EheimProfessional 3 Thermofilter 2180 External Canister for up to 317 US-Gallon

Just got the Eheim Pro 3 2180, the set up looked very daunting at first and the directions were a bit difficult to follow at first. Once all the parts were together, the next challenge was priming the filter. Let me give you some tips that I found worked. This filter has 2 intakes, I placed one close to the filter (at one end of my 250Gallon aquarium) and I placed the other at the other end. The one closest to the aquarium primed no problem, however I had a bear of a time to get the one farthest away to stay constantly flowing with no air in the tubes. What I did was put the flow lever to off, fill the actual canister with water and resealed it, kept filling the tubes with water, put the flow lever to on and plugged it in. The closest intake took right away, the farthest took forever. I had to keep refilling and refilling the tube but it eventually did work. The priming button I didn't use much. It honestly did not help at all after hours of trying. Filling the canister, and keep refilling the tube...turning on the filter and opening the valves did the trick.The filter I dont even hear, the outtake is powerful creating a nice current. I am using this for a 250Gallon tank and the inline heating of the filter seems to be off temperature wise like 1-2 degrees. To supplement the filters heating, I added 2x 300watt eheim heaters at each end of my 6 foot long tank. I put another temperature gauge. I adjusted the heaters to 78 degree Fahrenheit and the Eheim filter I set to 78.8. According to my in tank thermometer, we are steady between 77.5 and 78 degree depending on night and day times. The water is crystal clear after a week, and turtles are dirty animals.The only con to the tank is the green tubes Eheim comes with. Ugly!! It works like a champ, highly recommend. I went with the Cadillac of filters, and I'm glad I shelled out the extra coin for it. It's going to make maintenance much easier.

I bought this, my third Eheim filter, in April. Setup was a bit complicated but once I got it up and running I loved it. Whisper quiet, kept my turtle's tank immaculate for weeks at a time, frustrating to prime but hey, so are all filters.Then the primer button jammed up underneath the filterhead and would not come out. I emailed Eheim several times before finally receiving an unhelpful reply "oh, just unscrew the filterhead and unjam it!" Right, but the screw threads were stripped, so that's not gonna happen. I started manually priming the filter by flooding the tank with water and this worked for a while. Then we got hit by Superstorm Sandy and lost power for a week. I believe that there was a surge when the power finally came back on, because the filter never worked after that. Manual priming does nothing. The few times I was able to get the filter started, the tank became filthy again in a matter of days, even though water was cycling through the filter. I now do a full manual change and scrubbing of my tank every other day, because turtles are super dirty.Since the filter broke completely, I've had the single worst customer service experience of my life. I've called Eheim and spent up to 45 minutes listening to elevator music, the phone wasn't answered even once. I've emailed them repeatedly. I've used the "contact us" form on their page. I tweeted them. Finally I posted a video of Scooby's filthy tank to their facebook wall and got a vague promise of assistance. Then I waited another week, all the while continuing to email, call, and post to their Facebook wall. Apparently Eheim's idea of customer service is "ignore the customer until they go away."Today, finally! I got a proper email from Germany. That said, in essence, their warranty is only good in Germany, and they will not replace or repair anything in the US. Seriously. Had they replied promptly with this "screw you" I would have bought another filter months ago, and would not have wasted countless hours doing manual tank refills.So I'm out over $600, I now have to buy an emergency filter before I leave town for the holidays, and I wasted 3 months trying to get a response from Eheim. It's really a shame. Prior to this nightmare I was a devoted Eheim lover and raved about their quality to everyone. At this point even in the unlikely event that they remedy the matter, this is my last Eheim product, ever. Shame, shame, shame on them.

I have had this filter for about 4 months and it has been a great filter. Easy to install and runs very quiet. The heater works great, no fluctuations in temperature.I keep a 110 gallon tank with mostly cichlids, so filtration and circulation is important.

This is a good quality filter and works good. If you're considering buying this filter you already know that. This is more a review about ehiems customer service. Last week I emptied my filter to clean it out because it was due and to my great surprise and disappointment, it would not prime and start back up. After a day of trying and running out of answers, I contacted ehiem customer service for help. I did this with great trepidation because I've heard that their cust. service is not so good. Blessfully for me I got someone that was more than helpful and incredibly patient with me. There's a part that helps or is responsible for circulating the water that is defective. It goes into the impeller area and the suction I guess. This part is made of a rubbery material and must be red. After about a week of no filter and trouble shooting, I received the replacement part and my filter is up and running. Kudos to ehiem customer service! Btw the plumbing priming system for this filter is overly complicated. 1 intake and 1 return is much better for priming and restarting pump.

Love it! I've had it for several years without any problems. I found that it works best as a biological filter, and do not need to use any chemical filtration. Once every few months I'll change its disposable filter pad to avoid unnecessary strain on the pump and scrub the heating element but otherwise I just leave it alone. If you want a crystal clear tank, do partial water changes on a regular basis and invest in a good reverse osmosis filter that you can hang on your tank overnight once a week.