Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This filter works great when setup properly. Most people set them up wrong. All filter pads must go on the bottom tray. Coarse, medium and fine filter pads.(none on top) This only comes with 3 Medium pads in each tray. And then your bio media in the middle or top. (Bio media not included) I just fill the top 2 with bio media. The 9-watt UV sterilizer is pretty weak. They do get a little hot and will burnout eventually but it can be replaced, I would go with a higher wattage (13 maybe) when you replace it down the road. The intake tubes on the trays have spiral walls to circulate the flow around the UV tube. The spray bar is made of cheap plastic but it works just fine, just be careful when putting on the flex hose to the U shape fittings, you may bend them. The intake tube is also cheap plastic and has an optional surface skimmer that can be capped off if you don't want to use it. They can always be replaced, Eheim makes a good installation set that would work perfectly with this filter, I will get it once these tubes break in about a year. The canister it self is very well made with strong plastic. Runs very quiet. The impeller can be easily taken out to clean. Priming: Once you have everything setup and before you close up your Sunsun. Pour your take water into your filter and fill it up to the top of the trays. If you dont do this, you will be hitting that prime button all night. Once its filled then you can close it up. If you put too much water in it, you might get water everywhere when you close and latch it up. Then you push the primer about 3 or 4 times, turn on the power and your done. It will be loud at first because of all the air in the lines. Tests: I know that the actual GPH on all canister filters are always going to be lower than what they say on the box. This filter might be 370 GPH with no filter media sucking water from the same level as the pump itself while pumping out down hill with no resistance. These pumps have to pull water up the side of your tank and push water back up to your take. This lowers the GPH dramatically! So i decided to test this filter out and share my results to everyone. Canister filter is on the floor and from the bulk head of the filter to the top of my take is 48 inches. I am using the standard length of flex tubing that came with the SunSun. 152 GPH is what I got with my current setup, that's with all my filter media in the canister and pumping up to a height of 48 inches. I have a 40 gallon tank so that means the water gets turned over about 2.5 times in 1 hour. I had a bigger impeller laying around from an old pump and managed to fit it on the impeller shaft. My new GPH is 180 and my tank gets turned over 3 times in 1 hour. If you have a bigger tank than mine, you may need a power head in addition to this Canister Filter to circulate your take better to get all the waste moving so it can be sucked up that cheap intake shaft. lol Overall: I like it, these things are normally expensive. This little guy gets the job done and my tank is full of African Cichlids and they crap everywhere but this SunSun keeps it all cleared up. Beats having a loud HOB filter. Maybe I will add some pictures. Update: May 3rd 2016 I wanted to add an Update to this review. After 3 years this little bad boy is still working like a champ. It was a great purchase.