This is going to be an overwhelmingly negative review - so let's start with the positives. The filter feels very well made. Hard, thick plastics that feel like they'll last. Well placed power cable, suction pads work very well. The spray bar can be adjusted fairly well, used either above or below the surface, or not used at all. The filter has plenty of room for media, I'd argue too much room given its really only suitable for smaller tanks as the actual filter itself becomes fairly bulky. The flow adjustment actually works very well (when its actually working to flow, that is). When it's working, it's actually great. Very good flow, very adjustable. It's just that "when" appears almost never. That's it. The actual functional elements of the filter, every single aspect about it is bad. I'll start with the minor things. The connection between the actual filter pump unit and media chamber is shockingly poor, it can slip off under its own weight... Leaving an exposed impeller... Extremely risky to shrimp, smaller fish and fish with long fins like Bettas. The media chamber is an almost sealed plastic unit with only a small number of slits for water inlet right at the bottom, only on one side of the unit. In practise this means the filter blocks up extremely quickly, even though only a small section of media is dirty. The spray bar attachment is far too difficult to move once attached. Just use a rubber washer instead of forcing plastics, for the love of God. The spray bar needed some minor poking to ensure flow through all the holes. That's the minor stuff though. Firstly if you search this filter in the internet, you will see countless comments about a god awful noise. This is a result of the impeller design, it is simply glued onto a spindle with a magnet at the top. Easy to remove and clean, but the mating between the magnet in the spindle and the motor magnet is terrible. High flow rates will cause the entire spindle to oscillate, making it bash against the walls greeting a horrible grinding noise. You can fix this with some minor adjustment and sensible reduction in flow (beyond the minimum the valve on the filter allows). Then you've got the issue of noise if the filter isn't totally clear of air. Which is more or less impossible to achieve thanks to only a single, pin prick airhole being located right on top of the pump unit. You need to turn that thing 360 degrees in every axis until even any air is released. Given the size of the filter chamber, this isn't a very easy task in most smaller fish tanks, as it's difficult to keep the unit submerged while attaching it to the chamber. It's almost impossible to get this thing running noise free without wading your hands through the water for minutes every single time you do a water change or somehow bring the filter above water surface level. Which stresses my fish out, and isn't exactly great given the oils on human skin. A minor issue, sure, but not one you should have at all. Then without fail, every single time, the filter will just lose all suction over a 48 hour period. At first I thought this was a case of my filter media just being clogged up in a new tank, so I ran the filter with no media at all, in a bucket with only fresh tap water. Within 48 hours the flow had reduced to a trickle again. We're talking a reduction in flow from being able to easily breach the surface and spray above the tank even with the bar an 5cm below the surface, to the pump struggling to even build enough pressure to get water out of each hole on the bar. Which in short, makes it totally ineffective as a filter. If I am having to put my hands into the tank every other day, and I can't trust my filter to flow properly for weeks if not months - it's not really going well is it. I'm genuinely amazed such a well known brand has their name on this product, it's simply that bad. I've never had such a negative experience with any aquarium product, from anywhere, as I've had with this.
