Canister Filters
Canister filters are self-contained filters that have hoses pumping water between the aquarium and the filter.
Media Configuration For Aquarium Canister Filters
Early on, I made the jump from hang-on-the-back (HOB) filters to canister filters. They are much more powerful and can be mostly concealed in cabinetry. I standardized on the Rena XP series of filter, and now have 3 XP2′s, 2 XP3′s and an XP4 across 4 tanks.
I started out with a pretty standard media configuration that looked like this:
