Cantusaurus
Well-Known Member
To be honest. I'm pretty disappointed. Usually I give products and companies the benefit of the doubt, and I do not like to criticize, so I'm sorry. The fluval 32.5 filtration on paper looks like it should work. Separate from the stock sponges I have a couple concerns. First off I have had the tank for about 15 months. I would say the filtration seems like it's good at first. Since there are 4 intakes, and they are at angles. Which I do like. But the fact that they travel up on the side through a tiny slanted chamber and then through a Bunch of grates starts to make less sense the longer you have the tank, and actually realize some issues. A lot of detritus get before having a chance to travel through the floss, sponges, media, etc.
In the two slanted chamber slots the water travels through first it is also incredibly hard to clean those, which definitely feels like something you want to do since they get a lot of detritus.
But alas I finally purchased the Intank media baskets. I definitely did not want to due to the price tag. But I thought it would be worth it in getting better cleaning for my tank.
They are ok. It might be due to the fluval filtration for this particular tank, and the media baskets doing their best to make it better. But it just doesn't make sense to me how I put a filter pad beneath the media basket. Above where I have my Ceramic Bio Media. Tell me why that filter pad gets 3x Dirtier than the other filter pads I have at the top of my media basket.
One thing with the Intank baskets is that you need to increase the water level. I wasn't crazy about this, but I figured you know what. Whatever, not a big deal.
It came with flow directors, and everything.
So are all the particles coming from the little tiny pathways water can flow near the bottom of the basket? Why are those little things there first of all, and how is it possible that soo much stuff gets through???
I think it's a combination of the itank baskets, and fluval filtration. But this just sucks.
The point is to minimize the amount of effort with cleaning the tank (the back chambers), and just having to replace floss at the top regularly, and replacing media (carbon, phosphate media, etc.) every so often.
But I swear I have to take out the whole basket to replace the filter pad underneath constantly. That thing gets MUCH dirtier than the rest. I did this to prevent occasional particles from clogging my biomedia. Very glad I did it, because all that gunk would really affect my media as detritus traps.
This is so annoying.
On paper the filtration should work apart from a couple weird inclusions that really limit it or are just so unnecessary.
Fluval. Please if you release a tank like this please help us by making it a bit better in terms of filtration so we don't have to worry about our backs chambers being disgusting, and having to put in a lot more effort to clean it up.
In the two slanted chamber slots the water travels through first it is also incredibly hard to clean those, which definitely feels like something you want to do since they get a lot of detritus.
But alas I finally purchased the Intank media baskets. I definitely did not want to due to the price tag. But I thought it would be worth it in getting better cleaning for my tank.
They are ok. It might be due to the fluval filtration for this particular tank, and the media baskets doing their best to make it better. But it just doesn't make sense to me how I put a filter pad beneath the media basket. Above where I have my Ceramic Bio Media. Tell me why that filter pad gets 3x Dirtier than the other filter pads I have at the top of my media basket.
One thing with the Intank baskets is that you need to increase the water level. I wasn't crazy about this, but I figured you know what. Whatever, not a big deal.
It came with flow directors, and everything.
So are all the particles coming from the little tiny pathways water can flow near the bottom of the basket? Why are those little things there first of all, and how is it possible that soo much stuff gets through???
I think it's a combination of the itank baskets, and fluval filtration. But this just sucks.
The point is to minimize the amount of effort with cleaning the tank (the back chambers), and just having to replace floss at the top regularly, and replacing media (carbon, phosphate media, etc.) every so often.
But I swear I have to take out the whole basket to replace the filter pad underneath constantly. That thing gets MUCH dirtier than the rest. I did this to prevent occasional particles from clogging my biomedia. Very glad I did it, because all that gunk would really affect my media as detritus traps.
This is so annoying.
On paper the filtration should work apart from a couple weird inclusions that really limit it or are just so unnecessary.
Fluval. Please if you release a tank like this please help us by making it a bit better in terms of filtration so we don't have to worry about our backs chambers being disgusting, and having to put in a lot more effort to clean it up.
