Emergency sponge/ box filter

[n-e-w-land]

Hi, one of my tanks has recently suffered an ammonia spike and I quickly put together a box type filter with seeded media to combat this. I wanted to see what you guys thought, could this concept work. Will the sponge pull water back through? So you know what I am talking about I have drawn a diagram. Sorry its a bit rushed!

 

[fredmanby]

I'm not sure this would work -- it is presumably easier to get the water to rise up a narrow pipe with a narrow, concetrated stream of bubbles. But why not check by putting the upper rim of the tub just above the water level and see if any water runs out?

 

[CHOMPERS]

Your idea is really close to what you need to do. You need to add a lift tube and put the air line and airstone at the bottom of that. The water will then flow down through the sponge and gravel and up through the lift tube.

I'll dig up some pics of two designs that I made.

 

[CHOMPERS]

This first one is made using one of those weird mayonase containers. I drilled a bunch of holes in both sides, added the lift tube (standard lift tube for aquariums) (got mine from Petsmart), then I filled it with carbon and Amocarb.

 

[CHOMPERS]

This other one is made from a rat cage.

It was filled with dirty filter floss from another filter and put into use as an emergency filter. The egg crate on the bottom allows water to flow under the floss to the lift tube. It has rocks in the bottom for weight.

 

[CHOMPERS]

...for some reason, the system is only allowing one picture per post right now, but here is another:

 

[n-e-w-land]

Thanks for your replys I have now modified mine to the type you've shown. Im still not sure if its going to work? Will the sponges containing beneficial bacteria help the main filter even if they're not actually having water filter through them?

 

[CHOMPERS]

How are the sponges not having water flow through them? But yes, they will help because of the surface contact and diffusion into the sponge.