I have the hoses as short as possible. I don't have any in line equipment. When I first had it I could only run it half speed, because the outflow was so high. I thought that was the problem. I noticed the holes in the spray bar were tiny so I drilled them larger and can run it full blast now. I have all three trays filled with biomedia. I cleaned it about 3 months ago, because it had been running for 6 months. I just mainly wanted to check and see how everything looked inside. There was no noticeable slowing in the flow. The filter seemed surprisingly clean for one that had been running that long. I guess the size of the filter compared to the size of the tank that might not be that surprising. I've been thinking of replacing it with a classic, because I've had good luck with the 2213.