best powerfilter?

[leoristo]

Background....
I have a fluval canister at the moment and this is a pain, it's hard to perform the regular maintenance on it. It splashes me every time I open it, it sometimes leaks if the gasket is not carefully seated and pressed in place when reassembling etc....
The tank has been running for a year now and I have live rock in there with a good flow, probably the tank would work well with only the skimmer on but I like to have big sponges that remove floating algae and stuff fairly quickly especially when I am blowing all the rocks with a powerhead during my maintenance. Comments on this?

Now to the question:
I am looking at getting a power filter to hang off the back of the tank. These seem to be much easier to clean and have also the added benefit of wet/dry filtration.
They are fairly cheap and have high flowrates, cartridges are also fairly cheap. What's a good one to get and what size should I get? These tend to get quite huge in the larger sizes.

thanks!

 

[Logzor]

I would just focus on the protein skimmer. I can not think of anyone that uses a canister or other filter unless they are putting carbon or phosban in it.

 

[leoristo]

That's what I was starting to wonder about. Thanks for the advice. Since I don't have a sump at this moment, what's a good hang on back slimmer? I don't really like the coralife super skimmer that I have now.

 

[Skeptic_07]

deltec makes one that is supposedly awesome, i think its model number mce-600. octopus makes one that is cheaper and also good model 800S. I don't own either of these but they seem like the best hob skimmers around. I don't recommend bakpak for that size tank and I haven't heard much good about aquaC remora or prizim. There's also a conical HOB from ATB. Whats your budget?

 

[THE ROOK]

Also heard good things about the Octo 800s. Never used a HOB style skimmer, though.

 

[hottuna]

all hob's these days -stink !
the old whisper 400's used to be great,but the whisper idiots have changed the design 3 times since they were made..the new generation of hobs is a joke...