sponge filters

I wouldn't mess with your temps as what you're doing with your Trophs and other Tangs seems to be spot on...

Matt

Tangcollector said:

All of my lights are LED except for one. I may be able to reduce the heaters but everything is doing so well I really hate to change the temp. right now I am running everything around 778-78 degrees. but I will research and see who has experience running this stuff at a colder temp.

Click to expand...

Don't know what kind of filters you use, but my untested impression is that the heaters and lights use more electricity than the filters. If the electricity is your principal concern, you might want to do a little analysis before switching to sponge filters. Could be that you would save more by switching to LED lighting, for example.

On the other hand, sponge filters and mattenfilters are good filters, and have advantages over HOB filters. If you're going to switch to those filtration systems, I'd buy a bunch of Poret, because I think it is better quality than other filter foam material.

anyone ever tried poret corner filter on a big tank like 5'long 25" tall? I really want to get a 5 or 6' tank and im trying to plan different options on how id set up filtration. I just discovered the poret from this thread and i wish id known before for my smaller tanks. Ive never done a sump either that may be the way to go.. just mulling over some ideas, thx =]

I did corner filters on my 6' 100. I had some big poopers in there, so the filters clogged and I realize what a PITA they were to clean. I don't use them there anymore, but my problems could have been fixed if:

1. I used a larger pore size. Most of my filters are 30 ppi, but on the tanks with wood-eating plecos, I've been using 20 ppi lately.

2. corner filters are hard to reach. I might have done better with a traditional mattenfilter at one end.

I run pro sponge filters in all of the tanks in my fish room. They are all ran off of (1) central piston air pump. I have found that they work great and have no need for other filters.

Pat, Any reason for running power filters instead of one giant air pump? Just curious.

I currently have about 17 power filters running hahah so I'm in the same boat as you. The heaters I have on all of my tanks though.

mchambers said:

Don't know what kind of filters you use, but my untested impression is that the heaters and lights use more electricity than the filters. If the electricity is your principal concern, you might want to do a little analysis before switching to sponge filters. Could be that you would save more by switching to LED lighting, for example.

On the other hand, sponge filters and mattenfilters are good filters, and have advantages over HOB filters. If you're going to switch to those filtration systems, I'd buy a bunch of Poret, because I think it is better quality than other filter foam material.

Click to expand...

Just look at watts:
Fluval 306 5-7 watts
2 bulb t5ho 50 watts
Heater 200 watts

Now, heaters are on the least, but the bigger the difference in your ambient room to tank the more they are on. LEDs are more efficient, but on many led they use a lot of led which can add up to not that huge a difference. A 48 inch finnex ray2 is 39 watts.

I'm making my fish bowls use sponge filters because I can make them smaller than having a tiny pump in there. I can fit more sponge and make it removable. The filter you can't remove or clean easily.

It's working out pretty well so far. You can see it's already picked up some residue:


And you can't really see it from the front:


The suction cup that holds it to the glass isn't very strong though so the plants actually help this thing stay in place. I ordered a bunch of small sponge filters that are 2"x4" so I can easily place those inside of these fish bowls.

What I did to build the filter was I took an air stone, wrapped it in filter padding. Then I zip tied the bottom. I plugged that into the air line. I made a cylinder that has another sponge on top (the black sponge and clear thing around the white part). This slowed the flow and added another level of filtration while also concentrating the flow of water. I just cut two holes in the transparent part and zip tied it. I made the holes angel down so it wouldn't let air out easily. It's working well. The transparent plastic I used is actually the divider for my tank divider. It has a bunch of little holes in it.

I bet you could replace the pump in this video with a jetlifter

http://youtu.be/hscEToo7p_k

That's a nice filter! thanks for sharing

Within the last year or so, I have taken down all but one power filter and have replaced them with Poret foam. I do like to add water movement, so many of the tanks are filtered with power heads behind the Poret. Even so, they run much less wattage than the canister filters they have replaced. I do have a couple of tanks running on air with Poret foam.

Dr Fosters has a chart with the watts of some of the pumps out there.

http://m.drsfostersmith.com/PIC/article.cfm?dept_id=&aid=282#SP