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My Review: SunSun "Outside Filter" HW-302

260K views 762 replies 253 participants last post by  Remmy 
#1 ·
Many of us have seen these filters popping up on Ebay and other aquatic sites, but few people have taken the plunge(and admitted it) on this and other forums. When searching for reviews of the SunSun filter/product line, usually all you find is other forum members asking for reviews and a little speculation about the quality of said products. The thought is simple--you get what you pay for....

Or do you? Having looked around for a good canister filter to replace my obnoxiously loud AC300, I pondered many options. I tossed around the idea about Eheims, Fluvals, and the like. I have used Eheims and the Magnum series in the past, and while happy with both, I was never impressed, especially when it came to cost.

About the subject tank:

This tank is only sorta planted/sorta riparium/most about the fish(a midas and pictus cat). It is a standard 75g, 4 foot with inert white sand, a boatload of snails, driftwood, small rock pile, a koralia 1 for circulation, and a pretty rambunctious Midas Cichlid.

This tank was initially filtered by an Marineland biowheel and an AC300. They became so noisy you could hear them inside my bedroom with noisemaker running... Being in the livingroom, next to our 10 month old sons wall, this just wasn't acceptable to us(my wife informed me that it was to be fixed... or it would find itself fixed in a pile next to the dumpster...).

I set out exploring my options. I know Eheims are great filters. The trouble is the sticker shock involved. They are great, but they are not THAT great. Fluvals are good too, but I just wasn't impressed with the price point. The Marineland C Series is nice, but again, the price is still not all that impressive. I'm sure all of you think I'm crazy at this point. You are all willing to spend this money on these filters, but I just wasnt--not after seeing that there ARE other options out there.

This brought me to the Ebay Special SunSun filters. I looked through every auction, over, and over. I read feedback, checked out the few reviews out there, and was uneasy at first. Not because of poor reviews, cause there really aren't any--but because there just aren't many reviews at all. I decided it was worth the risk and you can all thank me for it!

I went with buying from someone domestic on Ebay. The item shipped from N. Cali and arrived in 4 business days via UPS Ground. It was packed well, in a nice think shipping box, inside was a standard package with really, really piss poor English. The grammar makes zero sense. It is essentially a big box of Engrish Fail. Bad grammar aside, the box is also the closest thing to directions you get with it... SO look close! This brings me to the negative things first:

  1. Directions are non-existent
  2. The intake and spray bar are a little flimsy, but solid enough. I have no intention of using them as a hammer.
  3. One of the filter baskets is a little too snug, but with some manipulation it came out fine.
  4. Did I mention no directions!
  5. The surface extractor seems to be useless if you run water up to the top. If you used this with a rimless tank it would be fine. It is too short for my water level.

It took me a bit to figure out how to hook up hoses, but once I did it was a no brainer. The Quick disconnect for the hoses works as a shut off just like on the JBJ Reaction series and the Marineland C Series. Flip it and you can pull the hoses off, take the lid off, and head to the sink to do maintenance. The three baskets plus prefilter tray are more than spacious. I have a prefilter, carbon, ac 110 bio media bag, another filter floss, a basket of beads as bio media, then a basket with filter wool.



Now lets go over the positive sides:

  1. Primer works great and quick.
  2. Baskets have plenty of room
  3. On/Off quick release is super handy. One lever shuts off and disconnects both inlet and outlet.
  4. This filter is silent. Dead silent. I even leaned it up to my stand, put it on blocks, did everything I could to make it make noise. It doesn't make a sound. My wife thought something was broken when she came back from work because it was so silent.
  5. The Filter housing itself is strong--feels identical to that of the marineland or jbj.
  6. The latching system is idiot proof
  7. The flow is great
  8. THE PRICE!!!!


After one week of using this filter I am sold. At a mere 55 dollars shipped, this filter blows the competition out of the water. There are also several models with higher flow than the one I list here, but this does the job for me. In combination with my Koralia 1 in my 75 G tank, it more than does the job. Some might say I need more flow, but it IS doing the job. Please ask if you have questions, and I will continue to post my experiences.


For the money, I really don't think there is any competition. This filter seriously rocks my socks off. I have used the "great" filters out there and can't find a logical reason yet to spend the extra money. The quality seems solid enough that I am not concerned about product life, despite having owned it for a short while.
:proud::proud::proud::proud::proud:
 
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#40 ·
i loved the idea of the skimmer, only thing i'm worried about is my kribensis make a happened of ripping up my dwarf hairgrass every now and again as they see fit. worried it could possibly clog the filter
 
#55 ·
only time my skimmer sucks any air ever is if my airstone is on at night since its near the skimmer

Im thinking of getting this filter for my tank, jbj nano 12 lol.

When you guys say that its easy to prime, thats just to prime it right? Do I have to do that everytime the power goes out?
only have to prime it when you open the canister. power outages and such don't make you have to.

Got a few questions about the SunSun filter.

How long are the intake and outflow tubes? Do you think the SunSun filter might be a bit of an overkill for a 10 gallon?

Regarding the skimmer, is it a detachable feature or not? I couldn't tell judging from the pictures.
the intake and the outflow come in 6" sections you can add or remove the pieces you need to make it fit. at the depth you want intake or outflow.

Skimmer is detachable and comes with a cap so you can cap it during water changes to keep the hoses from draining and having to have to reprime (which takes all of 3 seconds :tongue: )

Yes I see it now. Thanks.

But in regards to the length of the intake and outflow tubes, how long are they? Because by overkill, I was worried about whether the tubes will even FIT in the tank or not. But with regards to the flow rate, would 256gph be like a whirlpool in a 10 gallon tank or is the flow rate adjustable on the SunSun filter?
flow rate is not adjustable at least on mine, you could have the spray bar point at the glass a bit to cut back on the flow, i guess. or possibly plumb in you own ball valve they give you plenty of hose for plumbing inline stuff in.
 
#44 ·
still waiting for my filter to come in the mail, i ordered Jan 01 but due to the holiday i haven't expected it to ship till atleast today. Shipping time was state for 7 days or so, usually sooner..

so i plan to have it by next week, pretty excited..

honestly, being that i ordered on new years eve, i was a little inebriated to say the least, so i had forgotten i even bought it until i saw the paypal receipt in my e-mail ;)

still excited none the less
 
#49 ·
well according to the email from when the payment was posted

"Your order is being processed right now and will be shipped out within 3
business days. Tracking number(s) will be provided through email UPON REQUEST
ONLY after 3 business days of the date this email was sent. However, you
should receive your order as scheduled if no other emails were sent to you
regarding your purchase."

i expected that email today.
 
#50 ·
Got a few questions about the SunSun filter.

How long are the intake and outflow tubes? Do you think the SunSun filter might be a bit of an overkill for a 10 gallon?

Regarding the skimmer, is it a detachable feature or not? I couldn't tell judging from the pictures.
 
#161 ·
Got a few questions about the SunSun filter.

How long are the intake and outflow tubes? Do you think the SunSun filter might be a bit of an overkill for a 10 gallon?

Regarding the skimmer, is it a detachable feature or not? I couldn't tell judging from the pictures.
Yes, overkill for a 10 gallon. The smallest Sunsun might be used on a 29 gallon minimum.
 
#52 ·
Yes I see it now. Thanks.

But in regards to the length of the intake and outflow tubes, how long are they? Because by overkill, I was worried about whether the tubes will even FIT in the tank or not. But with regards to the flow rate, would 256gph be like a whirlpool in a 10 gallon tank or is the flow rate adjustable on the SunSun filter?
 
#59 ·
Dang I'm really interested but shipping to Canada adds $57 which puts it in the same price range as an Eheim. Too bad it's not built in NA because free trade would have exempted it from those extra duty and fees.

If anyone finds one available in Canada I would appreciate it if you could let me know. So far I can only find the KoolGoods dealer on ebay that everyone else appears to be using. Or if anyone lives in upstate NY...

Thanks for the review though, very helpful!
 
#60 ·
i got my SunSun 302 filter today from the ebay guy, inside of box/ filter was wet for some reason (first canister experience dont know if thats normal, i think some of it is lube and/or condensation ,as its 7 degrees here) and 1 of the trays came with broken handle.
this tray is bottom one and is hard to remove (thinking of lubing it with vaseline to ease exit, i dont know if it is bad for the aquarium so ill take better advice if you have any). not big deal, easy fix, took like 2 mins to replace handle with better one from an unused toy of the kids.
filter media was just 1 thin pad(1/2" maybe of floss) in each of the trays, i just stacked them all into bottom tray
while i have no basis for comparison other than Aquaclear70 and Penguin150 HOBs the parts seem of good quality nothing cheap feeling to me ,in fact id say all parts feel tougher than either one of the HOBs i have.

everything else seems fine im gonna hook it up to a bucket of water to test first and see how it does. tomorrow im gonna buy some more media and if everything is fine put her in the tank.
 
#61 ·
I'm going to be ordering one in the coming weeks. My thoughts are if it comes with a broken handle and crappy media.....well I can deal with that!

- Broken handle: Cheap to fix!

- Crappy media: Whoopie! Buy some from Rena/Eheim/etc. No big deal there.

Saves a lot of cash in the end even with fixes. I've used Rena's and absolutely love them. But I can't afford $125+ for a filter for one tank, when I can get two of these SunSun's for the same price.

The filter will probably be going on a 20g long shrimp tank anyways. *shrugs* I want to try my hand at CRS/Tigers and feel that my first attempt was due to lack of filtration. Even if that doesn't work out.....GBR BREEDING TIME AGAIN!
 
#63 ·
yeah the broken handle was nothing really but i was under the impression that it came with a little more media but i cant complain im definitely happy with it. its filtering my bucket quieter than my HOBs i cant hear it at all and im 4 ft from it.

ive never used one of these b4 and getting it started was a bit of something else. is there an easy way to get the canister going?

for 58 bucks i might even buy another just to have it.
 
#67 ·
i found it easier to fill the canister with water and use the intake hose like a gravel vac hose after a few pumps of the priming button. it very nice to maintain the prime in the hoses with the quick disconnect. and all but one of the handles on the baskets broke. so its going to be real fun to remove the media baskets for cleaning.
 
#74 ·
Got mine today all but one of the basket handles broke as well upon initial installation. Lubricated the outside of the baskets with Vaseline as well as all the tube connections on the baskets. That made removal much easier. Filled bottom basket with leftover eheim efisubstrat pro (the balls) and the middle with polyfil stuffing, the top with the 3 include filter pads stacked. So far so good, turns out I can't use the skimmer. Can't make the intake short enough (without cutting) and the water line is too high so it just floats off. Overall compared to price I'm happy so far for the most part, we'll see after it gets som time worth of use.
 
#78 ·
So far so good, turns out I can't use the skimmer. Can't make the intake short enough (without cutting) and the water line is too high so it just floats off. Overall compared to price I'm happy so far for the most part, we'll see after it gets som time worth of use.
i had mine setup using clear tubing to extend the length of the skimmer. worked good but i didnt need it

id love to see the reactor plans when ya get em
 
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