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What are the big pros of sponge filters?


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Hello! I am formulating the plan to design a fish room and I had a quick question about filtration. I've mostly used canister and power filters but am interested in the big craze of sponge filters. The only sponge filter I have is in a 4g Biorb and whenever the pump touches something it starts to raddle and make a lot of noise. I also had a bad experience with the pump getting disconnected from the tube and the tube beginning to siphone out water into the bottom of my aquarium. But when I see all of the KG Tropicals and Co-Op videos and how they almost swear by them in their smaller aquariums I am really curious if I am either doing something wrong or if there are some benefits that are unknown to me. Just curious. Thanks!

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There are a lot of pros for sponge filters, 

Excellent for biological filtration, okay at mechanical filtration, cheap and easy to use, pretty much just drop and plop. They oxygenate the water while also cleaning  it, they are really powerful filtration while having a very light current for fish that do not like high flow. During a power outage they are inside the tank and will not dry out. They won't leak on your floor. 

I am not sure what your looking for but there is a few, they only have two cons, they are ugly and you have to put your hand in the tank to clean it. IMO it is the best type of filter though. 

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Additionally, they really make a lot of sense it you have a lot of tanks, if you use a single larger pump to power them all. Less energy use, less moving parts to fail, it takes up less room outside of the tanks (as compared to canisters or HOBs), probably less expensive overall (canisters aren't cheap), quick to maintain (pull the sponge out, squeeze it in a bucket of water change water a few times, put it back. A lot faster than a canister filter). I find that they provide plenty enough mechanical filtration for my tanks.

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1 hour ago, Patrick M. Bodega Aquatics said:

Thank you very much! Are there any tips on not making the pump super loud?

That comes down more to the type of pump your using, you can try putting it on a cloth or something if the sound is coming from in vibrating on something. If it has two outlets, and you only have an air tube on one outlet, adding a second one would also reduce noise. 

If the noise is coming from the motor itself, getting a quieter pump would be the best way to do it. I forgot the brand name off the top of my head, but the grey one from petsmart is pretty quiet, (aqueon?) the aquarium coop nano pumps are the quietist by far, and I use them to power my sponge filters in my 270 gallon, so pretty powerful. They do not run the Ziss filters though, you need a stronger pump for them. 

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I'm pretty much all on ACO sponge filters and I love them. But I also have a fluval HOB for each of my 36g livebearer tanks because man there's a lot of fish in there and I want to keep the water flow brisk. But for all my other tanks with gouramis, CPDs, bettas, killifish, others that want little to no current? One sponge filter does the trick.

Pros:
Very inexpensive
ACO's nano pump makes no sound at all unless I stick it next to something jangly
Aerates and filters without strong waterflow
Can be easily swapped into any new tank to help establish it
Impossible to hurt fish, fry, or shrimp (unless they somehow get themselves stuck around it?)

Cons:
Takes up precious floor space
Looks ugly unless you surround it with very tall, very fast-growing plants
Is basically impossible to clean without making a mess, either in your tank or on your floor

So, if you have fish that need a strong current and you have filters/pumps that you like, no need to switch, but if you have a lot of breeding tanks or QTs or fish that need still water, sponge filters are a great way to do it.

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Sponge filters are cheap and efficient. However for a large fish room you could also consider a large central filter and pipe all the tanks through it - the negative is disease can inflict all tanks at once and adding the plumbing. 

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In my smaller tanks I use hamburg matten filter which are basically a large sponge - i have them in my 29s and 40 - they clog about once every 8 or 9 months and i have to take them out and squeeze them but they seem quite effective (i use fairly thick dense sponge from swisstropical) - of course all these filters can be run off a single air pump so they are relatively efficient with regards to energy and cost. The effectiveness of trapping fine particles depend on the media use as sponges can be quite fine but of course the finer they are the quicker they clog so there is that trade off. In my 120 i use an fx6 and really need to add more current to that tank - maybe i'll setup a power head (pia because of the thick frame) or wve maker. In all my tanks have a extra sponge filters (fishes love them for the microfilm that forms on them as well as the kuhli love hiding under them - so there is that consideration.

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As for kirsten comment on making a mess - well i don't quite get that one - either with canister filters or sponges - just use a pail.

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HOB - i dislike them. I had one on a 40 breeder for a while (aquaclear) the current was too abrupt and centralized and quite frankly the volume of media was too small for the space it took up but a lot of people swear by them. There seems to be 3 popular well regarded models - aquarclear, tidal and one of the newer marineland - which has a rather unique design.

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hahah, well, my definition of "mess" is probably very minimal for most people. It's just a bit of a struggle to reach all the way in to the bottom and back of a tank, often among lots of tall and tangled plants, get it in a plastic bag that's big enough, then setting it back down without stirring up a bunch of debris. It also usually involves some splashing and dripping to get the lid off and get the dirty water up and out of the tank. So, not as easy to clean as an external filter. Still, the best filtration for the money in my opinion.

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I've got some matten filters right now I am playing with, but for small tanks I like a box filter more than a sponge for all of the mess reasons mentioned above.  The big reason though is that box filters can be whatever you like.  They are like little sumps in that way.  If you want more mechanical filtration, use filter floss as the top layer, and pull it out once a week (or whenever it gets dirty, which is easy to assess).  Need more bioreaction/nitrification?  Devote more space to that with some lava rock or something similar.  It's air driven so it has all the energy efficiency advantages of a sponge filter, it's just way, way more flexible as a platform.  You could even fill the box with sponges if you really like that material.  🤪

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22 hours ago, GardenStateGoldfish said:

There are a lot of pros for sponge filters, 

Excellent for biological filtration, okay at mechanical filtration, cheap and easy to use, pretty much just drop and plop. They oxygenate the water while also cleaning  it, they are really powerful filtration while having a very light current for fish that do not like high flow. During a power outage they are inside the tank and will not dry out. They won't leak on your floor. 

I am not sure what your looking for but there is a few, they only have two cons, they are ugly and you have to put your hand in the tank to clean it. IMO it is the best type of filter though. 

In power failures before a generator, I would attach a battery air pump direct to my sponges filters, keeping some filtration and adding oxygen too.  I run sponge filters in all the tanks for this reason.  :classic_smile:

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Patrick;

I've used sponge filters for years in several sized tanks and they're great.

They're fairly cheap, they're easy to use, there are no moving parts, they oxygenate the water very well, they're good to have in a breeding or grow-out tank, they're great to have in a quarantine tank, they filter the water very well, but you can't add other filter media such as peat moss to duplicate a black water environment.

To prevent a loose hose from siphoning water from a tank, install a check valve between the pump and the filter so if the power goes off, any backflow stops immediately.

Are you using plastic air hose or silicon air hose? 

I've noticed that silicon will stretch and fall off pretty easy.

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On 4/29/2021 at 3:41 PM, Gator said:

Patrick;

I've used sponge filters for years in several sized tanks and they're great.

They're fairly cheap, they're easy to use, there are no moving parts, they oxygenate the water very well, they're good to have in a breeding or grow-out tank, they're great to have in a quarantine tank, they filter the water very well, but you can't add other filter media such as peat moss to duplicate a black water environment.

To prevent a loose hose from siphoning water from a tank, install a check valve between the pump and the filter so if the power goes off, any backflow stops immediately.

Are you using plastic air hose or silicon air hose? 

I've noticed that silicon will stretch and fall off pretty easy.

Thanks for all the info! I'm pretty sure that it was a silicone air hose. The check valve is a good idea!

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