind the background so all the water they take has been passed through the gravel bed, eliminating all large particular matter.

As such, these cannister-style wet / dry filters have worked flawlessly for several years and if you can devise a similarly effective pre-filter then they are worth considering. However I did once run the smaller 2227 filter on a 4' tank and found it not to be practical, if it wasn't cleaned religiously it would end up stuck on the slow flow cycle which wasn't desirable at all.

The choice of filter material is also important and the synthetic rock supplied with them new is not really suitable as it clogs too easily. Bio-balls intended for trickle filters are no good as they drain too quickly, in any case their surface area to volume ratio is poor in such a relatively small area. Ceramic tubes work best in my experience, in particular the Sera brand Siporax.

[Pauly]

Thanks holotype . I was planing on useing it on a long 200ltr dedicated to catfish and suckers , with powerheads at one end to create a flowing river .I thought this serg effect these filters produce would be benificial .I wanted a bit of overkill in filter perfrmance as plec and such make alot of mess. Could I put a prefilter sponge at bottom of cannister?
Or would I be best using a traditional filter ? Its hard to pass up a quality filter at a very good price.

[taksan]

They are very good biologicaly but have no mechancial filtration at all and clog very quickly and easily

[lesley]

I found that because they work by syphon action and not pump driven (the water out is, not the water in) you can't add mechanical filtration. Didn't work all that well even without mechanical filtration on the inlet! Found my little old aquaclears did four times the job!!!! mine went to the tip, didn't even work well on a 4' tank which was half the recommended size.

I am currently using OTTO filters, a third of the price, three times the filtration. I have used other canisters, they have all been better than wet/dry you mentioned.

HTH

[holotype]

Pauly if the tank will be full of messy fish then I would not recommend one of these filters. As said, they work best as strictly biological filters and do little to trap visible debris. A sponge on the inlet strainer will help but you will probably find that it needs to be cleaned on a daily basis.

[Pauly]

Thanks guys I agree. Although it is a great filter ,it is not gonna give me the mecanical filtration I will need at mo. I'll let someone else have it .

[Maximus]

The short coming of Eheim wet/dry filters is that they do not have a prefilter. Putting a prefilter sponge will clog the sponge very easily.

To go around that problem I have connected the inlet of my 2229 to the output of another canister filter (CF 2). Of course the rate of the water flow from CF2 has to be between the flow rate of when the piston of 2229 is closed (down) and opened (up). Therefore when the piston is closed (down), water is able to refill the canister chamber. However when the piston is opened (up), the 2229 can drain the water since the flow rate is greater than CF2.

What the flow rate of CF2 is will determine the length of time when 2229 refills and empties the chamber.

It works fine for me. The CF2 is used purely as mechanical filtration while my 2229 is used purely for biological filtration. I do not have to worry about clogging for my 2229. All I have to do is clean CF2 regularly.

Hope this helps.

[Maximus]

The short coming of Eheim wet/dry filters is that they do not have a prefilter. Putting a prefilter sponge will clog the sponge very easily.

To go around that problem I have connected the inlet of my 2229 to the output of another canister filter (CF 2). Of course the rate of the water flow from CF2 has to be between the flow rate of when the piston of 2229 is closed (down) and opened (up). Therefore when the piston is closed (down), water is able to refill the canister chamber. However when the piston is opened (up), the 2229 can drain the water since the flow rate is greater than CF2.

What the flow rate of CF2 is will determine the length of time when 2229 refills and empties the chamber.

It works fine for me. The CF2 is used purely as mechanical filtration while my 2229 is used purely for biological filtration. I do not have to worry about clogging for my 2229. All I have to do is clean CF2 regularly.

Hope this helps.