For decades Fluval has undoubtedly been one of the leaders in aquarium equipment manufacturing, with their canister filters being among the standard bearers for heavy duty freshwater aquarium filtration. Although practically no one uses canister filters for saltwater or reef aquarium applications, this didn’t stop us from getting very excited upon seeing a video in our feed titled Fluval Roma Bluetooth Aquarium.
Our enthusiasm was short lived when we realized that the Fluval Roma might be a pretty swanky freshwater setup but the only thing bluetooth about it is the LED light, a feature that many of us have enjoyed for nearly 10 years. The Roma Aquarium also includes a high quality heater, powerful canister filter, a modern styled stand and an aquarium pre-drilled for discrete plumbing of the canister filter.
At first we felt cheated by the advertising bait and switch, but then we realized if the marketing team sees value in calling a the entire kit a Bluetooth Aquarium, surely one day the design department will follow suit. How cool would it be to have a bluetooth enabled heater to log and report current temperature and daily ranges, and similarly connected filter to notify users of current flow speed and time since the last cleanup?
Having the lighting, temperature control, and primary filtration all reporting back to one universal smartphone app would truly be worthy of being called a ‘Bluetooth Aquarium’. This kind of control over all of the major parameters of an aquarium will enable not only a better, deeper understanding of your aquarium, but it will really unlock the opportunities to create seasonal changes and the stimuli necessary to induce many more fish to spawn.
We’re already seeing the beginnings of a totally wireless controlled aquarium appear in the reef aquarium hobby and on a long enough timeline this novelty will trend towards being the norm. Whether Fluval actually leans into their own ‘bluetooth aquarium’ marketing or other companies lead the charge, it’s only a matter of time until we see complete aquarium kits that deliver on this promise of total controllability.
