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EHEIM professionel 3 250T or 350T?

UllavL

Member
Joined
28 May 2014
Messages
125
Location
Solna, Sweden
Hi,
I'm trying to decide which filter to buy for my 84 l tank with dimensions 120 x 32 x 22. There will be quite a lot of hardscape (stones) in the tank (journal can be found here). I want to put an atomizer or reactor on the outlet to the filter. Which filter do you think is best EHEIM professionel 3 250T or 350T (950 l/h to 1050 l/h)?
Thanks!
ulla
 
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A reactor will reduce the flow quite a lot, I would suggest getting the most flow you can afford, although you can always get the smaller filter and a powerhead which would be more economical, but puts more equipment in your aquarium. For my 120 litre I personally went with the EHEIM Pro 3e 600T so I could get the built in heater and 1850lph rating to still give me good flow even after adding something inline for CO2. There are many ways to skin the cat. As Clive always says, a filter is just a bucket with a pump in it, you don't have to go for something with all the bells and whistles as long as you achieve the x10 tank volume turnover and your distribution is good.
 
Get the 350T. To improve flow you can remove the floss and halve the ceramic media. I replaced all the plastic media in the bottom with just 3 plastic washing-up scrunchies and I also added bags of Purigen and carbon.

P
 
Hi,

I think for a planted tank with not too much livestock (and plants = filters!) whether you get Eheim 250T or 350T, you will have enough filtration (biological/mechanical). For planted tanks we ignore the manufacturer's recommendations (250T = 250 litre aquarium!) and use the 10* rule (100l requires 1000 lph). This rule is about the flow not the filtration. Rather than having 2 filters you could have one and some kind of flow pump such as a Koralia Nano. Some people use 2 filters but I think this is often for bigger aquariums or just because they happen to have a spare filter! Filters clog up and slow down but a flow pump gives pretty much guaranteed flow- it doesn't slow down with time and isn't exaggerated (e.g you will never get 1050lph from the 350T in real life, the 10* rule accounts for this however).

P
 
Hi UllavL
Just from personal experience I had the 250T on a 65litre and it didn't provide anywhere near enough flow especially once I'd used 16/22mm hose and a spray bar. Mind you this was a second hand filter, in now on a 3E 450. Sad it doesn't have a built in heater as this was a feature I loved but it's a beast and the option to increase/decrease the flow electronically is very useful.
Have you considered the 3E 600T? Or the Eheim 2180? Might be a little overkill but I keep seeing the thermal version popping up on gumtree at a very affordable price :)


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Hmm, I've meassured my cabinet and 3e 600t will just maybe fit in there. Do you know what Eheim mean by "packing dimensions"? https://www.eheim.com/en_GB/products/technology/external-filters/professionel3e-600T

I'll probably have to make a hole in the cabinet floor to get it to fit. Do you otherwise know of another way of heating the water without having equipment in the tank? I've heard about some kind of heater you put on the hose, does those work?

And thank you so much for sharing you're experiences!


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I have heard some horror stories about the Hydor inline heaters, so if you decide to go that route, I would get an independent temp controller, have a look at the STC-1000, you can get them on Ebay or Amazon, but it requires some basic electrical skills to wire up (plenty of articles with pics online, just have a google). I went with the Eheim thermal filter to avoid using the Hydor.

The packing dimensions that Eheim list are the size of the filter in the box that it is packed in. The dimensions of the actual filter are also listed and are:

Width 264.00 mm
Height 534.00 mm
Depth 264.00 mm

Measure carefully and take in to account where your pipework needs to fit from the top. The filter is an absolute beast and I can only just get it in the TMC Signature cabinet with a bit of spare space for the pipework.
 
Thanks wisey! My electrical skills are nonexistant so I have to go with Eheim :) Meausured again and here is how it looks (not finished)
http://imageshack.com/a/img538/6361/764obi.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img908/6717/LdWx5V.jpg
The top line on the last picture is where the filter will reach if I don't cut a hole in the bottom of the cabinet. If I cut a hole and place the filter directly on the floor, it's the lower line. Do you think any of these will work?


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The bottom line works, the top line looks like it could be pretty tight, but I am not certain at what angle the pipes would go back at, it might just fit but I think you will struggle.
 
It's a difficult one and I am no expert, pretty new to this myself and not even got my own tank fully set-up yet. I think it will depend on how you will get the water back in to the tank, although only 84 litres, it is really long at 120cm. Are you going to have a spray bar or are you using a lilly pipe? On something that size with a lilly pipe I would have thought you will almost certainly need a strong powerhead pointing in the same direction as the lilly pipe to boost the flow.

I would wait for responses from more people with more experience and maybe add this question in to your project journal, see if you can get some more opinions. It will be quite difficult to get a good even flow on such a long tank with a single filter, a lot of people seem to use multiple filters on larger tanks.
 
Hi, from my small experience long tanks get out of the rules.
When you have good flow with one filter in all tank, the floe is just to strong in half of the tank.
When is perfect jn the outflow llts ofdeath spots...
Hardscape will be crucial, plants too.
My opinion is 2 filters/pump is more eficient for good flow and distribution (Co2, nutrients, etc).
But again, it's my small experience...
cheers
 
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