Aquarium Filter - Which Type to Use

An aquarium filter plays an important role in keeping the fishes in your aquarium healthy. It helps to keep your aquarium water free from pollutants which can cause harmful effects to the health of your fishes. Unless you change the water everyday, an aquarium filter is essential in your aquarium. There are several types aquarium filters available in the market. Some of these fish tank filters are described below.

Canister filter

An aquarium canister filter combines mechanical, biological and chemical filtration. It is a unit which contains a filter chamber for filter media and an electric pump for circulating water. The water from the aquarium enters the canister filter, is pumped up through the filter media, and flows back to the aquarium. The filter chamber consists of several filter media such as sponges, carbon (charcoal) and ceramic medium.

There are external and internal aquarium canister filters available. An external aquarium canister filter has inlet and outlet pipes for water to flow from and to the aquarium. Whereas for the internal aquarium canister filter, it has slits for water to flow into the filter and an outlet from the pump. It is commonly placed on the floor beneath the aquarium or attached to the back of the aquarium glass. Aquarium canister filters have the capacity of filtering several hundred gallons of aquarium water per hour. The benefit of this type of aquarium filter is that its output can be adjusted to any part of the tank.

Undergravel filter

An aquarium undergravel filter is a plastic plate placed between the substrate and the aquarium base with uplift pipes. Water is being drawn down, passing through the substrate, and returned through the uplift pipes. The aquarium undergravel filter is considered as an excellent method for biological filtration. The benefit of this filter is that as the inlet is the whole aquarium base area, there is no way that wastes can escape from being processed. There is a large amount of filter medium available for bacterial colonization. The disadvantage of an aquarium undergravel filter is that when the system gets clogged, the cleaning task requires a major upheaval.

Undergravel filters are most suitable to be used in aquariums which do not have big rocks or decorations blocking large sections of the gravel bed. If such big rocks exist, the block plates would create dead spots on the filter. For udergravel filters, it is preferable to use regular gravel substrate as smaller substrates will tend to fall through and larger ones tend to hide huge amounts of debris.

Sponge filter

An aquarium sponge filter provides biological filtration. It consists of a perforated plastic tube fitted with a cylindrical sponge. The tube is attached to an air pump. It draws the aquarium water through the sponge, which acts as a medium for trapping bacteria. As a sponge filter does not have the tendency of having young fishes being sucked up into the filtration unit, it is suitable for use in aquariums with small fishes. Sponge filters are also good to be used in quarantine tanks where fishes are placed for treatment. This is because sponge filters have no chemical filtration which can affect the effectiveness of medications being used for treatment. As sponge filters only provide biological filtration, they are not suitable to be used in large tanks which have higher filtration requirements. This type of fish tank filter is mainly used in aquariums with low filtration needs.

Aquarium filters provides filtration which is essential in all aquariums in order to keep the clean for the fishes to live well. The above are some types filters used for aquarium filtration. These filters provide different level of filtration needs. You can consider using these filters based on the needs of your aquarium. Please visit Aquarium Filter website for more information.

Rose Mary enjoys travel and writes on various interest topics. Discover the essentials on keeping Betta Fish alive and Aquarium maintenance at http://www.fibcool.com/betta-fish/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rose_Mary