Well to be fair, it's more of a shipping issue I think, although the unit should be packed better from the factory.
I got a new mail-order Eheim Classic 350 / 2215 yesterday. As luck would have it, it's got some damage. It came packed in a plain brown outer box that contained the actual product box. I noticed some rattling as I was unpacking it. The cover on the power head was ajar and two of the mounting tabs that hold the cover on the power head were broken off. See the pics below. The red arrows point to where the tabs are broken off. You can see the outlines in the plastic as to where they should be mounted.
The cover will still snap in place and I'm pretty sure it will still work as-is, it's just you hate paying for damaged goods. I contacted the seller instead of setting it up. This was an eBay purchase.. Probably should have paid a bit more for the Amazon one. Who knows..
Overall the unit looks good, but man does it feel flimsy. Even after all these years in the hobby, I've never owned an Eheim product to compare it to, but I'm sure they're not how they used to be. The hose and tubing are a very small diameter for the 350 / 2215. Much smaller than the competition's hoses. The outflow hook is just that. A hook that you need to use a small section of cut hose to make kind of an S-bend to the side, allowing you to attach the spray bar to the glass (if you want to use the spray bar). The instructions are indeed pitiful like they seem to be for all filters. If you had zero clue on how to set one up, you'd never get it setup properly with the included paperwork.
One thing that it does have going for it is the amount of bio media included. A huge bag of small ceramic type material cylinders and smaller bag of ceramic tubes/rings. The only mechanical media is a single coarse sponge disk and a floss disk with some type of black carbon batting bonded to it. I usually prefer to not run the floss pads. If I do wind up using this filter, I want some more sponge in it. I may or may not use the included bio media.
I got a new mail-order Eheim Classic 350 / 2215 yesterday. As luck would have it, it's got some damage. It came packed in a plain brown outer box that contained the actual product box. I noticed some rattling as I was unpacking it. The cover on the power head was ajar and two of the mounting tabs that hold the cover on the power head were broken off. See the pics below. The red arrows point to where the tabs are broken off. You can see the outlines in the plastic as to where they should be mounted.
The cover will still snap in place and I'm pretty sure it will still work as-is, it's just you hate paying for damaged goods. I contacted the seller instead of setting it up. This was an eBay purchase.. Probably should have paid a bit more for the Amazon one. Who knows..
Overall the unit looks good, but man does it feel flimsy. Even after all these years in the hobby, I've never owned an Eheim product to compare it to, but I'm sure they're not how they used to be. The hose and tubing are a very small diameter for the 350 / 2215. Much smaller than the competition's hoses. The outflow hook is just that. A hook that you need to use a small section of cut hose to make kind of an S-bend to the side, allowing you to attach the spray bar to the glass (if you want to use the spray bar). The instructions are indeed pitiful like they seem to be for all filters. If you had zero clue on how to set one up, you'd never get it setup properly with the included paperwork.
One thing that it does have going for it is the amount of bio media included. A huge bag of small ceramic type material cylinders and smaller bag of ceramic tubes/rings. The only mechanical media is a single coarse sponge disk and a floss disk with some type of black carbon batting bonded to it. I usually prefer to not run the floss pads. If I do wind up using this filter, I want some more sponge in it. I may or may not use the included bio media.
