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Home > House & Garden > Pets > Fish > Aquariums & Tanks > Reef One Aquariums & Tanks
It's pretty but is it practical? 10 of 10 Ciao Users found the following review helpful
Rating from curious_k 3 Stars ()

Advantages unusual, magnifies the fish, visually attractive, good quality equipment

Disadvantages fiddly to clean, small fish capacity, expensive add-ons

I bought my 30 litre tropical BiOrb with halogen light last year. The product is definitely well made - after 14 months everything still runs smoothly, and I haven't had to replace any parts apart from the disposable filter cartridges (about £6.50 every 6 weeks or so).

My BiOrb came in at around the £100 mark. If you want to spend less, you can have a coldwater or smaller (15L) tank. If you want more, you can get programmable LED lights, a larger (60L) tank, and any manner of money-spinning add-ons (£5 for feng shui pebbles anyone?!).

One lovely thing about the BiOrb in visual terms is that it magnifies everything inside and brings out the shapes and colours of your fish and plants, making the tank look full and lively without needing to overcrowd it. This is just as well, for reasons detailed below!

Drawback: the design is NOT as user-friendly as a conventional tank. That lovely globe shape means you have to access and clean the whole tank through a small circular hole in the top! If you have live plants, chunky decorations, a build-up of detritus (e.g. dead leaves) right down in the bottom - or even just large hands - you are going to be cursing your BiOrb come cleaning-out time. I find mine hard to clean and it is never as mess-free as I'd like. You will have to hoover and scrub the gravel/sides just as much as in any other aquarium, though the filter cartridge is nice and easy to change, and a lot of the fish poo etc obligingly collects underneath it to be syphoned up.

The shape of the tank means there is less surface area than a usual 30L aquarium = less oxygen for your fish. The way around this is to leave the water level fairly low, but it still seems wasteful. You can't keep as many fish as you could in a rectangular-shaped 30 litre tank, for example, because they haven't got as much surface space to feed and get oxygen. I think the stocking levels recommended by the manufacturers are extremely optimistic - 4 or 5 smallish fish is as high as I'm willing to go, personally. I do wonder whether this under-gravel filter removes as much rubbish from the water as the more common overhead filters, but the water looks clear and the filter sponges include activated carbon to remove chemical nasties.

All in all, I enjoy looking at it a lot now that I have it, but I don't think I would buy it again if I could go back in time. For £100 or so you can get larger capacity in an easier to maintain format, hence more fish and less mess, and that's what counts in the long term.
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See next review "Baby BiOrb A NO"

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  • sandemp 01/06/2010 16:11
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  • majeedkazi 17/07/2008 10:24
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    Nice Review

  • MAFARRIMOND 17/07/2008 08:12
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  • tajo_dre 17/07/2008 00:47
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