27.4.2014

I've owned my Fluval Spec for nearly a year now, and have moved house four times during the period. The best thing about this little tank is the lighting and the portability; the strong LED lights mean that the tank is suitable for growing a jungle of plants, but be careful about which plants you choose. Any Cryptocorne or Anubias species of plant will thrive in this tank, but plants with medium-high light requirements will not. In order to make the most of the tank, wait a few weeks after you have bought it and planted it out before adding any fish; I think about three weeks is necessary for the tank to get established; before this point, you will definitely risk fish dying off.If you want to keep tropical fish,cut two small holes in the rubber tubing which carries water from the filter to the tank, to get your water moving around in the filter compartment. Then buy a heater like the SuperFish Nano AND a thermometer; place the heater in the filter compartment and the thermometer in the tank. Use the heater for at least a week before adding fish, as I have had a problem with these small heaters warming the water MUCH HOTTER than their temperature dial indicates! Fiddle with the heater dial every hour or so until you have the water temperature at about 26C/78F, which I've found to be perfect for the plants in my tank. The holes in the filter tubing help to reduce the strong water current which is quite irritating to small fish, although zebra danios enjoy it.In terms of stocking my tank, I have had great success with Green Neon Tetras - these look fantastic and a shoal of 7 is fine in a heavily planted tank, as they are smaller than regular Neons (if your local aquarist doesn't stock these, they will often order them in if asked). It's worth buying an Otocinclus or two to keep the algae growth down on the tank glass, and I would recommend shrimp for algae control, too. I wouldn't recommend guppies, as the tank is so small that the females have nowhere to go in order to get out of the way of the males. I've tried Cichlids and even the smallest are too big for this tank (thankfully, I have a larger tank, too!); Lampeyes are also suitable fish for this tank and your could try out Zebra Danios (though I haven't, personally). Ignore the recommendations on the side of the box; barbs are too big for this tank, particularly the Tiger Barbs shown! If you have a snail problem, get three Dwarf Chain Loaches; they will be quite happy in the tank, and will eat all your pests, but make sure you keep them fed after these snails are gone. Try not to overfeed the fish, as this will encourage algae; if you get too much algae, perform weekly 50% water changes for a few weeks until the problem begins to clear up.The tank hardware is easy to clean; don't worry about replacing the filter, just rinse it briefly under the cold tap or immerse it in a bucket of old aquarium water to clean. Make sure you don't lose the plastic nut which holds the light in place; I've never had this break, so I'm not sure why other people have; tighten it until your light is horizontal, no tighter! The lid looks a bit crappy after a year, as it's cheap plastic, and the open top means that you will get a build-up of limescale along the top edges of the tank after a while. The water evaporates rapidly through the open top, so I've taken to keeping a bottle of dechlorinated tap water to top it up with between water changes.I would recommend buying some natural wood or rocks from Aqua Essentials online, as they have a great selection, with dimensions, so you can check it will fit in the tank. Try checking plants for snails before adding them to the tank, as, due to the size of the tank, I found that snails quickly overran the aquarium if not kept in check.If you have any further questions, I'm on Twitter (at)chris_dagorne

5.6.2016

I'm really impressed by this tank, which I've now had set up for a year. In fact I loved the tank so much I bought a second. The tank is well made and well finished, looking smart and modern.For me this tank has two features which set it apart: the first is the slimline depth of the tank (17 cm), though when measuring up note that the floating base is 19cm deep. This opens up possibilities for squeezing in a tank on a bookshelf or worktop. Just satisfy yourself first that your bookshelf is sturdy enough to take the weight!The second stand-out feature is the separate filter compartment with frosted glass at one end. This does a great job of keeping the life support systems out of sight which is an especially pressing problem in a tank this small.Even better (for your fish) is the large size of the filter sponge hidden within. It's so big that it has room for two cut out spaces for extra (supplied) filter media: a small bag of "biological" media where bacteria dealing with fish waste will make their home; and a sachet of activated carbon which will further polish your water. If using water additives (plant fertilisers, disease treatments etc etc) this carbon is useless as it will try to gather up whatever you are trying to add. I have removed it and used the space for more biological media or aquarium peat.The pump sits in a separate small chamber beside the sponge chamber. Handily this chamber is also big enough for a heater if wanting to keep tropical species. The Visitherm 25W heater is ideal, I've found.What can you keep in the tank? Well, for all my enthusiasm about the filtration, the tank remains small. It would be an ideal shrimp tank and I have a few cherry shrimp and Amano shrimp to keep algae under control. I am, however, at heart a fish lover rather than shrimp enthusiast so I wanted fish involved. Half a dozen ember tetra have worked well in a planted tank, as have 5 corydoras hastata and a pair of sparkling gouramis. Any microrasbora/boraras would feel at home and good fish shops now usually have a reasonable selection of species suitable for nano tanks. The tank definitely isn't big enough for a goldfish, but if you wanted an unheated tank then 5 or 6 white cloud mountain minnows would fit.I've mentioned plants so I ought to say something about the lights which come with the tank. The lighting strip is on a separate plug, which makes it easy to control them via a timer socket. The lights are LEDs rather than the traditional (and in my opinion now largely outdated) florescent tubes. They are mainly white but there are a few "moonlight" blue ones. If you want to use the blue ones there is a not entirely obvious slide switch on the side of the strip. The LED unit looks neat and fits with the overall style of the tank. With the addition of Easycarbo and an all-in-one fertiliser my java moss, microsorium and (especially) anubias have done well. I did deliberately choose plants undemanding in terms of light but I was more concerned to have slow-growing plants. In such a small tank a fast-growing "weed" will soon choke things up. I can't vouch for the lights' effectiveness if you are growing more demanding species. My gut feeling is that you could grow eleocharis but wouldn't be getting a tight carpet of glosso even though there is only 10 inches of water for the light to penetrate.Overall, this is clearly a five star product. It has been designed to look good while keeping the needs of the inhabitants firmly in mind. Well done Fluval.

24.4.2020

I have no problem with the tank and it is a neat setup, I have just returned to aquatics after an 18tn year lay of, maybe lock down crazies i don't know. The tank was an impulse and you will see lots of people out there with rave reviews and some whackose as well, majority are seasoned in aquatics which is impotent in this review, having got the tank I decided what I was going to do with it, ye fell at the first hurdle aquatics has that affect, turns you into an impulsive nummty that needs restraints "forgot about that one" sorry babbling on but impotent.I have set the tank up but not as manufacturers recommendations,

28.10.2015

I have had one of these setup and running now for 15 months and have been really happy with it. This was my 3rd tank and so I had a fairly good idea about what I wanted to achieve- I chose Boraras Urophthalmoides & a plakat Betta Splendens and introduced them after completing a fishless cycle. The filter pump is very strong- maybe too strong- so I cut 2 holes in the outlet tube to reduce the flow and to increase water circulation in the pump chamber where I had placed a small 10W heater. One thing I also did was cover up the tiny auxiliary inlet hole in the black partition between filter chamber and tank- this was after one of my fish had gone through, become stuck in the filter and died.

19.4.2016

A lovely tank, with some well-thought-out features. The filter section is comprehensive in size and the pull-out sponge filter has two sections where different media can be placed, depending on your requirements. It comes with a bio-media sachet that can remain indefinitely with little maintenance and also a carbon sachet (which I discarded immediately in favour of another packet of bio media). The water pump has an excellent flow and is adjustable to allow a good amount of surface movement. The section where the return pipe for the filter is roomy enough to put a nano-heater if you want your tank to look clear of equipment. The longer shape of the tank allows for some nice pieces of decoration,

3.6.2020

Firstly, this is an excellent little tank and great for shrimp, a betta and / or some nano fish. The layout for a 19 litre is great, and gives the fish some space to swim and you to watch them. While the design is general good, there are some things I'd change and have made adjustments.When I first installed it, the pump was unacceptably noisy. Make sure you check the alignment that the intake is facing the sponge media and the whole unit is away from the sides of the tank / glass. If it's still noisy Google how to clean the impeller and it should be fine.The amount of sponge is great not just for filtering out debris (mechanical), but also for good bacteria growth. My water is crystal clear,

31.8.2017

This is a lovely tank, easy to set up and it seems well engineered. When I was inserting the pump I worried that it might prove impossible to remove it again from the narrow compartment where it sits at the bottom and is stabilised with suckers, but then I noticed a neat little gap at the bottom of the adjacent filter compartment, so even though it might still be tricky, you should be able to get your fingers on it to manipulate the pump. The pump has a switch to set it to low and fast flow, something that might require you to get at the pump at some future time if you wish to change the setting. Even the lower setting gives quite a vigorous flow rate with the compressed outlet provided.

13.6.2015

Brilliant tank and brilliant filtration. The pump blocked once in 8 months but that's easy to fix, just lift it out of the tank and pull any debris out. Pump housing is large enough to fit a small heater in, thus improving the look of the tank. Light is very bright and great for growing plants with. Overall, very happy. It did not however come with the water conditioner and biological enhancer that I have seen other dealers include. Comes with some ceramic media and also some carbon. I removed the carbon about 3 months after set up, found out you shouldn't keep the same carbon for much longer than 6 weeks. I decided to add another bag of ceramic media rather than carbon.

23.3.2018

Great little aquarium I love it. It's very well designed. Huge sump filter (for a tank that size), heater fits down in the corner with the pump so all the clutter is out of sight which especially makes sense for a nano tank - for me it's about making it look nice. LED lighting unit is good and I especially like the blue LED option for night time. Only time will tell how good it's LED lighting is for growing plants under though being only 7.4w but seems pretty bright. If it's helpful to anyone I've used 4kg's of coarse Samoa sand in it which is about right, but 5kg's would have been better still I think for plants.

13.2.2015

Just set up this tank. Had to do it in a hurry as although purchased to set up at my leisure, my original tank then developed a crack so this tank was brought into play earlier than I would have liked. Have used biological media from old tank & kept an eye on fish for new tank syndrome. Hopefully wont lose too many if any at all. So far its looking good. Great little tank with a fantastic filtration system. Only let down really is the lighting. Only strong enough for low level light plants tbh. But all in all Im impressed so far. Might replace lighting depending on how my plants fare.

10.1.2020

Love this tank, looks modern. The light is great and plants are flourishing. The area at the back where the pump for the filter is, is big enough for a heater. I liked this as it means everything is hidden.The only thing about this tank that I would watch out for is the strong flow from filter. Im using this tank for a Betta fish, and soon realised the flow was far too strong even on lowest setting. Its an easy fix however, as I just put a filter sponge over the nozzle.Also tank arvied next day witch was a plesent surprise, as it said it would take up to a week.

23.2.2017

I'm already super impressed with this tank, It looks great and for the money its a real good starter. I've bought this to house a Betta fish (siamese fighter) which there are a few modifications for if you're thinking of doing the same, buy the fluval edge filter foam and pop it over the pump outlet in the tank to reduce the surface flow.Lovely sleek and modern design won't look out of place and the pump is literally the most SILENT one I've ever had!! now considering getting rid of our other tank and getting a bigger fluval instead!

6.3.2020

Even though the tank came with a slight crack on the plastic bottom I am still giving this tank a 5 stars because the tank is fantastic. I was able to easily repair the crack on the plastic base from behind to make sure it kept its strength. This is just something you will have to accept that if you order a glass tank from online it has a chance to come back broken. The tank though is brilliant, I will admit the water evaporation it a little bit annoying as you need to top up every few days but that is an easy thing

9.4.2013

this is my 3rd fish tank at home.i bought this fluval spec for shrimps only, looks amazing, but need some work to do it.there is no space for heater or for air, i close the hole in the middle of the back wall, now water go through all filter, they should fit curly pump rotor for air bubbles, like protein skimmer. i cut hole in the lid to fit heater, but its worth it, led light is very bright and good for nano plants, i would recommend to buy.If someone have any advise how to upgrade this fish tank, let me know.

15.8.2017

great little aquarium, great for small fish, looks great on my desk, arrived much faster than expected, no damage at all from being transported, easy to assemble, my only complaint is is that the light is really fragile and you have to be super gentle when changing the light settings (on, off, day, night) the button to change the settings is directly on the side of the light which isn't great as it is so fragile but other than that i have no complaints

Fluval Spec 5 - Reviews

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