Is my Filter too weak? Needs Changing every few days!

I have an old Marineland Eclipse Aquarium, 37 Gallons.

It, originally came with its own Hood top, that included its own filtration system built into the Top.

But the Hood itself broke some time ago, and after a recent move to a new apartment, it was rendered in worse condition and thus, was no longer usable. I researched replacing it through Marineland and found that the Hood for my tank would cost well over $120!

So I replaced it with this cheaper Aqueon Hood for $35 and then bought a TopFin Power Filter 40 to go with it, also for $35.

$70 investment as opposed to $120+ from Marineland, and I had a working aquarium once again.

However, I seem to have a couple problems with the TopFin now.


1. It produces too much 'current' within the Tank and my Fish tend to avoid that area of the Tank, even when I turn its flow rate down a bit.

2. At least once every week, it starts over flowing at its intake chamber and spilling back into the tank before even going through the filter, and thus needs a filter change! This continues even after some water changes. Just a week ago I drained a little more then 50% of the water out and vacuumed the gravel a good bit, then refilled with fresh, clean water and then after letting that settle for a bit, drained some out again, and then refilled; then changed the Filter cartridge.

Two days later, the new Filter cartridge is used up and the filter itself is overflowing back into the tank again!

Now, I used to have a generic 29 Gallon Tank with a TopFin 30 which used the exact same filter cartridges as the 40 model, but they would last well over a month, sometimes 2 months before they would need to be changed.

So I've been wondering whether its not efficient enough for my tank, and whether I should move up to something a little better such as this Marineland Penguin 200.

Only reason I bought the Topfin was due to my past experiences with the 30 model and the fact that I still had a box of well over a dozen filter cartridges for it, that worked on the 40 model... In fact it seems with these Topfin Power Filters, one size filter cartridge fits all models...

For the record and in case anyone asks...

I have a decently stocked tank (probably right at its limit) with a healthy population of various and random Tropicals including:

1 Pleco
2 Angel's
2 Powder Blue Gourami
2 Opaline Gourami
2 Firetail Guppies
2 Black Banded Leporinus
6 Long Fin Danio's
4 Giant Danio's
10 Bloodfin Tetras


We went with some Live Plants, which really helped make it look good; until the Pleco dug up and ate all the Anacharis plants! lol

Also, I can say that the Filter is not getting gummed up with the Food, as I feed my fish on the other side of the tank, away from the filter in-take and usually watch the feed frenzy until the food is gone!

 

I will say the filter you have chosen is a poor filter, never did live them. If the filter is overflowing be careful you are not stuffing to much media into the storage part , although when using a similar filter I had the same problem no matter what I did. I switched to a Penguin 350 and that solved the issues I had but on a 26gallon was a lot of flow so I used a spare mesh bag I had to make a flap with some lead weight to hang over one of the outputs which helped decrease the flow into the tank. Now on my SW tank I have a Fluval HOB and love the thing but I hear the aquaclears are great as well