# Eheim Classic 2217



## jpn8801 (Nov 4, 2008)

Hello all 

I own a 55G freshwater tank & I am in the process of buying another filter, I have 2 currently, a penguin 350 (Marineland) and the Emporer 400 power filters, which work okay but not how a filter is supposed to, the tank water is fuzzy.... might be cause of fish? I have 8 fish including a pecos.

After reading many reviews & a thread here @ CICHLID-FORUM I am purchasing the Eheim 2217 classic canister filter from Foster & Smith. I know that it comes with the Ehfisubstrate (Biological) and Ehfimech (Mechanical) substrate however no EHEIM filter pads? Is that correct? I would figure for $150 it would come with the EHEIM filter pads too? Does anyone know whether it comes with the filter pads or not?

If not, I will purchase the Eheim ones... however later on I was thinking filter Floss for the fine pad & maybe using Chemi-Pure with a media bag for carbon pad and using the standard Eheim coarse pad? What do you guys think?


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

The Eheim 2217 is a great filter for a 55G tank. I am using one on a 75G and I find I don't need another filter on this tank, which is a fairly heavily stocked South American setup - 6 adult Geophagus sp. 'Pindare', 6 B. Rams, a bunch of apistos, some wild strain X. helleri, and a breeding colony of BN plecos. I hope I am not forgetting anybody 

The filter media that come with the filter are probably pretty good, but personally I am using only filter floss - actually quilt batting from Walmart - as the only filter media in all my canister filters. In my experience it provides excellent mechanical and biological filtration - and it's cheap! I wouldn't worry too much about those pads, since you can always use a piece of floss instead, and if it's dirty you just throw it out instead of having to wash it.

If you read recent threads about the 2217 and Eheim classic series filters in general, you will find that I warmly recommend the use of an Eheim diffuser as filter outlet instead of the spray bar. Again, there is a nothing wrong with the spray bar, but in my experience the diffuser is better, and it's not expensive.

Last but not least, read up on carbon filtration. It has it's uses, but you should know what they are and only use carbon if and when required. Despite many people doing it, carbon is not a good thing to have in a filter 'just in case'.

You don't give us much info on your fish, but if the pleco is a 'common pleco' it will quickly outgrow a 55G tank. You would be much better advised with a bristle nose pleco - or even a group of those. Bristle nose plecos stay small, eat algae throughout their lifetime, are easy to breed, and show interesting breeding behavior, so they are great fish to have in almost any tank. Common plecos on the other tank are tank busters and poop machines, and selling them to anybody but people with swimming pool sized tanks should be a criminal offense.

Best of luck - a 55G with a 2217 is a setup that you are bound to enjoy :thumb:

Frank


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## fishnmaine (May 29, 2008)

Do you actually fill the whole filter with that floss?.........Are there any dividers in that filter?
Are you talking about the Eheim Oxygen Diffuser?


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## Vincent (May 7, 2004)

It comes with all of the media you need including filter pads.


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

fishnmaine said:


> Do you actually fill the whole filter with that floss?


Yes



fishnmaine said:


> Are there any dividers in that filter?


No



fishnmaine said:


> Are you talking about the Eheim Oxygen Diffuser?


Yes. See eg here for details.


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## jpn8801 (Nov 4, 2008)

Now i figured that you definately need carbon filtration for the water to be clear? My tank has no carbon currently and the water looks fuzzy? how do you maintain clear water then? the tank has been established for over a year...... do once a week water changes & vacuum, it does clear up, however not as clear as your tank say, maybe it is all to do with the power filters i have? maybe that 2217 will clear the water way better?


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## jpn8801 (Nov 4, 2008)

Okay, just to let you know, I have no live plants, i do not have an air pump either, does that matter? would i need to run a air pump with that diffuser? what is the pupose of the diffuser anyway?


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

Frank

Do you find that only the first few inches gets dirty and needs to be replaced? Does the rest of it 
stay pretty clean? I just see some that are new to this possibly replacing all at once and losing 
their biofiltration.


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

Tim,

With most of your contributions on CF I couldn't agree more when I read them, but I have noticed that we have very different opinions on filter maintenance. I know that you like your filters clean, but I think it is more important not to disturb the bacteria too much. Now keep in mind that the standards to become a moderator here are very low. You just need to be willing to put in some time, but no actual knowledge is required, so your opinion is just as good as mine - or possibly much better :lol:

I am one of those people who think canister filters ideally shouldn't be opened more than once every 3-4 months so as not to disturb the bacteria doing their job. I think that approach might be more popular in my native Germany than in the US, and I believe Eheim is recommending it too. Even worse, because I am lazy I tend to shoot for twice a year. Of course for that to work you need a big enough filter for your tank, and even then there will be a good amount of crud in the filter when you open it. The bottom layers of floss in my filters will get brown very quickly, and the brown layer will get thicker and thicker as time goes by. If I open the filter and all the floss is brown with dirt lying right under the pump head, I know that I left it for a bit too long. If there is still a good layer of fairly light or white floss on top, I know that I could have gone a bit longer. After doing this for a few times with a given filter, tank and stocking list, you know what to shoot for - and if the required maintenance intervals are shorter than you like, you can always buy a larger filter!

Also with using filter floss in a canister there is some skill involved in packing it just right. If you are packing it too densely, the filter can clog up fairly quickly. It is pretty obvious though if the flow is reduced. You can see it with a spray bar, but possibly even more so with a diffuser. You also don't want to have too little floss in the filter, otherwise the water will bypass the floss and your filtration is less than ideal. You can see if that has happened when you open the filter, because there will be brown channels through the floss where all the water has run. With a bit of practice you quickly get the hang of how much filter floss to put in a filter and you can have little to now bypass and no clogging up over several months.

Now, when the time comes to actually clean the filter, I do indeed discard 100% of the floss. This is mostly because I am lazy, and it allows me to extend the times between filter cleanings. I can get away with this, because my tanks have a lot of natural decoration materials in there - drift wood, rocks, and life plants. These items also provide huge areas for beneficial bacteria to settle on - think of all the nooks and crannies in wood and rocks, a clump of Java moss, or the tangled roots of a big Java fern. I never clean the wood or rocks in my tanks, and I am sure quite a few people would find my tanks quite dirty with all the algae and moss growing over things, but I like it that way, and I like to think my fish do too. For bacteria there is no difference between living inside the tank or inside the filter! So even when I throw out all of my filter material, I make only a small dent in the bio filtration capacity of my tank. Of course if I had a bare bottom tank with only some plastic decorations, I might replace only 2/3 of the floss and keep the rest.

Sorry for the rant, but I hope this explains my approach a little. It is by no means the only true way. Wouldn't life be boring if we all did things the same way?

Frank


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

jpn8801 said:


> Now i figured that you definately need carbon filtration for the water to be clear? My tank has no carbon currently and the water looks fuzzy? how do you maintain clear water then? the tank has been established for over a year...... do once a week water changes & vacuum, it does clear up, however not as clear as your tank say, maybe it is all to do with the power filters i have? maybe that 2217 will clear the water way better?


Carbon does not clear the water. It absorbs dissolved organic compounds. Dissolved organic compounds can make the water look brown - mostly if you had driftwood in the tank. The catch is that the carbon can release the compounds it has bound after a water change, so you definetely want to replace the carbon whenever you change water - or even when you just replace water that has evaporated. It is dangerous if you forget that, because dissolved organic compounds can also be toxic for fish, and if they are released suddenly from the carbon after a water change that's obviously not good. Because of this danger it is better not to use carbon if you don't need it. Usually there are no dissolved organic compounds int he water that need removing, so unless you think there are (eg brown water due to new driftwood), don't use carbon!

Anyhow, I would certainly expect a 2217 to do a far better job at filtering your tank than the HOBs.



jpn8801 said:


> Okay, just to let you know, I have no live plants, i do not have an air pump either, does that matter? would i need to run a air pump with that diffuser? what is the pupose of the diffuser anyway?


In my experience a diffuser provides better aeration than a spray bar and is more quiet. Better aeration means more oxygen dissolved in the water, which means you can have more bacteria that eat fish poop. The diffuser doesn't need an air pump to work. It just goes on the outlet hose of you filter and replaces the spray bar. No other parts are necessary.

Life plants are nice and beneficial to any fish tank, but they are not absolutely needed.

Frank


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

Frank,

Yeah, we do differ on that one point, but many ways to go about being successful with this. I 
appreciate the time you took to explain how you go about it. It's actually similar to the methods reef 
keepers have adopted. It no doubt works, but you have to be a bit experienced, I think, to pull it off 
well. I've often felt that the role filters play as bio-filters diminishes as a tank ages. That's why I 
cringe when someone says to just move a filter to a new tank and instant cycle. The % of bio going 
on in that filter may only be 10% of what's going on in the tank if the tank is well seasoned. Those 
little bacterias don't understand that we want them to go into that thing we call a filter and do their 
work there. 

if you're doing water changes to keep organics down, then you've countered the effect of leaving the 
filters for a long period between changes. Results are the same. So, we really don't disagree in that 
you've got just a different method that leads to the same end. Like I said, many ways to go about 
things, but on a forum like this it's hard to fully explain all of this to a poster. Particularly when you 
don't know the level of experience. So, I just encourage the removal of organics wherever they can 
be found as a general recommendation. I think you'd probably agree that extended cleaning 
intervals associated with extended water change intervals would be a bad combo. And swapping 
out all of the media without the appropriate 'aged' decor could spell trouble too. Some tend to give 
the tank and all in it a good scrubbing at the same time that they clean the filter because it seems 
like the logical thing to do, understandably.

Regarding Eheim, I think they do a disservice by oversimplifying their recommendations for filter 
cleanings. I bought my first recently and was very impressed with the engineering of it, but 
disappointed in their recommendations for maintenance. I can't quote it exactly, but something to the 
effect of "clean the filter when the flow has slowed to a trickle". A trickle? Or when you notice dead 
fish? :lol: What if a new person just bought this filter and it's their only filter? They also 
recommend changing out 2/3 of the biomedia when you clean it. I couldn't figure out why at first, but 
then it hit me. So, you'd have to keep buying more! Anyway, I'm not knocking Eheim, great filters, but
wish they'd put more into the documentation.

Thanks again for the outlining of your methods. Looking at your methods as a whole, I don't 
disagree with it at all. Always open to expanding my mind and methods too. Can't help but think, 
though, how nice it'd be to back flush those babies every week or so. Sorry, can't help myself. 

Tim


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## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

what exactly does the oxygen diffusor do? i am not a fan of the spraybar and have been looking for alternatives.

is it just a different output with a fancy name or does it have a special purpose.

I agree, i love my 2217. much more than the stupid hobs .im over them.


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

HONDO said:


> is it just a different output with a fancy name or does it have a special purpose.


Well, it is just a different output and I guess 'oxygen diffuser' is a fancy name, but it is also more quiet and provides better aeration than a spray bar. It also creates a stronger, more directed current, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on what you are after. I really like it. You might or might not, but including shipping it should be less than $10 to try! I've wasted more money in this hobby projects that were even less promising 

As to how it works, it uses the venturi effect - which is the same effect that makes a Python work - to draw in air and inject it into the outlet of the filter well below the water surface. I believe the fact that the bubbles are very small and enter the water not at the surface, but are injected submerged, are what makes the thing so quiet.

Frank


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

It's a great thing that we can celebrate diversity here 



prov356 said:


> That's why I cringe when someone says to just move a filter to a new tank and instant cycle. The % of bio going on in that filter may only be 10% of what's going on in the tank if the tank is well seasoned.


Well, I have been guilty of advocating that method myself, and despite the potential problems you mention, in practice it has always worked great for me. For example when I upgraded my 29G with Eheim 2217 to a 125G with Eheim 2260, I simply took all the filter material from the 2217 and put it in the 2260. I also poured all the dirt from the old filter into the new tank. In my experience that gunk is more potent than Bio Spira! I didn't transfer any water, decorations, or substrate, but filled the tank with tap water, added dechlorinator (Tetra Aqua Safe) and stocked that same day with a colony of 25 Tropheus. More than a year later, that 125G is still running like clockwork, and I've never lost a single Tropheus from that tank - in fact they are happily breeding now.

I think the reason this kind of thing works is that the new tank is usually not fully stocked right now - my Tropheus were 1" to 1.5" at the time. Also, I am guessing that 10% of the needed bacteria might be plenty to get things rolling. If conditions are right - enough poop, oxygen and surface area to spread on - those bacteria multiply like crazy, and increase their numbers so fast that you might never be able to measure an ammonia or nitrite spike.



prov356 said:


> If you're doing water changes to keep organics down, then you've countered the effect of leaving the filters for a long period between changes.


Precisely. What you have in the filter is just dead material that won't dissolve in water, and hence can't bother the fish. Water changes are super important. In fact, on all of my big tanks I have automatic water changers installed, and I am changing about 10% daily. I found this kind of consistency makes a huge difference in fish health. My Frotosa certainly battle and occasionally have missing scales and the like. I am always amazed how quickly wounds heal in a tank with perfect water quality, and how fungus never has a chance to get out of hand without any need to use medication.



prov356 said:


> I think you'd probably agree that extended cleaning intervals associated with extended water change intervals would be a bad combo.


Very bad indeed. The occasional threads contemplating the possibility of adding chemicals instead of doing regular water changes get my blood boiling like nothing else on this forum. Keeping up with water changes in my experience is the key to success in the fish keeping hobby.



prov356 said:


> And swapping out all of the media without the appropriate 'aged' decor could spell trouble too. Some tend to give the tank and all in it a good scrubbing at the same time that they clean the filter because it seems like the logical thing to do, understandably.


True again. If you understand the concept of bio filtration it becomes clear that you need to maintain a healthy stock of bacteria in any tank at all times. Cleaning the whole tank and filtration in one go is not a good idea - as tempting as that might be for the newcomer.



prov356 said:


> Anyway, I'm not knocking Eheim, great filters, but wish they'd put more into the documentation.


I usually buy my Eheim filters second hand - and I am notorious for not reading owners manuals anyhow, so I wouldn't know about the documentation :lol:

I grew up with Eheim filters though. As a kid I spend years pestering my parents for a fish tank, and in 1977 when I was 10 my Dad surrendered and bought a 50G tank for the living room, which was a huge tank for the time, and for a 10 year old to look after. My Dad was never one to do things half-heartedly! Anyhow, that tank came with an Eheim 2213 canister filter. The pump head wasn't as well encapsulated and water proofed as they are today, but apart from that the filter was nearly identical to what you can buy in the stored today - down to the green filter bucket and the little metal clamps holding down the lid. A company that can sell a virtually unchanged filter for over 30 years, and it still is widely considered one of the best on the market, must be doing something right! That 2213 ran for over 15 years on that tank before I upgraded to a 2215. I wish I'd kept it, because by now it might have earned an entry in the Guinness Book of Records 

Greetings

Frank


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

> What you have in the filter is just dead material that won't dissolve in water, and hence can't bother the fish.


I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. Dead things decay, they're not inert. They 
will add dissolved organics to the water (nitrate), that can harm the fish. Extra water changes, like 
you're doing, will need to be done in partnership with a methodology of leaving filters uncleaned for 
many months. I think it's important point for anyone reading this to understand who may be thinking 
that they really don't need to clean those filters as often as they do. No they don't, but be ready to do 
the water changes. I don't advocate this method (as you know  ), but I do acknowledge that it can 
work fine if implemented properly like you're doing. Water changes are amazing things that can 
overcome many aquarium ills, I agree. It's probably the best filtration method. If we could run fresh 
water continuously through our tanks that would also take detritus with it, we probably wouldn't even 
need additional filtration.

Eheim has actually made many design changes, but continues to offer the 'classic' canister. To 
allow for more frequent cleanings that don't disrupt biomedia and filtration, I prefer the new designs
with the baskets myself.

Many roads can lead to successful fish keeping, and I think it's one of the great things about this 
forum that we can all be exposed to many different ways and learn from each other. I have learned 
from you, Frank, and have a lot of respect for what you've accomplished.


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## jpn8801 (Nov 4, 2008)

Okay guys, i made up my mind to get the (2) 2217's for my 100 gallon & buy the oxygen diffusers however, how would i posistion the oxygen diffusers? even if i was going with the spraybar, would i mount them on either side of the tank? Or mount them on the back of the tank facing toward the glass? Confused......


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## zazz (Apr 5, 2008)

jpn8801 said:


> Okay guys, i made up my mind to get the (2) 2217's for my 100 gallon & buy the oxygen diffusers however, how would i posistion the oxygen diffusers? even if i was going with the spraybar, would i mount them on either side of the tank? Or mount them on the back of the tank facing toward the glass? Confused......


i mounted my 2x2217s with spraybar on the sides ..simply because if you mount them on the back the flow goes down the front face ...

this results in a montage of little fishy faces swimming towards you against the flow... not exactly what you want to see in a reproduction of an african lake.

side to side the spraybars meet in the middle and cancel themselves out...much more like an african lake!!..but you still get the surface agitation.

also its worth bearing in mind that if you have a lot of substrate and rocks that a huge percentage of the bio is no longer in the cans but in the tank ...so a canister full of floss is no biggie.


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