While I was down at Vebas the other day they happened to be unloading a container, so being who I am, I got in their way and rifled about for any new stuff.
Sicce is making another range of canister filters, and I snagged one off the pallet and took a look.
The Space EKO 300. As you can see, they have moved away from the square footprint on these in favour of cylinders
A side by side comparison with an Eheim 2215 leaves little doubt which product this is competing with.. The sizes and specs closely approximate the 2215 on down.
A conversation between daleks
The media volume looks to be very much the same. 14W for the Sicce vs 15W for the Eheim;. The Sicce claims 900l/h, while Eheim says theirs filters 620l/h. Certainly the baskets in the Sicce might improve the flow, but who knows about the accuracy of manufacturer reported flow rates? Certainly either is adequate.
The Space EKO 300 has a few appointments that are not found in the Eheim 2215. It has locking media baskets. These make servicing a canister a whole lot easier, and in my opinion improve flow.
It has a neat hose detach at the canister. Again saving on mess and fuss.
The clips too are superior. I like Eheim, but those crappy steel clips their classics use are always coming off or getting lost. This is what they should be.
The media that comes with the Sicce is a bit of a disappointment. They stick in some noodles, coarse and fine sponge and and a fine wool pad. All perfectly good stuff, but there is simply not enough. Much the same as the Sicce Whales, they have skimped a bit here. If you are going to take all that trouble to make a nice canister, it simply doesn't make sense to be so economical with the media . The noodle basket is only about a quarter full, and the carbon and sponge basket still has a lot of empty space. This sort of thing is the province of lesser and cheaper brands, and it lowers the tone.
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It's easy enough to fix this by throwing in some Matrix/expanded clay/ Substrat/Sicce media, but the point is you shouldn't have to. It should all be there. Who wants to get the thing home, set it up, then head back to the LFS for more media because it didn't come with enough? Also, I am not a big believer in carbon in a canister. It's a disposable media that requires replacing often and I'd rather not be cracking the filter that often. Mediawise, Eheim has it over Sicce in spades
On to happier subjects. It comes with the Sicce intake/outlet kit. This has a flow control knob on the intake and a primer built into the outlet. It is supplied with a generous amount of hose : 3 metres of smoky grey 16/22mm hose should be enough for any tank this is likely to go on.
Here Pacco displays the more than adequate hose that serves him and Sicce so well...
They include a 250ml bottle of Sicce dechlorinator and the instruction book.
It's substantially cheaper than the comparable Eheims and also cheaper than the Sicce whales.
It comes in three sizes:
The 300, filtering 900l/h for 14W of power which they recommend for aquariums up to 300l
The 200, filtering 700l/h for an extremely low 6W of power, for aquariums up to 200l
The 100 filtering 550l/h for 5W of power, which as you might have guessed is for aquariums up to 100l
It's made in Italy and has a 3 year guarantee. To cover a product for over 1000 days of operation, you'd have to be pretty confident in it.
Pro: Con:
Competitive price Not enough filter media included!
Removable hose/tap I can't seem to make the intake primer actually work...
Primer on intake
Media baskets
Low power consumption
Quality build
3 year guarantee
There are now a couple of these in the pile of PCS Sponsor goods, so watch out for your chance to snag one in the upcoming year's raffles 
