Review on Eheim Pro 600 Filter 160G by Michelle Vargas

I've been using the Eheim Pro 4+ 600 on my 125 gallon tank for about a year. This filter works in conjunction with Fluval fx6. Eheim 4+ serves as the primary biofiltration unit. The included media gives you a good starter pack of content, and you'll need to add new content later in the future. The only issue found with this device is the hose that comes with it. I had to order more Eheim hoses to get both inlet and outlet to the correct length. Luckily I read the reviews and ordered it at the same time, which saved me a lot of delays. Aside from the hose issue, this canister is very easy to assemble and operate. After washing, simply place the medium in the inner trays and fill the canister with water. After the pump unit has been attached, the hose screw connection is simply snapped into place. A few taps of the booster pump will fill the rest of the unit and it's ready to be turned on. Aquarium water does not need to be manually poured and put in the mouth. This is my only complaint about refilling my eheim 1500xl (different tank). Much easier maintenance than the fx6 as the hose fitting is easy to remove. Just flip the switch and the water will be held in the hoses until you're ready to reconnect. The reset button works without having to deal with the canister pressure. For the first cleaning, I rinsed out the blue sponge, discarded the layer of floss, and washed the stone and plastic biomaterial. After a year of operation, 4+ is still pushing out water with the same stable flow. I recommend the eheim pre-filter, sold separately, to significantly reduce maintenance costs. I use them on both this device and fx6. Estimating the tank size for 4+ 600 is debatable in my opinion. With a few small to medium sized fish, you could get by with just this device in a 125-150 gallon tank. However, with a full community of medium fish or some large fish, I highly recommend another unit to help 4+. It takes at least two 4+ 600 units to get the eheim 1500XL (2262) media volume I use for my 180 gallons. Even at two gph units it will still fall short of this canister beast. However, for half the price or less, the 4+ 600 is hard to beat. The water gets a good contact time with the medium. In combination with the fx6 filter, they form a very effective combination of biological and mechanical targeted filtration.