I guess it depends on what you are keeping. The type of fish, live or artificial plants etc. The whisper is a fine filter. Alot of people that have 55 or larger tanks use canisters or sumps. I have my heater almost touching the gravel. Just be careful of larger rocks when cleaning or if you have them stacked larger fish can cause a tumble. Dont want to break the glass.

I have a 55 gallon tank with a Eclipse 2 hood on the right side and a standard hood with a Penguin 100 (same as the 125) and a Tetratec 40. The smaller filters and the hood are going to eventually get replaced by another Eclipse 2 hood. The Penguin and Eclips both have Bio-wheels. I also have an air driven UGF. With the exception of when I go a 50% water change, my water stays crystal clear and ammonia, nitrate, etc levels all stay good. It's not for the lazy person as you really have to vacumn every other week and do a good thourough deep vacumning everyone in a while to maintain it.

My aquarium is also planted. I have not had the problems people talk about with plants and UGFs. While the substrate is poor and does not give much for the plants to hang on to, the UGF istself proves a great anchor. Obviously this would kill the UGF if I planted a lawn in ther, but as long as I leve spaces open, all is well. I like having multiple filters because they all excell in on area and together the just excel. Also, the chances of all of them failing at the same time is slim, so I know that if I have to leave for a period of time, I will not have a complete system failure.

I have been warned that I really don;t need the UGF and that I will have problems down the road, o I may phase it out. The benefit to that would be that I could use a sand instead of gravel. Sand would look a lot nicer and more natural and some of my fish are burrower and would love me for it if I switched.

Eric

Get an Emperor 400 for the tank. No matter what you keep (short of a reef tank!) I even know people who have had reef tanks with them. They are similar to the Penguin filters and made by the same company, Marineland, but they have spray bars over the biowheels so you don't have to worry about the wheel stopping its spinning. They are just $45 at That Fish Place by mail.

Here is a link that might be useful: That Fish Place