Lets talk about cheapo knock off ebay canisters...

I currently have 2 of these, and they are great filters. Put some Seachem matrix in the bottom two baskets, pads in the top two, and they work like a charm. Easy to set up, easy to start, easy to maintenance.

http://cgi.ebay.com/4-STAGE-JEBAO-A...222?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aa5ad8c6e

i have the one in the first link i really like it. although you have to be careful with the lid i broke mine but i got it replaced

Whatever you do, dont buy the sunsun canister filters. They are crapp

Most of the time you see a big price difference is cause of BRANDING... but wearing an Adidas polo shirt, and a normal polo shirt... would basically be giving you same experience..but different experiences when you view the brand "Adidas"

I've had a CFS 500 for 5 months, It's got really good flow for the money. I, like everyone else who's bought one, have broken the lid, but they replaced it free of charge. You just need to give this bad boy a couple of mods, you can find a few threads on here for directions.

I've owned one of the Jebao's for 13 months now. Its been running the whole time, and I've only cleaned it 3 times. I've never had as much as a hiccup from it. It doesn't seem to lose much in the way of flow as it gets more clogged, but it does lose some. It is fairly easy to clean. I just bought the second one last week, and got it set up on Thursday. Its already completely cleared up the water in the tank its on.

They are easy to setup, easy to start, easy to maintenance, and easy to restart.

I'm sure that the cheaper ones are probably made to looser standards, have less quality testing, and are probably made with slightly cheaper parts. But really, they're just making a watertight box and sticking a pump in it. Its not really that difficult to do nowadays, you know?

And for the price, if you get a few years out of it, it was probably worth it. Especially if you can't really afford to shell out for a brand new top of the line Eheim or FX5 (which I will probably buy 2 of when I get my tax return). They don't really have that many breakable pieces in them, and most leaks can be fixed by changing out a standard sized o-ring. You're basically getting a decent canister filter for the price of an average return pump...