I really don't understand what all the hype is about with these things. Some people go on about their eheim running for 10 years... I just don't see it happening. I have a 2213... it's a poor design IMHO. I've had the motor's ceramic rod break during operation, I've had the plastic tabs on the canister break that hold the clips for the lid, and worst of all, when you want to replace a filter pad, you have to disassemble the whole thing- disturbing biomedia just to get to the pad, only to discover that because the polishing pad is downstream from the bio-media, the bio-media needs to be dumped & rinsed as well. What a PITA just to swap a filter pad.
I find this all especially annoying when the solutions are so simple... use a different, less brittle plastic for the canister, and reverse the flow to a top-down design so that the mechanical filtration- all of it, can be done before the bio-media & can be easily accessed without having to dump everythign out.
I hate cleaning that damn thing. It was a waste of $$.
/rant. Sorry. I had to get that off my chest. Maybe some of you will understand.
I find this all especially annoying when the solutions are so simple... use a different, less brittle plastic for the canister, and reverse the flow to a top-down design so that the mechanical filtration- all of it, can be done before the bio-media & can be easily accessed without having to dump everythign out.
I hate cleaning that damn thing. It was a waste of $$.
/rant. Sorry. I had to get that off my chest. Maybe some of you will understand.
I've read around and it's a consensus that the 2213 should be avoided. I have the 2217 and the 2250 and I find it quite simple. 
