Fluval Spec

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N

Natalie

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Aug 31, 2007
1,552
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36
Florida
I picked up a Fluval Spec as a b-day gift to myself. :) It's housing one male betta. I'm extremely impressed with the quality of this tank. It's sleek, has a good built-in sump, nice LEDs, and unlike most nano all-in-one tanks it doesn't feel like it's going to fall apart on me if I touch it.

The one thing I dislike is the pump is way too strong (40 gph for a 2 gallon tank). I suppose that's ideal for a mini-reef setup but way too strong for my betta. I turned off the pump because he was getting tossed around in the current. Does anyone know where I could get something more like a 5-10 gph pump? Or, is it possible to use a dimmer-type function on the existing pump to get it to flow much slower? I'm clueless...

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I've been looking at the Flora. Nice quality stuff.

Do you think the output would decrease after it's been running for a while? Seems like that would make sense...
 
I think a dimmer might burn the pump out, but I can't say for sure.

Is there any where you could place a sponge to slow the waters? I did that on my 20 long with a fluval 405 filter...
 
Oh, and if you like the quality of this tank, check out the Fluval Osaka. Same curved glass, but they are full size tanks. If you check out the setup section, you can find my recent thread about mine.
 
How is the output set up on these, can you divert some it? Like with two outputs (Tee) to help spread teh flow around.
 
The output is a small flare nozzle which could be pointed in many directions. But... if I pointed it up, it disturbed the water surface way too much. If I pointed it any other direction, it basically threw the betta towards the opposite wall at rocket speed. For such a small tank (2 g) there was no way for him to escape it.

The filter ("sump") system of this tank is set up as such: water flows over an overflow into the media chamber, which then, through a small slot, flows into the chamber with the pump, taking it up and through the pump tube, through the flare nozzle, to directly discharge into the main chamber / tank.

I took off the flare nozzle. The flow was still pretty strong, so I pushed the output tube back into the pump chamber, so the output flows into the pump chamber then sort of spills over into the main tank. I hope that makes sense, haha. At any rate, it seems much much better this way for a betta. There's still flow throughout the tank but not a big current. I'm happy with it now.
 
thought of making a DIY spray bar?
 
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