In a recent thread I posted I had bought one of these filters because the price was right $44 and the basket surface area looked huge for an inline basket style filter. The item arrived in 4 days via UPS over packed in a standard shipping box, nice for those that want to protect and keep the original box.
The outside of the item box is written in English with nice colorful picture diagrams of what it is and how to assemble it. The inside of the box comes neatly and professionally packed like other higher priced filters with all hoses loose parts, and accessories separately packed in their own bags and box.
What is immediately noticed is the lack of any instruction manual except for the diagrams outside the box and the net address for SUNSUN there is nothing else. But as canister filters go if you have owned one before, this one is about as simple as they get.
The first thing I did was inspect the part quality which frankly surprised me to be good. The hoses are large at ¾ inch and made thick to resist collapse. The plastic fasteners and spray bar were more ridged and stronger then I expected and the impeller was rather large, as large as some impellers in 50 Watt pond pumps. But since the motor wattage that pushes this one only 17 watts, it will not be pushing as hard or spinning as fast.
Before assembly its important to lube every hose connection, every O-ring, and every swivel, and the “quick disconnect hose valve, including the valve port sockets, swivels and disconnect lever. Lubricating these parts thoroughly with Vaseline and working them in will insure easy function without braking or leaking. The impeller, impeller shaft, and impeller housing should be so lubricated that you can run plug it in and run it dry for a few moments. It should run like its in water no chatter.
After lubing assemble all the canister parts which connect and go together easily and can be easily taken apart of adjustment is necessary. No binding, no braking, no overstressed parts that leak.
The top lid motor and 3 basket canister design is pretty typical of your more popular and expensive name brand model designs, The only noticeable difference are the 3 oversized media baskets which are much larger then my Fluval 404/405 canister baskets. Important because a larger surface area footprint means less effort and GPH needed to the filtering job.
Note the hose size compared to battery for scale
Both in and out end piping come with two size length suction cups
One of three super-size interlocking canister baskets each with its own expanding handle to remove media.
Canister size dwarfs most others in its class
Using the bathroom sink as a test aquarium discovered that the canister can easily be primed empty installing only the return hose under water and the out flow hose out of the water. Failure to do it this way and the hand pump will remain air locked and you can pump forever with no results. But do it the correct way as mentioned above and 3 to 4 pumps send water free siphoning into the canister in no time. After the canister fills itself simply plug it in and it will start to run slowly discharging the remaining air. You can expedite purging the remaining air by giving a few more hand pumps while the canister is running.
Seemingly running silently I decided to do a head pressure test holding the outflow hose as height as possible at 7feet above the canister the water flow diminished by 2/3rds but never stopped working, at 5 feet the flow was strong and steady.
I decided also to do a GPH test since most canisters are overrated by 1/3 to ½ their true operating GPH. Using 2 5 gallon water bottles and a stop watch I observed the emptying of one bottle and the filling of the second. With the ¾ hoses with not necked down end fittings of ½” the average GPH was 165 GPH. With the small ½” end fittings attached the GPH average was 150 GPH.
This is the same GPH measures in the XP4, the Fluval 405, and allot of the Ehiem 100 gallon models. In fact about 10-15 GPH better. Many people don’t realize how fast 150 GPH is, but it is fast enough that most faucet and outside hose bibs with restrictors removed, cannot flow out fast enough to keep up with them as they are about 120 GPH.
So I have yet to hook it up to an aquarium for the practical assembly and test but will be posting those results as soon as the have installed it.
THE END... for now
The outside of the item box is written in English with nice colorful picture diagrams of what it is and how to assemble it. The inside of the box comes neatly and professionally packed like other higher priced filters with all hoses loose parts, and accessories separately packed in their own bags and box.
What is immediately noticed is the lack of any instruction manual except for the diagrams outside the box and the net address for SUNSUN there is nothing else. But as canister filters go if you have owned one before, this one is about as simple as they get.
The first thing I did was inspect the part quality which frankly surprised me to be good. The hoses are large at ¾ inch and made thick to resist collapse. The plastic fasteners and spray bar were more ridged and stronger then I expected and the impeller was rather large, as large as some impellers in 50 Watt pond pumps. But since the motor wattage that pushes this one only 17 watts, it will not be pushing as hard or spinning as fast.
Before assembly its important to lube every hose connection, every O-ring, and every swivel, and the “quick disconnect hose valve, including the valve port sockets, swivels and disconnect lever. Lubricating these parts thoroughly with Vaseline and working them in will insure easy function without braking or leaking. The impeller, impeller shaft, and impeller housing should be so lubricated that you can run plug it in and run it dry for a few moments. It should run like its in water no chatter.
After lubing assemble all the canister parts which connect and go together easily and can be easily taken apart of adjustment is necessary. No binding, no braking, no overstressed parts that leak.
The top lid motor and 3 basket canister design is pretty typical of your more popular and expensive name brand model designs, The only noticeable difference are the 3 oversized media baskets which are much larger then my Fluval 404/405 canister baskets. Important because a larger surface area footprint means less effort and GPH needed to the filtering job.
Note the hose size compared to battery for scale
Both in and out end piping come with two size length suction cups
One of three super-size interlocking canister baskets each with its own expanding handle to remove media.
Canister size dwarfs most others in its class
Using the bathroom sink as a test aquarium discovered that the canister can easily be primed empty installing only the return hose under water and the out flow hose out of the water. Failure to do it this way and the hand pump will remain air locked and you can pump forever with no results. But do it the correct way as mentioned above and 3 to 4 pumps send water free siphoning into the canister in no time. After the canister fills itself simply plug it in and it will start to run slowly discharging the remaining air. You can expedite purging the remaining air by giving a few more hand pumps while the canister is running.
Seemingly running silently I decided to do a head pressure test holding the outflow hose as height as possible at 7feet above the canister the water flow diminished by 2/3rds but never stopped working, at 5 feet the flow was strong and steady.
I decided also to do a GPH test since most canisters are overrated by 1/3 to ½ their true operating GPH. Using 2 5 gallon water bottles and a stop watch I observed the emptying of one bottle and the filling of the second. With the ¾ hoses with not necked down end fittings of ½” the average GPH was 165 GPH. With the small ½” end fittings attached the GPH average was 150 GPH.
This is the same GPH measures in the XP4, the Fluval 405, and allot of the Ehiem 100 gallon models. In fact about 10-15 GPH better. Many people don’t realize how fast 150 GPH is, but it is fast enough that most faucet and outside hose bibs with restrictors removed, cannot flow out fast enough to keep up with them as they are about 120 GPH.
So I have yet to hook it up to an aquarium for the practical assembly and test but will be posting those results as soon as the have installed it.
THE END... for now
