Marineland Magnum 350

The Marineland Magnum 350 offers great power from a canister filter at a great price. The lower price is not without faults though.

The Good
The Magnum 350 is the BEST filter I have ever used (in my limited experience) for polishing water. Whether you use filter floss in the carbon can, or use the Micron Filter it makes your water debris free in only a few days of usage.

Parts are sold in some fish stores just to repair bad seals and it seems built VERY well to last a lifetime if you keep fixing seals over its life... (Motor seems VERY well built)

The Bad
There are no media trays although it does have an optional media "tube" that is meant to hold carbon... I dont ever use it for that rather I stuff it with filter floss and have thrown peat moss bags in it too! There is no convenience to it though.

The filter is REALLY picky about reassebly when you clean it... if you are not careful the O-ring that seals the lid may not set right and you will have a substantial mess in no time to clean up.

Lining up the lid to the internal plumbing of the filter is at times quite hard. Again if not done right will make a BIG mess.


The Ugly
This is the big problem I have and it is a catch 22 because it is also the BEST part of the filter:

The Micron Filter Cartridge! This cartridge is THE BEST THING TO CLEAN DEBRIS OUT OF A TANK! BUT it clogs up really fast if you have a fair amount of debris. After a few times of it clogging up it wont be able to be cleaned and you need a new one (like $20)

I gave up on this cartridge all together.... As mentioned I use the carbon container and stuff it with filter floss and it works great!




Summary
The Magnum 350 makes a great filter for keeping your tank clear but does not offer what others do for just a few dollars more. The Micron Cartridge is one of the best parts of the filter but also the part that will cause you one of the biggest headaches. Running that cartridge full time will cost you money and your sanity!

It would be nice to have media trays but for the price, you can modify it in a DIY kind of a way with parts they make for the filter like turning the media cartridge to the filter and just throwing what you want into it. I still often want to have real trays to make my own filter to say...

It is a pretty powerful canister with a pretty powerful output jet even with me keeping the canister about 3' below the top of the tank.

If you find a deal on this filter and maybe need to fix seals it is well worth buying, however if you are going new spend the few extra dollars for a Rena XP3 which has the same output but has media baskets.