Not only is our design philosophy about creating the most fundamental combination of simplicity, beauty and functionality, but we recognise tried and tested concepts that people already like, and for us this creates an opportunity to take good things and make them great.
This is exactly what we have done with the Norrom Aquarium’s filtration system, and here are some ways we have done this.
Generic Components
Apart from our proprietary filter sponge, which costs less than £15 per year to maintain, every single aspect of our filtration system can be mixed and matched by the most generic components available on the market, so you will never be forced to buy over-priced filter parts.
The Norrom Aquarium filtration system is made up of the following generic filter parts:
- Ceramic rings
- Activated carbon pellets
- Biorb air stone (now also available from many ‘generic’ suppliers)
- Standard airline tubing (inside diameter 4mm, outside diameter 6mm)
- Standard one-way airline valve
- Standard air pump (for a 40L aquarium)
- Substrate (rocks covering the bottom of the aquarium)
Multi-Funtional Air Lift Tube
The air lift tube in the middle of the aquarium carries air upwards creating a powerful pull of water through the filter, and helping to create a circulation of oxygenated water. Unlike any aquarium that has ever been produced, the airlift tube also distributes light from super-bright LEDs in the base of the aquarium, and carries it up towards the top of the aquarium where it is reflected back down by a mirror that is hidden inside the lid.
Thanks to the multi-functional air lift tube, the Norrom Aquarium can be lit without the need for attachments in the lid or wires hanging down from the top.
Fish Safety
Some fish like to swim against the current, and this is why some people complain that their fish become trapped inside air driven filters. We have designed the Norrom Aquarium’s filtration system to be impossible to enter from inside the air lift tube, so if your fish decide to take an adventure down the bubble tube, there will be nowhere else for them to go but back up to the top.
Hidden Components
Despite the benefits of having an air driven filter system that you see in many leading brands of aquarium, some of the more aesthetic complaints include:
- Air pump is too noisy (even with ‘whisper quiet’ pump brands)
- Filter chassis and mechanism is prominent and looks tacky
- Substrate doubles as biological filtration which looks bad
In creating the Norrom Aquarium, we designed the following solutions to each problem:
- The air pump can be permanently housed in an enclosed space inside the base of the tank, cutting the pump noise dramatically (less than 40dB).
- The filter chassis sits in a large groove that sinks inside the base of the aquarium so that once the ceramic media and rocks are added it is naturally hidden from view. Furthermore, the filter chassis and air lift tube are made from precision machined, thick, and crystal clear acrylic. Even the screwing mechanism that encloses the filter comprises a perfectly machined thread, which feels more solid than the push and twist-type mechanisms of comparable brands.
- Ceramic rings, which make up the Norrom Aquarium’s biological filtration, sit within the large groove that is sunk in to the base of the aquarium, so they are naturally hidden from view.
Other Improvements
Whilst keeping the design of the Norrom Aquarium’s filtration system as simplistic as functionally possible, we have also managed to squeeze the following design improvements in, in response to people’s common complaints of similar filtration systems already available on the market:
- The filter sponge contains a large groove, allowing the filter to contain a larger amount of activated carbon (for chemical filtration) than most other comparable models.
- The biological filtration is hidden under the substrate (rocks), making it much safer for bottom-feeding fish, compared to other filtration systems where the biological filtration doubles as the substrate.
- All area-to-volume ratios within every single aspect of the filtration system have been maximised to allow for the greatest amount of hourly flow possible through the filter (more than 6 times the total aquarium volume every single hour) whilst ensuring an evenly distributed flow around the aquarium with no concentrated currents.
- The filter comprises more than 50 separate water intakes, all of which are located under the rocks and ceramic rings. Unlike with many other filtration systems, this makes it especially hard for fish to get sucked in to the filter.
- There are no moving parts that have contact with the water (and dirt), unlike most other filtration systems, leaving fewer things to become clogged up and lose efficiency.
