The Fluval Accent was unveiled at SuperZoo last week showing an innovative and simple-to-maintain aquarium. The new aquarium is promising to see from the industry stalwart, especially with the upcoming marine systems from Fluval we’ve spotted this past year. You can tell the Fluval team wanted to create a system with enough features for most freshwater applications (and possibly a simple saltwater setup as well), that was easy to take care of and was stylish. We think Fluval hit all three marks.
This really is a solid starter system that gets you up and running in 60 minutes or less. And, thanks to what Fluval is calling its SIMPLETEC® Technology, the aquarium maintenance can be done in as little as 10 minutes, once a month.
The Fluval Accent’s filtration is a simple card that includes filter media and carbon. The system also features a water change system where you just slide a bucket under the spout, press the drain lever and drain away some water making it much easier than the traditional method of siphons and buckets.
The aquarium itself is a 25 gallon glass aquarium with integrated filtration and LED lighting for day and night lighting. The integrated filter has a decorative filter cover uses the “fresh & clear” filter cartridge and biological filtration media. The system also comes with a 150W pre-set heater, Fluval Biological Enhancer and Fluval Water Conditioner.
One of the main reasons new aquarists are out of the hobby within a year is the tedious maintenance regimen that gets in the way of enjoying a thriving aquarium. If the maintenance gets overwhelming water quality degrades, the tank begins to look ugly, livestock is lost and a budding hobbyist may just end up walking away.
By making maintenance a simple process, it gives you more opportunity to be successful and in turn, learn more about what is inside your glass box. Who knows, maybe even turn into a serious reefer! Granted some of us enjoy the tinkering and maintenance of our systems, but others would rather go for simplicity and automation.
The system is stylish and we are like that they included LED lights. We aren’t sure if there is any on-board controller with these lights but this would be a great feature to have. As microcomputers are getting pretty inexpensive, we would love to see a simple dashboard to control this tank.
A simple light timer with at least two intensities would be a great feature. Also a simple LED system or even an LCD panel to light up when a filter needs to be changed or a water change is due. We would like to see Fluval take this a step further and add in a simple online dashboard to send reminder text messages or emails when maintenance is due. They could also set it up to have maintenance products automatically shipped from your preferred retailer. Just set in your settings and get a package every 30, 60 or 90 days with enough products to do your monthly maintenance.
You can buy the aquarium and stand combo or each unit separately. The combination is retailing for around $400 USD.
