Having just torn down my wife's Biorb (betta tank) for a normal tank, I can give some feedback on it.
The tank itself was the round version, not the square Life version...but they both use the same filtration.
The way the filter works is a bubbler in the middle pushes water up the lift tube you see in the pictures. This draws water down through the special gravel and up through the filter sponge. The idea is that the bacteria can grow in the filter sponge and in the gravel.
It's an ok idea in theory, but there's a problem. The gravel is too large to be pushed around by a gravel vac...if you could even get one in there. All the fish waste falls down and works it's way deeper and deeper into the large open spaces in the gravel. Eventually it gets so bad under the gravel that the intakes for the filter lift tube get plugged.
The only way to effectively clean this tank is to remove ALL the gravel.
The tank looked great, but it just didn't work long term.