Been thinking about picking one of these up for awhile...

No matter which way I point my return nozzle in my 29 gallon Biocube, a steady flow of water rolls down my front glass to the sand bed and really upsets my mushrooms. I want something that will give me a little more random and turbulent flow throughout the display.

Does anyone have any personal experience with these? In a Biocube, or otherwise?

garbage bro. after a while they lock up and require cleaning. after a while they stick and don't unstick..

get a controllable powerhead to get some random flow.

this is a pretty good product, it definantly randomizes/decreases flow, and its cheap,
but i find they can be broken easy by snails....if it gets stuck in one position the teeth of the gears gets worn down and they wont spin anymore....ive had snails that habitualy took rides on mine....

other than that id give it 4 outa 5 stars.....

$$$ is my problem =(

they work for like 6 months (with intensive cleaning) then they just never spin for longer than 30 mins...
you could get one though...they do work really well while its last.

For the price it is a great product. I have been using mine for almost 7 months, completely covered in coralline algae and still going strong. Yes it will break down eventually but then you just buy another....

A great cheap way to get variable flow…


oh yea, and I have never cleaned mine. And many snails have taken rides on it...

there is also a sweeping one by zoomed, my brother has been using it for a few weeks and it is doing fine

i just recently took my flo's off of my 75g because they stopped working... altogether... with intensive cleaning... the just (I)ME
your lucky to have them still...

I think I could deal with that. They're like $10 or something.

Do they have to be glued into place, or anything... or do they just pop on? (in regards to the biocube)



Hmm. Never heard about that. Thank you for the tip, doc.

I have one hooked up to my MJ900 in my NC12DX. I use it in addition to a Hydor Koralia Nano. I've had it now for about 2 months, and have cleaned it once with no problems. It does a great job of distributing the flow, although I think it does decrease flow from the pump by a bit.

I was able to pop it on the outtake with one of the fittings that came with the unit.

Yea they do reduce flow a little bit, but IMO it's worth it.

I've heard that from just about everyone, but I also have a Koralia 1 running in there so I don't think it'll be much of a problem.

while the zoo med power sweep gives nice random flow, its generally a POS....

its big,its ugly...it takes up ALOT of real estate, and is 3-4 times the price of something that will pretty much end up with the same problem...worn out plastic gears....

ive gone through alot of hydorflo deflectors......and still buy em for any nano 14gal or less i set up.....

if i had a 40 breeder or better then id look into something more reliable...

but bang for your buck, if you can get a year out of a hydorflo, you got your moneys worth...

i save all my old ones and i piece together another to get me by month to month....

now if only someone would make one with carbon fiber or ceramic gears....

maybe we would get better wear and tear out of one.......

Great product for the price. It does reduce the flow quite a bit and like others have said eventually the gears will stick and can't be fixed
4 outta 5 for me

i use it in my 12dx with a mj900 and it works great. Snails do like to go on rides and sometimes make it stop, but all i do is knock them off and it starts rotating again. So for $9 and the 2 months its been going strong without any cleaning i would def reccomend it.

I also have a NC12dx with a mj900 and the hydo-flo and I love it. I have had it foe about ten months and have taken it off and held it under the sink once to clean it. My snail have ridden on it and a large snail used to get stuck on it btw the glass and stop it and still mine works like a champ. I would recommend it for sure

i've got one on my BC29.
i ran into the same issues though with it just put on the stock inlet... blows all the sand out of the bottom left corner down to the bottom of the tank.
solution = add loc-line so you can point it where you want.
simple mod:
1. remove the duck bill from the stock flow deflector
2. sand down the ball side until if fits into a standard loc-line (i think it's 1/2" loc line)
3. snap on the flo
done.

i've been very happy with it.
3 months and no problems.

cheers...

I've had mine for 6 months and my frogspawn and other lps love it. I've cleaned twice and it seems to be doing just fine. Even if it breaks these things are so cheap I would be fine buying one every 6 months

I've been running one of these in my NC12-DX for 4 years (yes, years) powered by an MJ900, it has only stopped a handful of times, usually due to a bit of chaeto or other debris getting stuck inside or rarely a snail snooping in the back of it, often I can get it rotating again with a tap or two (or carefully removed snail), but sometimes I need to remove it, in which case I take a toothbrush to it inside and out.
Guess I've got my money's worth out of the device.

On a side note, I used a short piece of thick reinforced vinyl tubing to attach it to the stock outlet nipple, it seems to work a bit better that way (maybe my imagination), as the only adapter that would work went inside the nipple, very slightly reducing flow (imagination again?). Since doing this, its never "popped off" the nipple like it would sometimes do with the provided adapter.

I used it for a little while in my biocube with an upgraded pump, then it broke. Didn't find it worthwhile to buy another one.

I've had one on my BC8 with the MJ900 for a few years now - other than the occasional snail riding it (and then wedging themselves against the rock and stopping the whole thing) it's worked mostly flawlessly - occasionally like mentioned it will just stop spinning but generally a small twist or tap to the unit will get it going again. I had a problem for a while with it shooting out of the outlet on the back wall - but I fixed that by superglueing it in the hole