How Do Sponge Filters Work

BuildYourAquarium.com is supported by our readers. When you buy through links on our site, nosotros may earn a commission. Acquire more than.

Sponge filters are sometimes seen as filters for bowls and beginners – but nothing could be farther from the truth!

A sponge filter with the right cognition is a wonderful tool for whatsoever sort of aquarist.

They fifty-fifty have a number of advantages over the expensive, seemingly powerful hang on the back and canister filters that we so often utilize!

Allow's consider 10 reasons why sponge filters are a cracking selection for your aquarium!

Reason i: Expense

Sponge filters have fallen out of favor in the fishkeeping world. While a trip to the aquarium shop reveals several filters requiring dissimilar cartridges and media, you're likely to only notice a couple sponge filter varieties. Why is this?

Sponge filters aren't as popular for fish stores because they are just as well cheap and generate niggling income. The setup is a simple sponge and some plastic housing.

And once you purchase the filter y'all aren't coming dorsum for charcoal media, numberless, frames, electrical pumps, and all of the other accessories needed to run other filters. These items all price coin and the conventionalities that they are required keeps yous returning frequently, paying more than you would for a simple sponge filter with every visit!

It makes much more economical sense to push the hang on the back and canister filters. Not that these don't have a place; customizable media is excellent for treating specific imbalances in aquarium ecosystems.

But for a salubrious aquarium with a moderate to depression bioload a sponge filter is a bully choice when because expense to efficiency!

Reason two: Simplicity

Sponge filters are…Well, just a sponge with plastic housing of varying pattern. The near common style uses a strainer and lift tube with an zipper at the pinnacle for a silicone air line running from a pump.

Equally bubbles form within the strainer and lift tube and ascension, they create a gentle current that pulls water through the sponge. The sponge at first provides purely mechanical filtration. Over time beneficial bacteria colonize the filter, providing biological filtration as the tank fully cycles.

The working concept is identical to both hang on the back and canister filters. The only components these filters provide is faster water catamenia and chemic filtration when using charcoal, zeolite, and other specialized media.

Biological and mechanical filtration are still much more important to a health aquarium, however.

Reason 3: Gentle Current

Sponge filters are the best filters for aquariums where y'all need to use an extremely gentle current. If you're raising fish fry, Brine Shrimp, or other tiny aquatic organisms, whatever sort of powered filtration is going to suck them upwardly and kill them.

By using a smaller air pump or using the regulators on either the pump or the filter itself you tin can provide aplenty mechanical and biological filtration without endangering your animals. The turnover rate is far slower than a canister of hang on the back style filter. Only not necessarily less effective.

Frequent spawners like Livebearers also constantly lose fry to powerful filter intakes. Sponge filters are great choices for tanks where you never know if babies will arrive.

Reason 4: They Are Hands Repaired or Replaced When Damaged

Being so uncomplicated they are as well difficult to harm because they are built with rigid components. Electric filter components like magnetic impellers eventually get gravel or rocks inside and need maintenance.

Canister filters require you to detach hoses and pipes, undo the locks, and sometimes bring out the manual for specialized issues and organizing your compartments.

Sponge filters are equally simple equally they come. The majority of problems volition be along the lines of croaky plastic and decaying sponges, both of which are easy to identify and replace. If less tech savvy folks are maintaining an aquarium or basin a sponge filter is by far the all-time option.

Reason 5: Sponge Filters Are Very Quiet

How quiet the sponge filter is depends entirely on the pump that drives it. And with the rubberized seals and mechanics of modern day brands these pumps tin can exist quiet enough to avert disturbing fifty-fifty the lightest of sleepers.

Sponge filters do cause surface agitation but non nearly equally much equally other filter styles, which tin sound like miniature waterfalls. Many people find this effect relaxing. But sometimes silence is improve than background noise.

And despite their reduced chapters for surface agitation sponge filters provide enough of gas commutation cheers to the constant flow of air bubbles. Both oxygen and carbon dioxide can exist transferred in meaningful enough amounts for both fish and plants to thrive.

Reason half dozen: Sponge Filters are Keen Pre-Filters

If y'all are all the same fully committed to running a hang on the back or canister filter, and then consider adding a sponge filter to the mix! Instead of running a separate unit a elementary block of foam over the intake will give you most of the benefits of a divide sponge filter while allowing you to nevertheless get good chemical filtration.

A sponge block over the intake also helps preserve small-scale fish and shrimp from the suction power of larger canister filters. Over time the block will be colonized past benign bacteria in much the same way as a dedicated sponge filter would. However the smaller surface area ways that the master filter is doing more biological filtration piece of work.

Reason 7: Sponge Filters Partner Well with Other Filter Types

You can never really overdo mechanical and biological filtration. Actress surface area is always in need and beneficial for aquariums. They do live complimentary floating in the h2o column and fastened to rocks and plants. Fifty-fifty gravel and sand with their high surface surface area provide places for these microorganisms to thrive.

Nevertheless if there is a spot where a sponge filter can be tucked away such every bit backside a slice of driftwood or a corner there'southward no reason non to add extra capacity to your filtration. This is especially useful if your tank is on the overcrowded side of things. Extra bacteria will break down ammonia and leftover food that much faster!

Reason 8: They Can Be Used With Any Aquarium Blazon

Freshwater, saltwater, paludarium, planted aquarium, shrimp-but, brackish…You can use the same brand of sponge filter for each one of these aquariums! The more fish you take and the larger the aquarium, the larger the sponge filter you will use.

Reason 9: Sponge Filters Continue To Piece of work During Power Outages

When the worst happens during a wintertime storm and the power goes out that spells the stop for water turnover. Your aquarium is officially separated from your canister and hang on the dorsum filter and the bacteria inside are deprived of oxygen.

Equally aerobic organisms they will eventually suffocate and die, depending on how long they go without. This can destabilize your cycled aquarium and cause deaths fifty-fifty if the loss of rut doesn't kill your fish.

Sponge filters remain immersed in the aquarium and are not only revitalized but actively breaking down waste throughout the outage! While bacteria may be affected by the lack of electric current they won't die off entirely no matter how long it lasts.

The mechanical filtration aspect no longer continues however biological filtration does non entirely stop and helps keep fish good for you.

Reason 10: They Are The Fastest Filters to Clean

Sponge filters are quick and easy to clean because the dirt is part of the appeal! Cleaning a sponge filter is a matter of removing only enough textile without endangering your bacterial colony. Nosotros don't want a pristine sponge; we want the gratuitous flow of water throughout the media.

When running a unmarried sponge in an aquarium with a moderate bioload nosotros may have to clean it every 3 weeks to 1 calendar month. Many aquarists think to remove the sponge, squeeze information technology several times under running tap h2o and and so replace it, as if sanitizing a cleaning sponge.

This is the absolute worst thing to do! Y'all've essentially stripped your bacterial colony and then partially sterilized the sponge with chlorinated water. Your aquarium may even suffer an ammonia spike as the disrupted colony can now no longer procedure fish waste as effectively.

Instead yous should apply a modest saucepan or tray of aquarium water to clean your sponge. Brush off any surface debris that'south still clinging to the outer layers and and so requite your sponge filter one or 2 squeezes to remove the worst of the attached gunk.

Remember that the gunk is a mixture of partially decomposed organics and beneficial bacteria. We want some gunk to remain on our sponge because that's where the biological activity is happening! We but don't want so much gunk that it impedes the catamenia of water through the sponge.

In one case you lot've removed enough for h2o to flow mostly unimpeded, re-adhere your sponge to the plastic housing or life tube and you're done! No researching the right chemical media, finding frames to fit filter bags, or calling pet stores to see who even carries that make anymore…Sponge filters are the best friends of both beginner and advanced aquarists alike!

Jason is an aquarium fanatic that has been a fish hobbyist for almost three decades.