I use a canister because when I bought my tank I had no idea what I was doing. I have had my 55gal running on a fluval 406 and I have only taken it out once in 3 1/2 months that its been running. I just took trays out, cleaned foam and left old fluval media in there. There was alot of junk in there. I used old tank water to clean the foam and rinse out canister. This tank is starting to really clean up. That being said, if my cabinet would fit a sump then I would go to sump.

I had 2 canisters with ceramic and floss, chemi pure in the small 12 gal cube. Problem is with kids you have no idea how many times he managed to convince "mommy" the fish are hungry :lol: no matter what you tell mommy.

Power went out one night for 6 hours and all fish & inverts perished. No more canisters for me. Upgraded to a 29gal, next step is skimmer next to media basket and later on as a winter project I'll build a sump - anywhere from 75-100gal, yes you read right, budget depending- so that the water column is stable and I am able to add more rock, inverts, cheato ...large skimmer and all the other goodies that limit the cube.

Why not go bigger you say ...it's my son's tank. I'd probably have my bones broken if I took it apart.