Sponge Filters: Sponge filters are some of the oldest filters to this hobby. They consist of a sponge as the name implies and bubble maker (air pump with a diffuser). The air pump causes air to diffuse through a pores material which causes air to rise upward pulling water with it to the surface. The water is pulled through the sponge, which traps debris in the sponge cleaning the water. The air bubbles rising causes a gas exchange by breaking the water surface and oxygenating the water. This sponge material by pulling water through it also acts as a point at which bacteria can form and attach itself to and give you a biological filtration as well.

sponge filters

The good points: about this filter has to be cost. This type of filter is very affordable and works well. At one time this was pretty much the only filter available. They came in corner filters and under gravel filter types and you had one or you had no type of filter.

The bad points: the filter gets clogged easily and for someone with it under gravel it’s a headache. You must pull it from underneath the gravel and clean it and get it back underneath of your gravel. Also by cleaning it you will loose some of the bacteria in your biological filter system. Corner filters are easier to clean but have the same problem when cleaning as you loose some of your bacteria. If you do not clean them uneaten food and debris gets trapped in the sponge and you loose the biological filtration due to a reduced water flow through the sponge. Also this reduced water flow tends to not clean the water any more of debris till the filter is cleaned. Also knowing when the water flow is reduced can be tough and a specified time limit must be setup to clean the filter. Also a personal note here is due here. This spongy material after sitting in the tank for a couple of weeks stinks worse than cleaning your first diaper as a new parent. Put a clothespin on your nose because and remember even though the fish don’t look like your cute kids they still need the cleaning of their filter.

Recommendations for this type of filter: are that the filter is cheap but should really only be used for small tanks and to be truthful only goldfish bowls.

Undergravel filters: This type of filter is very widely used and works very well. The plates to an undergravel filter have tiny slits in them as to allow water to flow through but not gravel. This type of filter is a biological type of filtration and will do almost nothing for cleaning debris out of the water. There are also two types of filter setups that can be used here. One is the undergravel plates under the gravel with two plastic tubes on either side of the plates. Inside of the tubes are hard plastic tubes with air diffusers on the ends of them to create air bubbles to rise and break the surface of the water causing gas exchange and to pull water from the bottom of the tank to the surface and keeping the water circulating. The other configuration with this type of filter is to have one or two plastic tubes going up as in the first example and another plastic tube coming up with a power head attached to it. Also most undergravel filters have removable activated charcoal (or carbon filters) to pull impurities out of the water. These carbon filters sit in little grooves on 90 degree angled houses on top of the plastic tubes. From what I have read when this filter was first introduced it was the filter that was supposed to be the filter of all filters. It was to revolutionize fish keeping. The filter does do a good job and I have one in each of my 10-gallon tanks.

u.g. filters

Good points: about the filter are that the filter pulls a constant flow of water through the gravel, which unlike the sponge filter is much larger surface area. Also the carbon tops to the filter pull out heavy metals and other more unpleasant odors from the water. Also by pulling water as with the sponge filter water from the bottom of the tank to the top of the tank. This helps in not keeping the water in stagnate layers. Ammonia loves to settle to the bottom of the tank and by doing so tends to be more concentrated at the bottom. An undergravel filter will help in spreading this level of ammonia out and the bottom dwellers won’t be hit by heavy concentrations of ammonia. This filter is also well affordable and cost very little except for the power head option but even that will not set you back more than 13 to 20 bucks (more for larger power heads.

Bad points: to the filter are that the slits in the substrate plates tend to get clogged and need a constant cleaning of the gravel to keep clear of debris. The water being pulled through the gravel tends to be pulled into the gravel and the fish can not get to it. This debris is pulled into the gravel where it decays, causing increases in ammonia levels and a reduction of water flow through the gravel causing your biological filtration to suffer and real problems. For this reason I tell everyone to clean the gravel with some type of suction device to pull this garbage out of the tank often. Keeping this water flow is the main reason for the filter. Also if you have a planted tank plants do not like this (even though not a hard flow without a power head on) pulling water through their roots. Also you can not use sand with this type of filter. Sand packs too much and will clog the slits in the plates and water flow will not occur which renders the filter useless.

Recommendations for this type of filter: this type of filter can be used in small tanks, or tanks that are not planted. I would not recommend this type of filter for larger tanks. I use this type of filter and I clean the gravel once every week or two. So far it seems to still be operating good but only time will tell. Also with this type of filter you need another filter to remove waste or do mechanical filtration for you. Small tanks such as mine should stay away from power filters unless you are keeping snow fish you plan on training for the 2000 Olympic surf team. Yuk yuk! Reread page one story if you don’t have a clue to what I am saying here! For anyone with a 30-gallon or less tank I would recommend this type of filter but just keep in mind that clean is the word.

Box type filters: This type of filter has become the filter of choose lately. There are so many to choose from its hard to pick which one you like. The basic setup for a box type filter is an outside mounted (usually hanging from the rear of the aquarium tank) box. Connected to the box is an intake tube, which is placed into the water to pull water from the tank and into the filter compartment of the filter. The filter compartment can contain just about anything from just a gauze type material to a combo of gauze and carbon to separate gauze and carbon or peat or any other type of filtering you choose. Most box filters are mechanical filters but with carbon or peat can become chemical filters. Add a wet/dry wheel (Bio Wheel) and they become a biological filter as well. This combination of filters is why this type of filter is becoming so popular. One filter can pull waste from your tank, chemically filter impurities out of the water and also with the new Bio Wheels supply a breading ground for bacteria to come in close contact with the water and give you a biological filtration. Also this type of filter is a snap in cleaning and changing the filter mediums. This type of filter is alittle expensive but not a massive killing of cash. Most run between 10 to 50 US dollars and in my mind money well spent. They are very quiet and filter replacement is also fairly cheap. A three pack of replacement filter all ready to use is around 4 to 8 US bucks per three pack. Filter packs should be replaced every 2 weeks to 1 month if carbon or peat filled and when the water flow is slow on a purely gauze type. Also most of these types of filters come with a cover or screen as to not suck up your fish. They can even be used in a tank with fry in it with the putting of a nylon screen to make the holes small enough to not suck a fish up. I have got a lot of questions on this type and canister filter as to "Will it suck my fish up and kill my fish?" The answer is no. I think this question comes about by people going to pet stores mainly Wally World and seeing a fish or in the case of Wally World multiple fish stuck to the screen of the intake tube. Fish in good well-feed and healthy shape will never be pulled into the intake tube or be wrapped around it. The fish you see around the intake tube are usually fish that died on their own or were in poor health and could not escape the water intake. These fish that did not make it and were pulled into the intake while still alive would have died anyway and were to sick or weak to escape the water intake. This is not a fish you would have wanted to put your money out on anyway.

Emperor filter

Good points: are that the filter medium can be changed easily. Most types of these filters offer a large variety of different configurations to apply to any type of fish keeping. The new wet/dry wheel (Bio Wheels) adds biological filtration that makes the filter a well-rounded filter. Most of the filters run very quiet and hide well behind most tanks if a background is being used. A large selection of sizes are available to fit any size of tank used. As with my 75-gallon tank I opted for 2 Emperor 280’s instead of one Emperor 400. With 2-280’s I can place one on each side of the tank and also get 560 gallons of filtration verses 400 gallons of filtration in one spot in the tank. This is more expensive but more is better I guess. Also the filters can handle large volumes of water without making wave pools.

Bad Points: although nothing really to bad there are a few things I will mention about this type of filter that I have noticed. First the intake tubes and impellers need cleaned often. Sludge seems to build up in them quickly and if you have a wet/dry wheel on the unit the water slow will slow or even stop the wet/dry wheel dead in its tracks. Also if the filter medium is not cleaned often the food particles and debris is still in the water flow and will still contaminate your water if not removed. If you have a planted tank leaves can be pulled into the filter intake and stop the filter from running.

Recommended uses and comments on this filter type: Remember that for this type of filter you should have at least 3 times the flow per hour per gallon as the size of water in your tank. Example if you have a 30-gallon tank you need a filter with at least 90 gallons per hour filtration. Preferably more! I would suggest using a more 5 times the filtration and a 150-gallon per hour filter. I have on the 2-10-gallon tanks Penguin Mini’s. These are the smallest box filters made by Marineland with wet/dry (Bio Wheels) on them. They are 100 gallons/hour filters, which gives me 10 times the filtration. This means that the water in the tank should be filtered 10 times in one hour. In the case of the 75 gallon tank besides the canister filter (which increases the filtration even more) the two Emperor 280’s give the tank 560 gallons per hour which by themselves gives the tank nearly 7.5 times the filtration per hour. The one point in this filter I forgot to mention is that this filter (although I wouldn’t recommend it being your only source of aeration) also supplies oxygen to the water by breaking the surface of the water when the water is dumped back into the tank. I would recommend this type of filter to anyone and although I like Marineland’s filters the best I am sure that the other brands of filters do just as good of a job. But the Bio Wheel and the design of the Penguin’s and Emperor’s by Marineland are my favorite. Hagen, Whisper, and others like Regent (which really isn’t made by Regent it’s made by Marineland and looks just like the Penguin’s) make the same type of filter. The Bio Wheel is patented by Marineland but I’m sure the others will be coming out with similar versions of this design. The difference between the Penguin’s and the Emperor’s are the Emperor has two places to place filter mediums and supply you with a reusable one that is empty. The Penguins have only one that takes the filter. Also the Emperor has a rain bar and its impeller serves as a double pump. It pumps water out of the tank and also pumps the water up and through the rain bar. This rain bar is adjustable about 90 degrees and it is squirted onto the Bio Wheel. Also there are 5 speed settings on the Emperor’s verses 2 to 3 on the Penguin’s. Wally World Regent’s although they look like and if you call Marineland you can make them into a Penguin they have no Bio Wheel. The filters at Wally World though do fit both Penguin’s and the Regent’s and the price is pretty good. Hey that was a plug for Wally World. No one can say I hate them after that!!!

Canister filters: Canister filters I feel most people are afraid of. Well most newbie are not because they have no idea to what needs to be done with them. This type of filter is really the grand daddy of all filters. It gives you all of the above filters combined and with a rain bar can even replace the air pump. I would not recommend this type of filter to anyone with a small tank although I have noticed recently that companies have been making smaller sizes for smaller tanks. The canister filter is the most versatile of all the filters. Most come with at least 3 compartments and can hold a lot of filter medium. There are so many different name brands of these filters and to mention anyone kind over another would be only a matter of preference of the user. My advice would be choose one that has the best price for your money and parts that you are sure you will have no problem in replacing. In a canister filter there really isn’t any parts that should be replaced other than the impeller. This is the only moving part and shot of the motor burning out (which would mean probably replacing the unit anyway) there are no parts that need replaced. These units are more expensive but if you consider that other than the heater no other equipment is needed it is a great investment. But most people are afraid of this type of filter. This is mainly because people are afraid of water leaks and clean up of the unit. They are more complicated and messier than other types of filters but the benefits of this type of filter can be great as well. Like I said earlier this type of filter can be the only thing in your tank other than a heater. This filter has it all, chemical, mechanical and biological filtration. With the rain bar it can also be your fishes only air exchange unit needed. Cleaning can be somewhat cumbersome, as these units come with shut off knobs to make sure through gravity water doesn’t drain all over your floor. Next you need to pull the top off of the unit and inside you will probably have anywhere from 1 pint to 1 gallon off water still in the unit. Not to mention large amounts of yukky stuff that the pump has pulled from your tank. As with mine from the 75-gallon tank I have opted to not place anything like activated carbon in that this task will need to be done as often as once a month. The thing that is nice about the canister filter is the versatility of the unit. You can mix and match any type of bulk (which is cheaper to buy) you want into the unit. Put in peat and run for a time change out the peat and place all activated carbon in the unit. Then place all clay pipe in and make it a biological filter from hell and bacteria will be selling condos in there. The possibilities are endless and they can be used in combinations of anything you might need. With box filters this is not usually the options you have available to you. Also remember that you should have activated carbon in your system and you should as I have buy a box filter that uses activated carbon if you to choose not to put it in your canister filter. This is why I have got the 2 Emperor 280’s so that carbon is still there but easier for me to change. These pumps move water via an impeller spinning and pushing water out of the pump after being primed. Water is not sucked into the pump but is the same as a siphon as water is drawn into the unit because the pump is pushing water out of its chambers. Water is pulled into a canister filter through an intake tube and is forced through the filters various chambers filled with whatever filter materials you have set forth. The only thing that should be remembered is that items used to pull debris from the water should be placed on the bottom or where the water comes in first. This first layer should be clay pipe or some other material such as it. The clay pipe will stop large particles from entering the rest of the pump stages and clogging it up. Also if the materials sit there a decays the rest of the bacteria is after this stage to consume the compounds that are released. Next you can put a layer of activated carbon or a sponge or peat or poly fibers. This second stage is try to stop smaller particles and to offer a place to remove impurities or whatever else you wanted to do. Next should be a sponge or some other material that can support a bacterial colony to take out the rest of the unwanted materials in the water. All stages of this pump will have bacteria colonies attached to it and when cleaning the pump out care should be taken to not destroy the bacteria you worked so hard to get in there. For this reason I would suggest to all that when cleaning the unit out you use some of the water pulled out of the tank during a water change to rinse out and off components of the pump. If you use tap water the chlorine in the tap water will kill the bacteria in the pump. Killing the bacteria in the pump will kill your nitrogen cycle in your tank and problems will show up. So when cleaning the pump out do it at the same time you plan a water change as to use the water to rinse off parts of the pump. Impellers and items of this nature that are not intended to harbor bacteria can be washed in tap water to clean but materials that you have put in there to house bacteria should never ever be washed off in anything other than the tank water.

canister filter

Good points of the filter: are the ones I mentioned above. This pump can be used to do everything in the tank and be the only equipment you need other than a heater. The pumps come in many sizes and shapes. You can even get a totally submersible pump that you need not even have to hide underneath of a cabinet. The pumps are the most versatile pumps going and can be customize very easy to do any task you want. These pumps are very quite as well and can supply a complete gas exchange for you that no other pumps are needed. The only noticeable part of the pump seen by viewers will be the intake tube that can easily be hidden as well.

Bad points of the pump: The pumps are very messy when cleaning and can be hard to find a hiding place. Special care needs to be observed as to not make a mistake and pull the lid off the pump while shut off knobs are not turned off. Large hoses are most often used and the lines are unsightly if hiding places are not available.

Recommendations for this type of filter: I would mainly suggest this type of unit for tanks larger than 30 gallons. Although smaller sized canister filters have become available and work as well as their larger cousins the hassle doesn’t outweigh the advantage. This hassle might not bother some and for those people I would say go for it because this type of filter is well worth the hassle to me. I would also suggest having a nice cabinet to house the canister but there are new types of filters that hang off of the back of the tank like Marineland’s new Magnum filter with Bio Wheel that hangs off of the back of the tank. I have not seen this filter in use but assume that the unit works well. I did notice that it seems to not have different compartments to put different types of materials in the unit to change up the filter types but I could be wrong about that. Basic line here is that if you don’t mind alittle more time in cleaning this is the filter of choose.

Conclusion: Really you have to draw your own conclusion. The choose is a tough one. There are so many different types from even the same companies. The basic line you should follow is that you should have as many filters as it takes to cover each of the 3 types of filtering that needs done. Picking which brand is a personal choose you have to make. Keep in mind the size of the tank and how much room you have between the wall and the tank. Also take a look at the different features of each. Who has the features that you are looking for the most? Is there different settings or speeds? Are the parts easy to remove so you can clean them? Can you get filters and other parts easily and cheaply? All of these factors come to play because remember this filter has to be serviced! Also I have heard from many people that Hartz anything (filters, food, etc) suck! Although from one reader that has a Hartz filter says it works well for him! I guess this to is a matter of opinion and as for me I have never own one so I can not pass judgement on their produces. So look before you leap I guess should be the conclusion. Study your needs and the type of fish you want to keep. Remember if you buy the wrong thing or a lesser model because of a cheaper price. You may find out that you wish you had gotten a different model and you’ll be out the price of both. More to come and keep that E-mail coming!

Mags