With the hamburger filter just cut the poret a bit wider than the tank. Water pressure on each side will hold it in place.
Looking at converting fish room over to linear air pump filters
- Thread starter Lollum96
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I've found a set of 3 similar filters on Amazon UK and it does work out about $20 for 3.
With the K1 media in a bottle on top. Is this the kind of setup that you are thinking of?
Would this setup be adequate for my larger tanks too?? Such as my 125g Dorado tank and my 55g emperor snakehead tank? Both obviously high bioload tanks. Just worrys me that it wouldn't be enough as the sponge section is only about 4 inches by 5 inches.
I have considered making a large sponge filter which I could potentially put a bottle of K1 on top in a similar setup but I'm not really sure how to really go about it. Or how economical giant 12 inch blocks of aquarium foam would be. From what I've seen huge blocks of filter foam are pretty expensive!
Even on a tank which is 24 inches wide and 24 Inches high? If so it's definitely a viable option!
Again considered building a large sponge filter especially for the 125g Dorado tank. Something like this. But as said the huge chunks of filter foam are fairly expensive in the UK making it not very economical.
yea just add more filters or use bigger bottles as tank size increases. if i remember correctly 1 litre of k1 and a sponge filter should be able to handle a 30 gallon tank with a reasonable bioload. 3 of them with say 2l bottles on top should be plenty for a stocked 125.
i know some people wont agree with me. but im not a fan of having the mechanical and biological filtration as one single media. if you ever wanted to deep clean the sponge you would need to be certain the other filters will handle the full bio load. with the k1 above the sponge filter youll always have a bottle full of healthy strong bacteria even after cleaning the sponge.
You've highlighted the one single flaw shared by most sponge/foam filters...but it isn't as big a drawback as you might expect.
I use Poret Foam for my DIY sponge filters, which have ranged up to and including a square Poret cartridge that is 6 x 6 x 20 inches tall. They come with a hole pre-drilled through the center which I believe is intended to be used with the expensive Jetlifter airlifts sold for them. For a full-length cartridge, I want that hole enlarged in diameter. The nicest-looking results are produced by wetting the Poret, freeing it solid and then using a large adjustable wood bit to core out the hole bigger...but it works just as well to simply take a long-bladed knife like a bread knife and just lightly slice the entire length of the inside of the hole a few times around the circumference. Just enlarge it big enough that the pipe you want to use is a nice snug fit; I usually use a 1.25-inch ABS or PVC pipe, and usually add a vertical pipe and an elbow at the top to direct the flow sideways along the water surface. Silicone a ceramic tile to the bottom of the foam; I use two tiles siliconed together, with the smooth side facing out on both sides.
My homebrewed units are all air powered off my central air pump, but of course the modern gotta-have-another-electric-motor crowd can always use a powerhead to achieve maximum turnover rates.
Not only will this gizmo provide an astronomical amount of surface area and allow for terrific biofiltration, but cleaning it hardly impacts its effectiveness at all. I am fortunate to be on a well, so I can use a high-pressure nozzle to "pressure-wash" the foam without worrying about the bacteria. I have never noticed any kind of ammonia spike or other problems after even the most enthusiastic spraying and squeezing of the foam. Those who are cursed with clorinated or chloraminated tap water should be more cautious and wash the sponge with tank water or at least treated tap water.
It's not as convenient as a sump or other filter equipped with an easily-accessed prefilter...and it also keeps the debris in the water so that it must be broken down by bacteria, rather than being easily removed on a frequent basis by the aquarist before it has a chance to add to the nitrate load...but these ridiculously simple filters are also amazingly effective at both bio and also mechanical filtration.
As far as the bottle of K1 goes...you will wind up with a large bulky filter. A single piece of foam that takes up the same space as the foam/bottle unit will put that combo gizmo to shame in terms of biofiltration, and will clog much more slowly.
You see this all the time in sumps; people assemble all kinds of partitions and compartments and fill each one with some different form of bio filtration. They look impressive...maybe...but what's the point? Who cares how a filter looks? Pick the biomedia you think is best, and then just use as much as you have room for. If you are actually worried about the cost of foam, I must assume you haven't bothered to check the cost of boutique media like K1.
Poret foam is quite rigid, but will eventually start to collapse if simply jammed across the end of a tank as a Mattenfilter and then allowed to get too clogged up. Wasting your time and effort to silicone in some sort of frame will not really help much here, unless you actually support the entire area of the foam with a sheet of eggcrate or something similar. It's much easier to simply cut a few strips of the foam to act as spacers or stand-offs between the end of the tank and the sheet of Poret. They hold the foam in place, maintaining the necessary space behind it, and yet can be removed in seconds without leaving any permanent mods to the tank itself.
You see this all the time in sumps; people assemble all kinds of partitions and compartments and fill each one with some different form of bio filtration. They look impressive...maybe...but what's the point? Who cares how a filter looks? Pick the biomedia you think is best, and then just use as much as you have room for. If you are actually worried about the cost of foam, I must assume you haven't bothered to check the cost of boutique media like K1.
Poret foam is quite rigid, but will eventually start to collapse if simply jammed across the end of a tank as a Mattenfilter and then allowed to get too clogged up. Wasting your time and effort to silicone in some sort of frame will not really help much here, unless you actually support the entire area of the foam with a sheet of eggcrate or something similar. It's much easier to simply cut a few strips of the foam to act as spacers or stand-offs between the end of the tank and the sheet of Poret. They hold the foam in place, maintaining the necessary space behind it, and yet can be removed in seconds without leaving any permanent mods to the tank itself.
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