While you may be true on the effectiveness of the uv I have to say the pathogen eradicating effect is not so important for indoor aqua. For outdoor pond, yes it is very important but remember this product is not intended for outdoor use and resun has its line of pond filter products which may serve the purpose of erradocating pathogens.ozzyboo;4946152; said:Unfortunately the UV in the filter is practically useless. For the UV to be effective for pathogens you need a flow rate of around 10 GPH per watt of UV light so at 450+ GPH, you would need 45-55 watts of UV, there is not enough contact time with the UV for it to have any effect on anything other than green water.
Also I consider noise a very important factor as I have my 1000 litre tank in my dining room.
I would be very interested to see how it actually performs as a biological filter when using bio balls, I think with the supplied media it will fall well short of the eheim 2260 of the FX5.Perhaps someone will compare the two.
Green water is what most people hate as it affects the aesthetic appearance of their tank. I have used canister without uv and I still can keep my fish healthy and even breed my plecos. What I was tryin to say that the uv bonus as an additional feature is a nice addition that as u said can keep your tank out of green water. Although it doesn't do as effective as stand alone uv filter, it is by fact a nice addition that has to be put into consideration. This feature is not available in the much more expensive brand.
The biomedia provided is very basic but eheim 2217 only provide sponges, fx5 only provides sponges as well and eheim 2260 doesn't even provide anything. I think it is quite cost effective for those who are bit tight on the budget. Come on not everyone can afford 500 bux eheim pro 3e or 300 bux fx5 and still has to pay for 100 bux worth of eheim substrat pro. U know what, the basic biomedia in resin does the job. What we aim for our tank is complete cycle. And my resin complete cycling my 1100 ltr tank pretty quick. I can't remember how many days because I didn't plan to write a review but it was surely less than 2 weeks. The fx5 took approximately same time.
At the end of the day a filter is a filter, they do the same thing. Agreed that 1 may be easier to maintain and operate but once u get experience with one, u won't take more time to setup or do maintenance.
The OP mentioned that he would rather use 2 canisters of other brands while it is actually a good idea as 2 filters work better than 1 but the time u will need to setup both or even do maintenance is way longer not to mention the amount of mess that could happen. If u wanna use more than 1 filter I suggest using the more maintenance friendly filter such as sump filter as u don't really need to do much other than cleaning out the sponges (just need to lift it up of the chamber, have a bucket ready with bit of aq water and shed the organic debris away and simply outbid back and switch back the pump on)
I have a 100 ltr sump (wet and dry)running on my 1500 ltr tank together with fx5 and I must say it's my best setup as I rarely clean
my fx5.
Your preference of quiet operating filter is at your own choice but the resun is actually not so bad at all. I don't know how could the op experience the noise but I swear the resun does not sound louder than fx5.