PENN-PLAX AquaTerrium Planting Tank – Hydroponic Aquarium with Integrated Filter System for Live Plants and Fish – 1.85 Gallons

I absolutely love this tank. I was hesitant to buy it upon reading the reviews, but it looked too gorgeous to pass up. I have a betta fish that I needed a tank upgrade for, and since everyone said they were small, I bought the largest one available to be safe. He has plenty of space, has plenty of things to rest on and interact with, and the look of it really brings out his colors and emulates his natural environment. The live plants I have in the pockets are also doing very well. The filter is very quiet but you can hear water trickle a bit from drainage in the pockets and it trickling down the fall, it’s super soothing. The plant light is very bright, and it doesn’t run hot. On top of adding my own plants, I use the fake ones that come with it as well to fill the gaps and make it look even more lush. Not having seams at the display in the front is also aesthetically pleasing.Some of the customer reviews are true, but there’s little minor fixes you can do to address them.First of all, people have been saying the filter isn’t strong enough. This is completely bull. If you plugged in the filter and water comes through the top already filling all the plant pockets, once you actually put plants in it, it would overflow. When I got mine, the tube was bent in a spot, and there was too much of it, which actually restricted the whole flow. If it’s still not coming out as strong as you’d like it to at the top, just cut the tube down so that it goes straight up to the top of the tank (so it’s not bent or twisted anywhere to fit all of the tubing it came with). I took a photo of the length I cut my tubin down to so you can see what it looks like in the back, it used to be double that length.Another concern someone had was there were gaps large enough for their female betta to get through to the back and get stuck to the filter. The bottom piece of the fall is completely sealed to the back, and without any gravel there’s a couple small holes, which are easily covered with gravel and even protected with foam that it comes with. Not sure how that would happen but I see no potential issue with it for mine, but my betta is quite large to fit through that anyway if he wanted to. Not to mention, that filter box is so small and doesn’t have THAT much sucking power, just the perfect amount.The only downside to this tank is that it’s a it of a pain to clean, at least from what I can tell right now (I haven’t had to clean it yet, it stays beautiful for a long time). The bottom base of the fall is attached to the tank, and you can’t remove it to really scrub in harder places without using a toothbrush or something.I hope my experience that I’ve had with this tank helps!

So far I'm impressed with this thing. I'll update as I get it more set up, but there were so many complaints about it I thought I should review it just as I got it. The pump is tiny but more than adequate for a waterfall that size. It has a dial to increase the flow which some people may overlook. The planters are also tiny, but not smaller than advertised. They will work for many small houseplants and semi aquatic plants- and the bottom 2 need to be semi aquatic as they will be below the water line. The rock work is not exactly pretty in places but it is rough and it seems to me it's meant to have terrestrial or semi aquatic moss grafted to it, which was my plan. Everywhere it's the more polished brownish surface, which is all that would be visible if moss was growing on it, it looks great. And let's talk about filtration even though I haven't started using it- all it comes with IS a sponge filter to cover the intake holes and the top of the waterfall. But the filtration is supposed to come from live plants. I have a large aquaponics system and it definitely works. We'll see how this number of plants and moss works for it. But your biofilter (beneficial nitrifying bacteria, not a mechanical filter) is essential, if ammonia isn't being properly processed into nitrites and then nitrates your water will still get toxic. I do not know why they say this would work with all artificial plants, because then it IS a joke of a filtration system. If you wanted to do that you would need to find a way to hide a mechanical filter in the cavity of the rock work and there is very little room for more than a heater and the tiny pump. I'm going to try to fit an ultrasonic fogger and air pump down there and I'm not sure it will fit. Now let's talk about picking the right life for a nano tank with rough decorations. You should have more inverts than fish to help process the waste, and you shouldn't pick fish with flowy delicate fins like bettas. They will hurt themselves on the rough edges. A betta may be ok if you have enough live plants to cushion the rockwork but his fins will inevitably get knicked. This is a great tank for dwarf shrimp and snails. Cory catfish and platies would probably be content in it, but only a few. Anything that needs a school of 6 would probably be cramped. Tetras and danios included. Goldfish are an ok choice and don't need a heater, but be aware they are huge waste producers for their size. It might be hard for the aquaponics to keep up, with just a few small house plants.Anyway I would call this thing a great value- a waterfall feature for a reptile enclosure or vivarium that size would easily cost what this whole tank sells for unless you built it yourself. It's going to take some work and know how to set it up the way I want, but duh. It's a ####ing fish tank. No one should buy an item like this expecting it to be truly "plug and play" no matter what the manufacturer says.Edit 1/27/19So this little thing does in fact work fine and keep up with the waste from some platies. I have a mystery snail, 2 nerites, a breeding colony of dwarf shrimp (neocardina davidi), a cordydora catfish, and a few breeding platies and all have done fine. I decided to set it up like an Amazon dark water setup, so some soil and sediment with gravel, which gives the water sort of an iced tea look. When setting it up I decided this made more sense for the slow "current" created by the little baby pump and trickling waterfall than, say for instance, a temperate river. For my plants I've had English ivy (not exactly amazonian but it looks cool), a bromeliad, a fern and a miniature palm up top, with some Christmas tree moss in the water and a few kinds of terrestrial moss everywhere you see yellow. The palm just recently sort of gave up, not sure why, maybe it was just the end of its natural life or maybe it got damaged in my recent move, but it was great until very recently. The ivy and bromeliad have gone CRAZY and continue to thrive. The terrestrial moss and the ferns both seem to struggle, I think they get too much water. So I'm still working on getting the perfect plants.My fish and shrimp have always been great though, and the water quality is always constant. My other aquaponics system is like that, too, just so incredibly un-fussy and reliable, so I'm not really surprised but it's interesting that it works so well even on this scale. My picture doesnt look great, but I just moved so my plants and moss got all jostled, so I have some work to do there- the important part is that the filtration works and has kept the fishies and, even more significantly, the shrimpies happy and healthy.One note, the tubing from the pump to the waterfall is held in place with a little pin bisecting the tube- sometimes this gets clogged. So if your pump suddenly or gradually loses power, try taking a skewer or a cut clothes hanger and messing with the tube. I have to do this every few months and it always has fixed it for me. Aside from that the only maintenance I've had to do is on the plants- no water changes or vacuuming or any of that with the setup I've chosen.