“Effective, if very pricey, way to introduce improved filtration into the Fluval Flex 57L aquarium.
Like many others I wasn't satisfied with the standard filtration system of the aquarium (despite completing a full cycle I suffered a nitrite spike shortly after introducing some new fish and lost most of them - I believe this because the supplied sponge and filter media just isn't sufficient) and wanted to improve upon this.
Other than doing some serious DIY and making my own basket, this seemed like the only real option out there - which probably explains the price !
Now that this is installed, I am relatively happy with it, but I do have two issues.
I found that if I put some filter media into a bag in the bottom chamber of the media basket, this got caught up on the fin at the bottom of chamber 1 in the tank when inserting the filter. This made it hard to insert the basket completely unless I removed some of the filter media to give the bag room to move about and 'avoid' the fin (which kind of went against the point of buying this basket as I wanted to pack more media into the filter). The holes at the bottom of the basket were too large to keep the filter media in, so I couldn't just remove the bag and pack it in loosely. Instead I purchased some wire mesh, cut this to size (including a cut out for the fin) and placed this at the bottom of the basket. This then allowed me to put loose filter media into the basket and allowed the media to move out of the way of the fin when inserting the basket.
The second issue is that when placing the basket into chamber 1 of the tank it chafes against the sealant that is applied to the back panel in the tank (that separate the tank from the filtration system). If you removed and replaced the basket regularly (when cleaning the media) I suspect this would eventually scrape away all of the sealant.
So - happy and satisfied but only after the modification I made and also think its too expensive for what it actually is, but do not see any real alternatives out there either.”
“Brilliant for extra media, I was having some problems with my fluval tank, and this has sorted it. Water really clean now and fish are very happy arrived very quickly and was packaged very well. Will definitely be using this site again”
