i can not for the life of me think of a single reason that you would ever want to take these things apart.. your best bet is to simply just never take them apart and then you wont have to worry about it..
I have three Chinese made cannister filters that I bought here for about 50US$. They are a brand called SUNSUN (?) the ones I have claim to flow 1100l/hr and there is no better bang for the buck IMHO, they even have an internal UV lamp!. one has been in service three years without a problem. I have a big Tetra filter that came with arowana tank I bought. No idea what the model is but they run at about 200US$ here, it's a good filter but not four times as good as my cheapo chinese ones. I recently bought a Jebo 829 (cost 80US$) and whilst it seems like a good filter I f'ing hate the system of seals they use to seal the baskets together. This thing has about 5 or six baskets and getting them all to line up took me ages. No that it's set up it seems pretty good. It doesn;t leak but if it did, they include a nice little tray to stand the filter in.
I have had my jebo set up now for about a week, and from first looks at it, it seems to be worth the money. I would buy that eheim right now before that sale is over. As far as normal prices, I think I made out well with the jebo. It was pretty simple to hook up, and it seems to be pretty well made. I would definitely say that it was better than the renas that I have seen in action. I would like to know how I could measure the flow rate though, because it seems like it would come close to the rating of 396gph.
can't say much about jebo but i have a catalina aquariums canister which is basically the same thing. heck the canister they show on the box is a jebo! personally i like it a lot, i've been thinking of getting another one.
theres nothing to clean.. its a ball valve.. shove a bottle brush through it and its done.. but for some reason they made theirs a 3 part piece that comes apart...
this is my odyssea cfs-4 thats been running for about 8 months, i havent cleaned it yet. The media is what came with it, bought off ebay for 65 bucks, flow rate of 325 gph...just my 2 cents
Some problems with the Jebo are that the connect/disconnect valve seems very prone to breaking, I can't figure out how to disconnect the damn thing without getting sprayed, and there are some obvious things like uneven spraybar holes that make it seem less professional and a lesser quality product.
I agree that the quick disconnects are (or at least used to be) a weakness of these filters - I had the input valve crack and leak on the first one I bought. I was able to order a set of replacements from the same store I bought it from. On my newest CFS4 the plastic on the disconnects seems thicker and they slip out with less resistance so I think they've improved the situation a bit. So far I haven't had any problems with it.
Incidentally, after posting on this thread I went back and looked at my canisters and noticed that the newest Jebo has a sticker on it that says "passed QC", which my original ones didn't.
Regarding the spraying and mess when you disconnect the filters here's how I prevent it from happening:
1. Turn off the shutoff valve on the input side
2. Wait for 5-10 seconds
3. Unplug the filter
4. Immediately turn off the shutoff valve on the output side
5. Unplug the quick disconnects without fear of being sprayed
Ever since I've started doing this I haven't had a problem. Turning off the input before unplugging the filter allows the pump to purge some of the water from the system and reduce the pressure when you eventually open it up.
