# What type of filter?



## NeptunesMom (May 4, 2012)

I'm going to buy everything for my NPT tomorrow. What type of filter should I use if I am planning on having Duckweed in my tank? I like the look of floating plants, but I want to make sure I have the appropriate filter for such plants.


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## LebronTheBetta (Apr 23, 2012)

Sponge?


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## NeptunesMom (May 4, 2012)

LebronTheBetta said:


> Sponge?


Are you asking? 

I know nothing about filters. This is all new to me. None of my tanks have filters.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Ah yeah, I'd go with sponge filters as well. You can get them off ebay/amazon/petstore sites. Basically they're air driven and they're at the bottom of the tank anchored in the substrate and they suck in debris while letting bubbles out the top so there's still some circulation but it's nothing like what a HOB would do to your floaters or anything. So yeah, definitely sponge filters. I'd get two to make up twice your needed filtration so if it's a 20 gallon tank, then use two 20 gallon rated sponge filters. That gives you 40 and then when you need to change out the sponge you don't have to lose a whole colony of BB when you do change it. But for the most part you just take out the sponge part and give it a swish and squeeze in old tank water and it's good to go! :-D


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## LebronTheBetta (Apr 23, 2012)

Oh no, I'm not asking. Since you help a lot of members, I thought you knew. ^.^ 

Sponge filters are just sponges with a tube like thing and air tubing. The air pushes water into the sponge and therefore; filtrates it. It seems to be best for BB, a lot of media and whatnot. It just bubbles up to the surface; it has no intake. Here is mine.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

LebronTheBetta said:


> Sponge filters are just sponges with a tube like thing and air tubing. The air pushes water into the sponge and therefore; filtrates it.


That's not exactly how a sponge filter works. The air does not push anything. The rising air bubbles create a vacuum behind them, which pulls water up into the void left behind. The vacuum created by the bubbles in the center of the sponge (and in the tube like thing) is what draws the water into the sponge, filtering it.

Don't mean to nitpick, but words have meanings and there is right and wrong with regards to physics.


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## VJM (Feb 7, 2013)

It is really up to you. HOB filters have an intake lower than the duckweed, canister filters you can adjust. 

Believe me, nothing bothers duckweed.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

VJM said:


> It is really up to you. HOB filters have an intake lower than the duckweed, canister filters you can adjust.
> 
> Believe me, nothing bothers duckweed.


Duckweed actually hates one of my HOB's and won't grow in one tank miraculously and in my big 33 it only grows where the water sprite is floating and doesn't populate that much thankfully lol


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## rickey (Jul 7, 2013)

Maybe I missed it, but What size is the tank?


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

VJM said:


> Believe me, nothing bothers duckweed.


Duckweed dies in my tanks because of the current and surface disruption.


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## VJM (Feb 7, 2013)

I was convinced it hated my tanks too. It was merely biding it's time. I am on daily duckweed removal patrol.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Yeah but my 10 has been set up since January which isn't much time considering others but it has never grown there dispite how much I threw in there, I'd just die because of the water circulation. Which is fine by me


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## NeptunesMom (May 4, 2012)

LebronTheBetta said:


> Oh no, I'm not asking. Since you help a lot of members, I thought you knew. ^.^
> 
> Sponge filters are just sponges with a tube like thing and air tubing. The air pushes water into the sponge and therefore; filtrates it. It seems to be best for BB, a lot of media and whatnot. It just bubbles up to the surface; it has no intake. Here is mine.


Not on filters I don't. :-D I know nothing about them. My boyfriends brother had a filter on his 20 g, it sucked up his fish and they all died. He obviously make a boo boo, but I swore I'd never have a tank/species that needed a filter. Well, now I really would like to have a healthy thriving community NPT with a Betta sorority in it. So.. that has led me to needing a filter.

ETA: The size is undetermined as of yet. I'm buying it tomorrow. The smallest it would be is 20 g, but I did just find a good sized pay check from May that I didn't know I had... so.... I might splurge on something bigger if I can get the boyfriend to agree, and I'm pretty good at getting him to agree.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

NeptunesMom said:


> My boyfriends brother had a filter on his 20 g, it sucked up his fish and they all died. He obviously make a boo boo, but I swore I'd never have a tank/species that needed a filter.


Filters don't kill fish. Fish that are either dying or already dead and are collected by filters. 1 day old cichlid fry are capable of not being sucked into the filter. 

I'm not trying to trying to be argumentative, but your fear of filters is totally irrational. That's like saying "My friend was in a car accident while in an SUV, so I'm never riding in an SUV again." Or, "My friend got sick from the steak they ate last night, so I'm never eating meat again."


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## NeptunesMom (May 4, 2012)

jaysee said:


> Filters don't kill fish. Fish that are either dying or already dead and are collected by filters. 1 day old cichlid fry are capable of not being sucked into the filter.
> 
> I'm not trying to trying to be argumentative, but your fear of filters is totally irrational. That's like saying "My friend was in a car accident while in an SUV, so I'm never riding in an SUV again." Or, "My friend got sick from the steak they ate last night, so I'm never eating meat again."


Well, if you don't know anything about filters your assumption would be that they all died as a result of being sucked into the filter. I never saw it, but he said they were shredded up into little bit. 

I've had others at work tell me that their fish were sucked into the filter too. So I don't think it's irrational if your only knowledge about filters is based on other people's experiences and they are not always good ones. Now, everyone always says they did something wrong, but at the same time there's still the fear "what if I do something wrong?". 

It's not always irrational to say "____ happened to my friend, I'll never do that because of that." If I said, "My friend died in a drunk driving accident, I'll never ride with a drunk driver" that's basing your choices off others life experiences.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

Yes, it is a common assumption that the fish got sucked into the filter. But, healthy fish can avoid the filter with ease. Fish don't maintain their integrity for very long after they die.

No, it's not always irrational to say "such and such". One need not have a friend die in a drunk driving accident to decide not to ride with drunk drivers. That's just making a smart decision. Drunk driving and dying are closely related. However, the examples I used reflect the nature of the issue, which is that one has no bearing on the other.


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## LebronTheBetta (Apr 23, 2012)

I guess sponge filters are your best bet to not get anything sucked in. And sorry about your brother's fish; they might've been weak?

And sorry, I'm not learning physics in middle school..


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## MattsBettas (Dec 18, 2012)

Filters can and do kill fish. Try putting a HOB in with some week old betta fry. Most healthy adult fish should be able to avoid filters though.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

I don't have experience with betta fry, but I do have experience with cichlid fry and like I said, 1 day old cichlid fry are able to avoid my massive filtration systems.

Chances are the fish in question were not week old betta fry though... ;-)


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## MattsBettas (Dec 18, 2012)

Yea but your statement was very broad and made the impression that all healthy fish can survive a filter.


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## NeptunesMom (May 4, 2012)

The fish that passed were young cichlid fry. My boyfriends brother took the young fry from his dads cichlid tank to start his tank (yes, it's too small of a tank for cichlids). They were probably a week oldish. They spent a day fishing out all the babies when they noticed them.

But, no matter what the thought of a fish being sucked into a filter (healthy or not) is pretty upsetting to me.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

Yes, I maintain that a healthy fish will not be killed by the filter. In the 1 week old betta example - there's no way for you to know that the fish that were sucked up were healthy. Too, one could easily argue that such a loss would be a result of user error - obviously not a good choice for filtration for the application.

You are welcome to argue that healthy fish are killed by filters if you like. I'm not sure how many examples of such "Healthy" fish being killed by the filter you can come up with, but for every one I am sure there are countless examples of healthy (and sick) fish that manage to not be killed by the filter. 

So the week old fry were shredded into little pieces...even smaller than their whole selves, and these tiny pieces of tiny fish were too big to get sucked through the strainer. Okay. So skip the filter. I though NPTs weren't supposed to have filters anyway. Or is that just walstad tanks?


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Well if you did sponge filters you really wouldn't have to worry about fish getting sucked up onto the filter so that would be nice.

Oh yeah, forgot this was an NPT as well so you probably won't need double the filtration as I had suggested earlier. So just one sponge filter would be fine then if you still wanted a filter


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## NeptunesMom (May 4, 2012)

So, even if I did a community tank with Betta, dwarf loaches, RCS, MTS and guppys I wouldn't need a filter?


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

If it's a true NPT, then no you won't need a filter. But I know that when it's first set up quite often you need to keep a close eye on the water parameter's because it fluctuates quite a bit the first month or so I believe and after that it will stabilize out and you won't have to do weekly water changes and stuff like that. But if you're just doing a regular Planted Tank, then yes you should get a filter still.


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## snowflake311 (Jun 19, 2013)

jaysee said:


> Filters don't kill fish. Fish that are either dying or already dead and are collected by filters. 1 day old cichlid fry are capable of not being sucked into the filter.
> 
> I'm not trying to trying to be argumentative, but your fear of filters is totally irrational. That's like saying "My friend was in a car accident while in an SUV, so I'm never riding in an SUV again." Or, "My friend got sick from the steak they ate last night, so I'm never eating meat again."


What kind of fry are you raising? Yes fry will get sucked up into filters they get sucked up into the hose when you do a wc. Maybe if you have a really really weak filter that is set super low the fry might have a chance st not getting sucked up. I agree larger healthy fish will not die from the filter they will die from poor water quality due to lack of filter. 

But you are right don't fear the filter. There are lots of things you can do to make them safe. I have put sponges on the intake of filters to keep fry and baby shrimp from getting up it. Or I rip up the mesh bath spong and use that mesh on my filter intakes so the holes are so small not even shrimp babies can get in.


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## NeptunesMom (May 4, 2012)

lilnaugrim said:


> If it's a true NPT, then no you won't need a filter. But I know that when it's first set up quite often you need to keep a close eye on the water parameter's because it fluctuates quite a bit the first month or so I believe and after that it will stabilize out and you won't have to do weekly water changes and stuff like that. But if you're just doing a regular Planted Tank, then yes you should get a filter still.


It's going to be a true NPT. I'm going to use soil with a black sand cap. I was following OFL's thread, and she mentioned the use of a filter. I thought NPT did not need them, but since she mentioned it I figured it was needed.


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## jaysee (Dec 9, 2009)

snowflake311 said:


> What kind of fry are you raising? Yes fry will get sucked up into filters they get sucked up into the hose when you do a wc. Maybe if you have a really really weak filter that is set super low the fry might have a chance st not getting sucked up. I agree larger healthy fish will not die from the filter they will die from poor water quality due to lack of filter.
> 
> But you are right don't fear the filter. There are lots of things you can do to make them safe. I have put sponges on the intake of filters to keep fry and baby shrimp from getting up it. Or I rip up the mesh bath spong and use that mesh on my filter intakes so the holes are so small not even shrimp babies can get in.


I've had convict and chanchito fry. On the 55 with the chanchitos, I had an XP2 (300 GPH) and a sunsun 302 canister (265 GPH). Certainly not weak by any stretch of the imagination.


Sent from Petguide.com App


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## Agent13 (Apr 23, 2013)

only thing I've ever had go up the intake of any filter were baby red cherry shrimp... however they lived. When I noticed them maybe a day or two later I just turned off the filter took them out (I had two sections of the intake both with mesh or holes *whatever..can't think of the name lol*) they were saved by the second section of the intake and put them back in the tank and were fine. You shoud never let that be a deciding factor on if you filter your tank or not. There are shrimp guards..that work for small fish too that you can order and plave over your intake. 
On cichlid fry... my youngest cichlids ( not true fry anymore..about an inch) actualy enjoy playing in the Vacuum as I do water changes. Thay are healthy and strong enough to fight the suction and play in there :lol: Couldn't imagine at any age those guys going up an intake.


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## Tikibirds (May 26, 2011)

I have a planted 20G - not a NPT but I do have plant specific substrate. ANyways, I have a HOB and a sponge filter in addition to the plants. I kept the HOB because there are some heavy duty poopers in that tank (lots of snails and 2 clown plecos) and I wanted more mechanical filtration. Where the tank is, I cant add a bigger HOB as they wont fit ( I tried) and that's why I added the sponge. Plus I figured the bubbles would help add oxygen for the plecos. I guess the plants would do that too? 

Plus with sponge filters you can get an attachemnt thingy that allows you to control the airflow and allows you to run several sponges off one pump which is nice cause I only have so many electrical outlets.


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