As most of us know, canister filters come with a major drawback of being user unfriendly and hard to to clean. To do so they must be depressurized, shut down, taken apart, put back together again, and possibly restarted several times because they don't always restart at once.
In fact, this drawback leads to quite a few more. Usually these go one or more of these 3 ways.
The first is that because one must go through all that difficulty to clean it, they don't clean it, and so gunk keeps on accumulating, and eventually decomposing. This spews NO3 back into the tank over and over and over again, smothers nitrifying bacteria, creates a great breeding ground for pathogens like columnaris, and can easily produce fish-killing H2SO4 in a power outage.
The second is that when one actually puts in the effort to clean a canister frequently enough to prevent the first drawback, it tends to rapidly fall apart because it's not designed for such frequent taking apart and putting back together.
This is to be expected from a filter which is made to be infrequently cleaned, and markets itself as such.
The third can happen together with the first or second, as it is an 'inherent' drawback of the canister.
Because they are pressurized, catastrophic leaks can happen, causing a great deal of damage and aggravation.
So then why, despite all this, are they so popular? To me it seems like their marketing is winning over consumers taking it at face value.
They are fancy named, have fancy looking media, and have fancy looking parts such as spraybars, O-rings, and compartments. They are large and expensive, which makes them seem even fancier at face value.
Their packaging (eg: FX6) comes in very large, eye-catching letters detailing all the 'fancy' parts. And they make water look clear despite often simultaneously dirtying it, adding onto the illusion even further.
If there was ever a poorer aquarium filter with this popularity, I'm unaware of it.
In fact, this drawback leads to quite a few more. Usually these go one or more of these 3 ways.
The first is that because one must go through all that difficulty to clean it, they don't clean it, and so gunk keeps on accumulating, and eventually decomposing. This spews NO3 back into the tank over and over and over again, smothers nitrifying bacteria, creates a great breeding ground for pathogens like columnaris, and can easily produce fish-killing H2SO4 in a power outage.
The second is that when one actually puts in the effort to clean a canister frequently enough to prevent the first drawback, it tends to rapidly fall apart because it's not designed for such frequent taking apart and putting back together.
This is to be expected from a filter which is made to be infrequently cleaned, and markets itself as such.
The third can happen together with the first or second, as it is an 'inherent' drawback of the canister.
Because they are pressurized, catastrophic leaks can happen, causing a great deal of damage and aggravation.
So then why, despite all this, are they so popular? To me it seems like their marketing is winning over consumers taking it at face value.
They are fancy named, have fancy looking media, and have fancy looking parts such as spraybars, O-rings, and compartments. They are large and expensive, which makes them seem even fancier at face value.
Their packaging (eg: FX6) comes in very large, eye-catching letters detailing all the 'fancy' parts. And they make water look clear despite often simultaneously dirtying it, adding onto the illusion even further.
If there was ever a poorer aquarium filter with this popularity, I'm unaware of it.
