Review on 📦 Fluval Flex 15 and Flex 57L Media Basket for inTank Chamber One by Cassie Turner

First of all I have to say that I have not had a very good experience with the chamber 1 or 2 material baskets sold by Intank for the Fluval Flex 15. If you would like to see my review of the Material Baskets for Chamber 2 you can go to this Return Ad and you will find my review there. This review focuses on baskets for first camera environments. First of all, it's worth noting that the Flex 15's tray area is a little unusual, with ribs and clips to hold food in place. This intank company seems to have made products that fit these Flex 15 cameras, but they left out the details that actually make it difficult to install, remove, and use a single basket camera. The design of this cup set looks like what you want at first glance. Its purpose is to suck water into the upper basket, pass it through it, then the middle basket and its surroundings, then the lower basket and its surroundings. Then finally to channel the exiting water into the separated area of the Flex 15 that goes into chamber 2. There are many issues with the Flex 15, which has a large fin that runs down the center of Chamber 1. It is designed to support any chassis or basket to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the chamber. Intank designed this set of media baskets with a slot on the back of the two bottom baskets to accommodate this fin of the Flex 15. This causes a lot of problems when adding media to the bottom two baskets of this Chamber 1 box. All the media you put in these baskets will get caught on the rib, preventing you from lowering the box all the way into the chamber. If you're using larger pieces of media or packed them in a bag, the Flex 15 fin will rip them apart. Even something as light as filter yarn will get stuck in the baskets because the rib goes deep into each basket. Had Intank added a solid plastic covered slot to the back of the box, this could have been avoided by separating the media inside the box from the edge. Every time you remove and reinsert these baskets, you have to try and fail at loading media. The flex fin catches everything that gets in its way. This makes replacing this camera 1 a nightmare in most cases as it is difficult to remove and difficult to install. Now for the other problem with these cage 1 baskets: you have to remove the small mesh covers that are mounted in the fish area of the tank from the inlet. Connections above and below. The media baskets will not slide past them and may even break when installed when the baskets are lowered. Now, if you decide that the rib will capture the media and the two inlet guards are removed, the basket will slide inward until the Flex 15's rib stops it. Many small fish, shrimp and the like can now enter these slots and get into the upper basket if they get into the upper opening, or get caught under and behind the baskets if they get into the lower slots. You will not be able to reattach the port covers/guards as the location where they snap into the grilles is now occupied by the edges of the media drawer in Chamber 1. It looks like Intank wanted to make sure the back of the media drawer completely cover the bottom connector and the sump won't use it anymore. All water then enters the top port and passes through all 3 media baskets before being emptied from the bottom and entering chamber 2. Makes sense. But the back wall of the chamber 1 box is 1/8 to 1/4 inch from the bottom inlet. This creates another problem. So the bottom port is not blocked at all! Most of the water flows freely from the bottom port behind the entire chamber 1 box and goes straight through chamber 2. Bypassing all 3 media boxes! And it's not just a drop of water. That is about 60% of the water consumption. So much for filtering the entire water column! And since the upper and lower inlets are now open for small fish, your fish (especially shrimp, cowli trout and the like) will start to get stuck in the sump, which is very dangerous for them and an absolute nightmare for them. them out of these little chambers that you can't easily put a net or a hand in! You can't reattach the air intake covers, so you'll have to improvise. Take a piece of sponge or ideally a firm piece of aquarium safe plastic and completely plug the bottom inlet. When your tank is dry you can seal it with silicone or just completely fill the bottom inlet with silicone. If you already have aquarium inhabitants and water, you will need to block the bottom inlet well enough to prevent water from passing through and critters from finding their way through the grates. This also means your pump can run dry if the water level drops below the top inlet. So this is not the best solution. I have Kuhli loaches that are pretty smart and cunning. There is no place they don't explore and they often endanger themselves. The first two things I tried (blocking the bottom air intake) seemed to work until I saw a crew of 5 chars dig up and move my foam barriers and gravel to port. Eventually I caulked it by putting a fairly thick piece of low flow foam in there that would clog things up over time and not let much water through but would still let a little through so the pump couldn't run dry . Then I had to put a heavy rock on top and cover everything with gravel. The coolies turned over the gravel several times. But they haven't figured out how to move the stone, so it and the foam are still there. (Maybe one day I'll wake up and see that they found a way to move the stone. (LOL!) Now the flow of water into the bottom hole is minimal. Then I cut a piece of foam from the original filter material and lay it into the carrier's top basket. Not only does it act as a 1st stage filter, but it's also packed so densely that Kuhlis can't get past it. Basically, I wanted most of my chamber 1's baskets to be mechanically water-filtered, and the 2 baskets my chamber are bio or chemical environments.The flow and water level in the sump is too high so I removed the Fluval pre-filter media and made the foam sponge a little thinner and now the flow through the sump and the water level is much better.But I also had an issue with the individual carrier baskets. Pops open and pushes back the corner of the hood/lid, one of the baskets again with heavier pre-filter filling, seems to stay way down better. But even all the way down, the top basket extends about 8 inches past the edge of the lid, so my hood/lid never goes all the way down like it used to. Not a big deal, but I feel like a longer cut had to be made in the back to move the baskets down another 1/4 inch or so to keep the top from touching the rim of the lid. Now I also don't have instructions on how to install either camera 1 or 2 media baskets. Given all the things I had to do to get these baskets working, maybe it would have been easier with instructions and tips. But as you can read, I finally figured it out. I noticed that old YouTube videos related to this media container showed simple instructions. But both camera baskets had no instructions on or inside the boxes I received. There was also a small piece of black plastic that appears to be engineered to fit the top inlet to allow water to flow through. Basket. Looks like 3D printed. The problem was that it didn't have two tabs far enough apart to fit in the grille in any combination of slots. It was pretty flimsy and I broke one of the levers/eyelets trying to install it. I noticed several people on YouTube writing that they are broken. I don't think it fits the Fluval Flex 15 or I don't understand where it fits. Or maybe Fluval changed the port size specs and that little detail was made for an older measurement. I don't use it now and don't know what it was actually for. Instructions would be nice here too. In summary, it was a real struggle to install and somehow force this camera media basket 1. I feel like the Fluval has changed its tank specs quite a bit since its design. I've had this basket work so far but pulling it out and putting it back in is going to hurt every time as the flex fin goes through the baskets and scratches the contents inside. I cannot recommend this camera. a media tray for those who don't want to redo everything to make it work properly. It can be made to work, but I probably won't leave it installed until I find more permanent solutions to its problems. I spent several hours trying to temporarily solve his problems. But since it works for now, I'll give it an average rating, but I don't recommend it unless you like tinkering and don't have the opportunity to change it entirely. I feel like I wasted my money on these baskets as they were quite expensive for their poor performance.