recommendation for a 2.6G all in one aquarium.

somewhatshocked said:

Is this the Fluval Spec III you're talking about? I have several of them. They're incredibly popular here on the forum.

If you keep shrimp, you'll want to make a couple (easy) modifications - check the link in my signature for details.

But plants? You can grow any stem you want as long as you trim regularly. But Crypts, Anubias, Buces, Java Fern, et al are all easy and slow-growing. There are just tons of options.

What sort of hardscape will you have?

I recommend you search the Tank Journals section to see how others have set up their Specs. Tons of photos to browser through.

Click to expand...

Yes, I think its the Fluval Spec III like you show there. I would have never even considered such a high end aquarium had it not bee on some kind of black Friday sale at the time.

I also found some dragon stone I purchased off an ebay seller a few years ago but never used. It was still in the USPS box. I found a small piece of that, I have put in a few Bruce plants attached to lava rock and I put in some unused eco-complete, not the crushed lava rock one but the other type they sell with more earthy look to it.

I basically just used a bunch of things I had laying around the house and in my other aquariums. Probably not the optimal setup.

Strange thing is years ago, I purchased something from another company that look almost identical to the Fluval but it was made by another company. It was no way near the build quality of the Fluval. It was like some kind of flimsy plastic and basic filter.

This Fluval on the other hands almost seem like you could turn it into a reef tank if you wanted to. In all my years in this hobby, I never had such a cool looking upscale tank like this.

Most of my tanks had cheesy ornaments and big air stones with a hang of back filter.

This is truly on another level for me. I feel like this is some futuristic space age aquarium.
Maybe I can improve the look by copying what others have done .

Thank you for the suggestions.


P.S. This forum allows photo now? In the past, I think you had to upload to a 3rd party site and like post a link to the photo.

sirnukesalot007 said:

This forum allows photo now?

Click to expand...

Yep. But a lot of people still use third-party options so they have more control over their photos.

sirnukesalot007 said:

This Fluval on the other hands almost seem like you could turn it into a reef tank if you wanted to.

Click to expand...

A lot of people do just that - it's really popular among nano reefers (Nano-Reef) and some don't even have to change out the lighting.

Just to clarify an earlier point I made about modifications to make the tank safe for shrimp, it's really simple. Here are some photos from some of my Spec tanks that I modified:




As you can see, it just takes a bit of silicone to fill up the gaps so shrimp don't get through. I also use bits of fiberglass window screen material because it's cheap and easy to cut to the right size. Gives the silicone a bit of added strength.

I use a piece of stainless steel mesh behind the intake and hold it in place with some sponges. But it can also be siliconed in and window screen material also works.

Should be noted that these modifications are quick and easy to remove if you ever want to change things up, start a pico reef or sell the tank.