Fluval 06 Filter Review (Fluval 206)
I’ve been told you can replace it 5/8″ tubing, or use a reducer to go down to 1/2″ and run my normal inline heater and such without any reduction in flow, as the fluval tubing itself is pretty close to 1/2″ but the connectors are 5/8″. This is certainly a plus, because the filter has a certain “plastic” feel like most filters these days, and I found myself afraid of putting too much force on something and breaking it during the assembly of the filter. The Fluval intake/outtake tubes are a bit clunky, but they’ve been replaced in the 06′s with clearer alternatives. The fluval ribbed tubing makes it nearly impossible to connect to any sort of inline heater or CO2 diffuser though. In effort to get some of the stuff out of my tank, I purchased a Hagen Fluval 206 filter. According to it’s product description: pre-filter foam -> bio-foam -> biomedia -> polishing pad + chemical media. One of the nice things about this filter is that, as per the box anyway, it comes with a 3 year warranty. I suspect all filter manufacturers make a nice chunk of change off the use of proprietary tubing. I took everything out of the box, and conveniently, this filter comes with all of the media you probably need. Hooking the filter up was pretty simple, I didn’t have too much trouble outside of hoping I didn’t accidentally snap the lever off the Aquastop. One critique I had with the media though was the 06 line’s new ‘Bio-foam’ that sits in the bottom tray. I was thinking about replacing the biofoam with hose, but I’ll try out the biofoam and withhold judgement on the media setup for now. As for the flow, it blows my older filter completely out of the water (I liked that pun…). If you’re running a planted tank, the bags of carbon probably aren’t particularly useful.