Well made unit
Written: Nov 06 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good quality, quiet, easy maintenance
Cons: Terrible instructions, assembly a little difficult
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| bstauffer's Full Review: Hagen Fluval 104404 |
My wife and I had been wanting to get a saltwater tank sometime in the future, but we weren't prepared for the startup cost involved. When we returned from our honeymoon, lo and behold, a 30 gallon tank had magically appeared in our apartment. My new sister-in-law, who had absolutely no experience, went to a great degree of trouble to purchase and set up everything for the tank.
She did a fine job. The problem was, the store she bought the supplies at had employees that, quite frankly, didn't know what the hell they were talking about. This didn't help, because she didn't find out until later. (Very) Long story short, due to the incompetence of the staff, she bought a hang-on filter that was far too small for our tank, and we had to replace it. Luckily, they let us return it, and the employee who helped us (and did know what she was talking about) recommended the Fluval 204.
It looked up to the job and appeared to be very high-quality, so I went with it. Got it home, took everything out of the box. I'm one of those people that says "screw the manual" and just jumps right in. Quite ineffective with this filter. There aren't that many pieces, but the assembly isn't exactly a walk in the park for a rookie. And, as others have noted, the instructions are wretched. They really are. It took me probably around 2 hours from opening the box to having it running. Not too bad.
After that, though, it's really been a great unit. It's extremely quiet, and I've had no problems with it. Maintenance seemed to be a complaint of the 103-403 models, and while I haven't dealt with one, I can say that I haven't had any issues with this one. There's a feature (called "aqua stop" I think) that lets you very easily disconnect the tubes from the filter. Basically, you unplug the unit, lift this handle, give the tubes a few seconds to drain, then just take the filter to the sink. Simple as can be.
I plan to get a larger tank someday, and I wouldn't hesitate to buy another Fluval.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
bstauffer
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Location: Columbus, Ohio
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 5 members
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