in-tank waste trap

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peathenster

peathenster

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MFK Member
Nov 26, 2008
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Georgia, US
Had an observation and a strange idea.... sorry if this is too obvious.

I have a 220 SA tank, which is on a wet-dry (~1300gph pump) and an AC360. Good current but not too strong. There is virtually no waste on the surface of the substrates, but quite a bit floating around

Well a couple of them decided to breed, and I put in a piece of egg crate. It appears to have slowed down the current, and a lot of wastes accumulate on the "downstream" side.

Strangely, the water is extremely clear with nothing floating around. It also smells better than before (i.e. doesn't smell too bad when I stick my nose close to the surface). Apparently the egg crate has served an unexpected purpose - it slowed down the current, and allowed the wastes to precipitate.

Which got me thinking - is there such thing as an "in-tank-waste-trap"? I know the filters are supposed to do this but most of the wastes are actually broken down and homogenized into the water...
 
Do sponge filters work this way? I mean the ones that attach to the power heads.
 
lighthouse39183;3075424; said:
Do sponge filters work this way? I mean the ones that attach to the power heads.
Click to expand...
They will catch it faster than anything else IMO.
 
The sponge prefilters for powerheads do an AMAZING job of trapping fine particulate matter. I'm running a 170gph powerhead with a Hydro II, and it's awesome. I take the sponge out & rinse it from time to time and I'm always amazed at how filthy it gets.


Also, a little while back I bought a couple boxes of aquarium stuff. I found something interesting in one of the boxes. It was basically an uplift tube for an UGF, except instead of attaching to a UGF it had these little leg-type things down at the bottom so that it would sit about 1/4" up off the bottom of the tank. At the top of it on the 90* angle like an UGF, instead of having a carbon insert there was a very fine mesh bag, and the bag was full of dried up crud. Seems like an ingenious invention to me- air bubbling pulls all the crud out of the water & leaves it in a sock at the top. You can take the sock off & change it any time you feel like it. I'm sure you could do the exact same thing with a UGF uplift tube & a peice of pantyhose.
 
I guess I was wrong about which one mine is. Mine looks exactly like the Filter-Max III.

My advice is: if you're using it as a prefilter, focus on that. If you're using it for biological filtration, focus on that. Don't try to do both with one device. Get something small like the Filter-Max III so that it doesn't cut down on water flow. It'll clog fast & need rinsed often, but that's kind of the point, isn't it? Thicker sponges will cut down on water flow, and while they'll provide better biological filtration (more bacteria), they won't be able to turn the water over as much.
 
I have a waste trap in my 55..although I call it aquascaping:-]
 
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