I'll be honest i love how easy and bulletproof sponge holders are but they do have some annoying
quirks that other filters don't have so let's talk about sponge filter hacks the first one
is pretty obvious if you've ever used an air driven devices before but a lot of beginners
don't know that you need a check valve basically if your air pump is lower than your sponge filter
which it is for all of my tanks whenever the power gets turned off or there's a power outage
water is going to flow through this airline tubing onto your floors they're gonna flood your floors
which is why this cheap little doohickey is a lifesaver it allows air to flow in one direction
and then water cannot flow in the other direction i like to install like let's say this is my sponge
filter i like to install the check valve right outside of the tank near the surface of it so that
way only about like this much water gets outside of the tank and then the air pump doesn't have
to work as hard to push all that water back out whenever the power gets on again just as an fyi
the flapper or that horizontal bar over here is the part that should be facing the air pump so
if you accidentally install it backwards no air is gonna flow through this all you have to do is
just flip it around and it's gonna work another thing that absolutely drives me crazy is that
bubbling sound a lot of people like the sound of a witch's brew coming from their fish tank but
i don't and that is caused by large bubbles popping at the surface of the fish tank
that's why i like to add air stones to my sponge filters and that way the bubbles are a lot smaller
and then they aren't as loud when they pop some specialty have a basket inside so just take off
the lid of the basket find an air stone that fits inside of it take a little bit of airline tubing
and then connect the air stone to the bottom of the lid and then just reassemble everything boom
no more bubbling sound now if it's your air pump that's making all the noise make sure to check out
this video over here on several ways you can silence your air pump now i don't know about
you but i tend to get black beard algae growing on my sponge filter especially on the lift tube
where it's closest to the light and then as well as green sludge on the lid where the bubbles pop
so i got this idea from L.R. Bretz, which is making a cover for my sponge filter so you
want to get a black plastic folder cut a square a rectangle of it make an x using an x-acto knife so
that you can pull the airline tubing through that hole and then you position that plastic folder
around the height of the rim of the tank so that it blends in and you can't see it from underwater
and voila the black beard algae got shaded out my lids stay dry so no more green sludge
and then bonus i found out i get fewer mineral deposits around the rim which is really cool
now this is a bit of a controversial hack because some people love it some people hate it
but basically take your sponge filter remove the airline tubing and then put a
power head on the lift tube to drive it instead the pros are it's going to have less sound
you're going to have probably greater mechanical filtration just because there's going to be more
water coming through the sponge filter and then it is going to increase the flow in your aquarium
if that's a something you're looking for because sponge filters are pretty gentle the cons are the
sponge motor may get clogged faster so make sure you're using one with a really coarse porosity and
then also if you think about it your sponge filter is here the power head is kind of pushing water
through the middle of the tank so you either want to go want to orient the flow so it's pointing
more toward the surface because more surface agitation gives you better gas exchange between
oxygen and carbon dioxide basically more oxygen for your fish or maybe get a longer lift tube
so that your power head is situated near the surface again with greater surface agitation
unfortunately one of the downsides of sponge filters is there's no easy way to add chemical
filtration like activated carbon if you want to remove tannins medications and other potential
toxins in your water so i learned this hack from aquarium cop you want to get a sponge pad that
is infused with activated carbon this is not it I'm just using another type of filter pad
but then you're going to cut a long rectangle of it wrap it around your sponge filter and
then affix it with a rubber band or something and this could apply to many other types of
filter media such as you know ammonia absorbing pads or phosphate absorbing pads obviously this
is not the prettiest this is definitely meant to be a temporary solution so if you need something
a little more long term for chemical filtration i would probably just go with a hang on back filter
nowadays i use hacks one through three on all sponge filters that go in my aquariums but if
you prefer hang on back filters I've got 10 hacks specifically for you to check out
take time to enjoy your aquariums and I'll see you in the next video