A bottom of the tank Matten filter?

[gardenman]

I'll be updating this thread as things progress. The foam has made it to South Jersey already, so it could be here tomorrow or Tuesday. I think I'm going to use some monofilament fishing line to sew the plants in place. Just push the line all the way through the foam and around the base of the plants then knot it on the backside of the foam. Not too tight and not too loose. That should anchor the plants in place until they can take root in the foam. Once I have the foam cut down and the right size, I can then sew the plants in place before the foam hits the tank. With the tank emptied, cleaned out and the UG filter plate in place, I can then add the foam with the plants in place and the tank planting will be done. It sounds easy enough. Then refill the tank, put the fish back in and then wait and watch for four to six weeks and see what happens. Once the Matten filter's had a chance to get established, then I'll pull the sponge filter and we'll see what happens. I don't expect anything dramatic to happen. I would expect the plants and fish to do well. How well the plants do is iffy, but we'll see.

[gardenman]

The foam is coming today. (According to my post office alerts anyway.) It will likely be highly compressed, wrinkled/creased, etc. so it'll need some time to expand/unwrinkle/uncrease before I use it, but things are a bit ahead of schedule. If the foam is ready tomorrow, I'll install it tomorrow. It all comes down to when the foam's ready now. (Assuming the post office does delivery it today.) This will be an interesting experiment. Having looked around a bit more I have found people using Matten filter foam in sumps, so this is kind of an internal sump. They use gravity/pumps to move water through the foam while I'll be using the suction of the UG filter grid. The advantage of having the foam inside the tank is that fish can feed off the microorganisms on/in the foam where they can't in the sump. (Unless a fish boldly goes where no fish has gone before. Well, lots of fish have gone before, but they weren't supposed to.) Knowing that people use the foam in an external sump with good effect implies rather strongly that this plan will work. I'm just more or less putting the sump filtration inside the tank.

Edited November 29, 2021 by gardenman

[anewbie]

I don't like this idea  - as the foam sucks in particles it will clog over time - and once every 8 to 12 months you will have to tear the tank down to get the sponge out and clean it. You can cover it with ground cloth to keep plants from rooting it and reduce the particles that get into it but sooner or later it will need to be cleaned.

-

Btw swisstropical sells very high quality sponges for future refence.

Edited November 29, 2021 by anewbie

[AndEEss]

So, like this at ~14min or so:

 

[gardenman]

That's a classic Matten filter on a back wall in the tanks in the video. They've been used since the fifties or so on the side or back walls. As he says in the video you can go for years without cleaning them. I think a simple gravel vac pressed firmly over the foam should reopen it if/when it clogs. I think using the foam as a substrate with a UG grid will have more evenly distributed water flow through the foam also which could help minimize clogging.  A conventional Matten filter tends to draw more water from the jet tube area rather than from the whole foam surface. A UG filter plate is designed for more even water flow.

The only way I'll find out if this will work is by doing it, so we'll find out soon enough how well it'll work. I'm pretty optimistic. You've got water flowing through foam, What can go wrong? (I'll find out soon enough!)

[Minanora]

Following this. I'm really excited to see this in application. I have high hopes. This could be a great way to set up a breeder. I may try this in my fry growout tank/10g catch all.

[Odd Duck]

On 11/29/2021 at 9:07 AM, gardenman said:

That's a classic Matten filter on a back wall in the tanks in the video. They've been used since the fifties or so on the side or back walls. As he says in the video you can go for years without cleaning them. I think a simple gravel vac pressed firmly over the foam should reopen it if/when it clogs. I think using the foam as a substrate with a UG grid will have more evenly distributed water flow through the foam also which could help minimize clogging.  A conventional Matten filter tends to draw more water from the jet tube area rather than from the whole foam surface. A UG filter plate is designed for more even water flow.

The only way I'll find out if this will work is by doing it, so we'll find out soon enough how well it'll work. I'm pretty optimistic. You've got water flowing through foam, What can go wrong? (I'll find out soon enough!)

I’m liking this idea more and more, especially after watching the video.  I think if I were doing this, I would probably not put much (if any) wood, or plecos that need wood, into the tank since wood bits rotting away or in pleco poop will take far longer to be fully dissolved/rotted with higher risk for clogging.  I think as long as you don’t overload the tank, you should be pretty OK.  Especially if you add some shrimp that will help clean the filter for you.

[gardenman]

The foam's here. It came just folded in half so that's good. No real compression or creasing issues. Here's a photo of it sitting beneath the UG filter tray for a size comparison. It's looks a bit brownish in the photo but it's jet black. I'll be measuring the inside of the tank later this afternoon and cutting the foam about a half inch bigger so that it gets a bit compressed when squeezed into the tank. The foam is from Aquaneat and the excess foam will likely be cut to fit my Cascade canister filter basket for a bio and polishing layer. 

So, today I'll get the foam cut. Make the holes for the uplift tubes. (A snug fit again.) And then wait until tomorrow and install everything, I've got a Sterilite container I use to hold the fish/water when I clean a tank and I'll move the water and fish to that along with their existing sponge filter. Then remove the old substrate, clean the tank. Sew the plants onto the foam the put in the new UG filter and foam in and return the fish and water to the tank. I'll start around nine and should be done by noon. Then we'll see what happens from there. I'll keep the existing sponge filter and small HOB in place for five or six weeks then remove the sponge filter and hope the hybrid Matten filter is ready to take over. I think this will work.

[gardenman]

And the foam is now cut and ready to go. I just did X cuts for the lift tubes and that worked fine. The cheap, long razor knife from a dollar store (pictured atop the foam) did a great job cutting the foam. You can extend the blade to cut all the way through the foam in one pass. So far, so good. It's cut a bit large to squeeze into the tank and seal the edges. I'm happy so far. Tomorrow I sew on the plants and plop it into the tank.

 

[gardenman]

It's alive! The tank is up and running with the bottom Matten filter in place. The fish are happy. The male swordtails are vying with one another for dominance and then frantically trying to breed with any female nearby. In other words, they're just acting normally. The plecos are searching for any leftover green beans from this morning. Sadly, they went out with the old gravel. I just put some food in and the usual feeding frenzy erupted. (A few of the swordtails were munching on some of the smaller snails as they tend to do when peckish, so to save a few snails I fed them.)

Everything went pretty smoothly. I sewed on the anubias nana petite and java fern. I tried just making a slice in the foam for a few plants (Water sprite and dwarf sagitaria.) The center of the foam still wants to float a bit and burps air bubbles every now and then. That should settle down pretty quickly.  Looking at it, it just looks like a nice, even, black substrate. If I didn't tell you it was foam you probably wouldn't realize it was. It has very much a fine sand look to it.

Things to remember if you do this yourself. When tying on plants remember to leave room for your existing sponge filter. (I didn't. Oops! My sponge filter is sitting atop a clump of anubias for now.) Both methods of holding plants seem to be working. I like the slit in the foam method more than I thought I would. The foam really grips the roots nicely. A silver needle coming through two inches of black foam is next to impossible to see, so expect to stab yourself in the finger a few times if you try sewing on the plants. There's no issue with decorations compressing the foam. It's quite rigid. I have a couple of pleco caves, a few pieces of driftwood, some smaller stones, and a couple of chunks of cholla wood, and they all just sit atop the foam with no trouble.

The bigger, backup air pump that I hadn't been using due to its noise is doing a great job. Lots of airflow through both the uplift tubes and the sponge filter. (It's still overly loud though.) I'll post a couple of photos below including a closer-up view of the substrate in place. You can still see the blue of the UG filter plate, so painting that black isn't a bad idea. I might just take the easy approach of putting a strip of black electrical tape along the outside of the aquarium to hide it.

 

Edited November 30, 2021 by gardenman

[Odd Duck]

@gardenman That looks great!  Completely looks like black blasting sand in the pic!  It looks like I should recommend you lift your epiphytes rhizomes.  😆 I can’t wait to see how this works long term!

This has inspired me to try move forward on a plant wall in a tank at some point.  I already have some 1” black foam that I’m going to start using chunks of it for attaching some Buces and an Anubias or 2 and try it out.  I’ll have to squeeze the air out very well and might use some plant weights on the foam if needed, hopefully it will only need them temporarily.

[gardenman]

Yeah, it really looks like a fine black sand only without the drawbacks of sand. I could just pour the water in without disturbing anything. The biofiltration should be fine. The only big question mark is how the plants will perform. Will their roots penetrate the foam? Will the plants thrive, survive, or keel over? Time will tell. I think the anubias and java fern will be fine. The anubias has just been floating around in my fifty for a year or so with no substrate, so it should do fine. The slitting the foam to slide plant roots in should create pockets for the roots and offers the potential to slide in root tabs if need be. It'll be interesting to see how it works longterm, but so far, so good.

[Brandon p]

On 11/30/2021 at 6:04 PM, gardenman said:

Yeah, it really looks like a fine black sand only without the drawbacks of sand. I could just pour the water in without disturbing anything. The biofiltration should be fine. The only big question mark is how the plants will perform. Will their roots penetrate the foam? Will the plants thrive, survive, or keel over? Time will tell. I think the anubias and java fern will be fine. The anubias has just been floating around in my fifty for a year or so with no substrate, so it should do fine. The slitting the foam to slide plant roots in should create pockets for the roots and offers the potential to slide in root tabs if need be. It'll be interesting to see how it works longterm, but so far, so good.

Why would it preform worse than sand. Sand contains basically no nutrients until there are mixed in with the via fish and fertilizer. The same with the filter.  Think about when you see those betta in a vase and there is plant growing from the glass marbles. I think the plants will do better once there is some nutrients in the water. It will help the roots having the pore spaces for more fine white roots to grow and take up more nutrients and sand or soil would allow. To Get used to how to fertilize the plants may take a bit so I would suggest using plants  you know at first or take a chance, I would.

 

[Minanora]

I am definitely interested in seeing this after a month of use. My only drawback I see right now is the lack of substrate for bottom sifters like corydoras and things that like to dig like kuhli loaches. Kuhli loaches would probably be okay with the right hides but I'd worry about losing them if they burrow into the foam.

[gardenman]

Afte nearly a full day of use, the fish are doing fine, the tank looks great. The foam looks like a fine black sand. I love the look. The plants are all staying in place despite the Super Red Bristlenose plecos. It will be interesting to see how it works over a few weeks/months, but for now, I'm very pleased with it. It's both looking and working better than I thought it might. What happens with the dwarf sag runners will be interesting. Will they root into the foam? I don't know. I'll find out when they start sending out runners. I may have to buy and try a few stem plants. Make a slit in the foam for the stem and slide it in. I'm not sure if the stem would rot in the foam or root in the foam but the foam would do a nice job of holding the stem. I'll try and post a weekly update each Saturday and we'll see what happens over time. As of this moment, I would call it an unqualified success.

[Brandon p]

I think the kuhli loaches should do ok if they figure out they can get underneath the foam. If they can.

[gardenman]

Getting under the foam, at least in my tank, is nearly impossible. I cut it a half-inch oversized and wedged it in. There are fish that will eat foam, and that could be a problem, but my plecos and swordtails aren't foam eaters, so no issue there for me. Oscars are maybe crazy enough to try tearing the foam apart. (The bigger, smarter cichlids could all be a bit troublesome.) You wouldn't want to use this system for a geophagus either. For "typical" fish, this should work out okay. I think it would be fine for corys also. It's soft enough to not damage their barbels. They can still meander over the foam grabbing any morsel they find.

[Brandon p]

With loaches I have found them in places you would not believe. 

[gardenman]

And it's time for the first of the promised Saturday updates. We're four days in and everything's fine. No fish casualties. No plant casualties. Everything is still where I put it. The water chemistry is fine. I'm getting some new growth on the Water Sprite and Anubias Nana Petite. Nothing's melted. Nothing's died. The tank still looks great. Photos from this morning are below. The foam really does look like a fine black sand in person. Probably around mid-January I'll pull the old sponge filter out and see what happens. By then the bottom of the tank Matten filter should be doing its work. The fish are breeding as normal and acting normally. Granted, we're just four days in, but so far, so good. I'll post back next Saturday with another update and new photos.

 

 

[Guppysnail]

I’m so glad you are having success. This is something I have become VERY interested. 

[gardenman]

It's working so well that I've got plans to convert my 20 high in the new year also. That's assuming nothing disastrous happens in the meantime, and I don't foresee anything bad happening. It'll be a project for the start of the new year. I've added the foam and UG filter for the 20 to my Amazon wish list and after Christmas I'll place the order if things continue to go well. It looks a lot better than I thought it would. It really looks like a fine black sand substrate. The Anubis and Java Fern should do fine. I'm not sure how a root feeder plant would do. But so far, so good. It's essentially a double-sized Matten filter for $25 that instead of taking up space in the tank, simply replaces the substrate. My 30-high has a jungle of Jungle Val and a dwarf lily in it which I'm not overly confident would thrive in the foam. I think the foam limits plant selection a bit, but how much is hard to say. Mosses, Anubias, Java Ferns, Water Sprite, Water Wisteria, and others should do okay. I'm not sure about stem plants. I've got to experiment with some of them. A slit in the foam will hold a stem, but will the stem root or rot? I've got some Dwarf Sag in the foam now and it's doing okay after four days.

If this works as I think/hope it will, it opens new retail options for stores also. You could sell a fully planted, cycled sponge filter and UG combo to new aquarists. Have aquascape will travel. It looks so much better than I thought it would. Imagine something like a big frag tank filled with the fully cycled and planted bottom sponge filters a shopper could choose from. I still don't see any reason why it won't work as a biofilter. It's a weight saver too. Two inches of substrate in a ten-gallon tanks weighs what? Twenty pounds? The sponge weighs next to nothing. I don't understand why no one has tried this before. I keep thinking I'm missing a deadly flaw, but I have no idea what it is. 

[eatyourpeas]

I love the Matten wall I used on my CPD tank. The plants are taking nicely and I am already seeing roots on the back side. The shrimp love it!

I like your business idea. Your deadly flaw may  simply be that UGF filters are not that popular.

Your tank is looking great!

Edited December 4, 2021 by eatyourpeas

[Guppysnail]

On 12/4/2021 at 10:47 AM, gardenman said:

I'm not sure about stem plants.

If your stems dont take you have options i dontbplant my stems i either suction cup them to a wall or these terra cotta pots with a bit of gravel in. I have them plant weghted sitting on top. The pot hides the weight. Stems are doing amazing grew to the top of a 40b. I just think noone thought this far out of the box. I thought on this hard because im so interested. I dont see the flaw either. If ghis take PATENT PATENT PATENT. then sell. 

[gardenman]

Sadly, there's nothing really to patent. Plop foam on top of a UG filter shouldn't be all that revolutionary. It's just something I'd never seen done before. Matten filters have been around forever as have UG filters. Water has to flow through a Matten filter for it to work and the same with the substrate atop a UG filter. Take out the substrate from a UG filter and plop on the Matten filter foam. It sounds easy and should work. It looks good. It's easy. It's cheap. Why won't it work? I have no idea. Foam is used in sumps, as wall filters, as corner filters, in canister filters, why not as a bottom filter combined with a UG grid? Four days in and all's well. I'll update this thread every Saturday and we'll see what happens. So far, so good.

[eatyourpeas]

On 12/4/2021 at 8:32 AM, gardenman said:

Sadly, there's nothing really to patent. Plop foam on top of a UG filter shouldn't be all that revolutionary. It's just something I'd never seen done before. Matten filters have been around forever as have UG filters. Water has to flow through a Matten filter for it to work and the same with the substrate atop a UG filter. Take out the substrate from a UG filter and plop on the Matten filter foam. It sounds easy and should work. It looks good. It's easy. It's cheap. Why won't it work? I have no idea. Foam is used in sumps, as wall filters, as corner filters, in canister filters, why not as a bottom filter combined with a UG grid? Four days in and all's well. I'll update this thread every Saturday and we'll see what happens. So far, so good.

I look forward to the update! 🙂