when it comes to aquarium filtration I'm usually looking for the easiest simplest method to keep my
fish happy and healthy i don't know about you but i am a busy mom got a full-time job at Aquarium
Co-Op so i don't have time to be worrying about some kind of fancy high maintenance
filter which is why in the past few years I've mostly been running things like sponge filters
however recently I've been feeding my 20 gallon aquarium pretty heavily because i want to make
sure the platy babies get enough to eat which means my sponge filters aren't always able to
keep up and get that water crystal clear now i do have this old hang on back filter
that i use as a beginner and there's nothing wrong with it but it just had a few quirks that i never
got quite used to so i decided to ask you my audience to see if you had any cool hacks for
making this thing not only super efficient but also easier to use all right hack number one is
if your hang on back filter comes with disposable cartridges go ahead and get rid of all those and
instead use reusable filter media instead so usually the companies they give you disposable
cartridges that have to be replaced like every month or so because they want to keep making money
off of you but instead i like using AquaClear because it already comes with the reusable filter
media such as sponge which is act as mechanical filtration and that strains out any particles that
are in the water kind of like a coffee filter then for the next layer i like to use these bio rings
and they have lots of porous surfaces so you can house lots of beneficial
bacteria that ends up processing that toxic nitrogen waste that comes from your fish poop
for the final layer AquaClear likes to give you activated carbon for chemical filtration which
is used to remove medications or tannins from the water but that is not reusable so i usually get a
packet of Purigen instead which you can clean up using bleach to reuse it if you don't know what
mechanical biological infiltration are i have a whole video over here that kind of explains it
now i don't usually use chemical filtration for the top layer instead i use filter floss to get my
water super clean this is the cheap batting that you can get from craft stores and because it's
so dense and fine it strains out those really really fine particles that you normally would
not get filtered out from a sponge filter now while the filter floss is really cheap sometimes
i find it easier actually to buy the fine filter pads instead and you just cut it out to shape
stuff it on the very top layer and then when it gets clogged up go ahead and throw it away
and replace it hack number two is to cover the filter intake you can see
there is a basket over here which has slits that little baby fish or leaves or other debris
can get sucked in and then end up ruining your motor
so instead you want to cover it with something like this which is called a pre-filter sponge
this is great because not only does it protect your motor from getting burned up but also it
provides additional mechanical and biological filtration just make sure that you clean this
thing every once in a while or else it'll get clogged up same thing applies to your filter media
you just take it off and then the water that you remove during a normal aquarium water change you
can take this squeeze it in that water or swish it around and that way you will clean the debris
in here without killing the beneficial bacteria in the sponge hack number three is if you want to
use live plants to purify your water of toxic nitrogen waste but you have fish that like to
eat plants you might consider growing plants in your filter instead so this would require
you to leave off the lid of your filter but you basically can take something like a pothos plant
and then just cut off a little leaf and then stick the stem part into the water and it will
start growing roots which is really cool i bet lucky bamboo would probably also work as well but
Julian says that they actually put their pothos inside of a mesh plastic basket so that way it's
easier to remove during cleaning and then they can trim off the roots if they get too long
rat dragon has a whole list of other plants that you can also consider trying but
some of them might be a little bit too big to fit in the filter so do a little research first
hack number four is to minimize any vibration noises now I've never had an issue with this but
bill smith says that he just takes the lid off of the filter puts a rubber band around it like this
and then you place it on there and it's no longer shaking now if you have the issue where the filter
is rubbing up against the tank rim or the tank itself other people have mentioned putting a
piece of foam or sponge between the two and that will completely silence it now if your filter
still has too strong of a current coming out from it even when you put the flow to
the lowest setting there are several ways you can baffle it which i have a whole video on over here
some people like to cut a water bottle in half and place it over the output of the filter but i feel
like it looks like a piece of trash and isn't very pretty so instead i like to buy a soap dish like
this that has a really strong suction cup this one's really easy because you just place it right
under here and then you flip the switch downwards and then it sticks it's really strong some people
like to put glass marbles or even grow moss in it to help kind of dampen the noise even more
another option would be to get a really tall piece of fake decor
or its hardscape and then put it right under the filter like this
that one's obviously a little bit too tall but basically you would have the water
pouring on top of the decoration and that will not only baffle the flow but also help minimize
any splashing noises so you don't feel like peeing every few minutes so hack number six is to hide
a little heater inside now this would depend on the size of your filter and your aquarium
but basically there are these small flat heaters that you could potentially slip inside
kind of behind that filter media and supposedly that helps to distribute the heat in the aquarium
more evenly as well as prevents any fish from getting stuck behind and that is actually a thing
i have totally had an emerald green cory get stuck behind a heater once and actually pass away so
something to watch out for now when you're doing a water change a lot of times you want to
turn off the filter so that if the water goes down below the intake tube the motor doesn't start
running dry and burning out potentially however the only way to do that on a lot of filters is to
unplug it and it can be hard to reach around the back of the tank and find where that outlet is
so instead Jeffrey recommends using a wi-fi timer like this and then that way you can just use your
phone to turn on and off that filter which is really nice plus when you're out of town you can
check your phone to see whether the power is on and is running at your filter plus if your hang
on back filter happens to be self priming which means you don't have to pour in water into the
media basket whenever you want to restart it again you can just set your wi-fi timer to always go on
at midnight every day and that way if you accidentally forget to turn on your filter
after the water change your timer will catch it for you on your phone do you like floating plants
then you probably hate it when they keep getting pushed down by the waterfall
of your hang on back filters so one thing you can do is take some airline tubing
and make a little ring out of it like this which i in my case i used hot glue but I've heard that
you can just heat one end and then snap it over the other end and let it shrink shut
so make a ring like this and then you want this suction cup like this that holds an airline tubing
so then you can just snap that in there and then place this ring wherever you want in the
aquarium so that the floating plants stay inside of the ring however Erin Smith had the opposite
idea where i mean very similar where basically you take the same ring and then you mount it
underneath the hang on back filter like this and then so the waterfall would basically
pour into the ring and it would prevent any of the floating plants from getting inside of the ring
hack number nine is if your impeller in the motor is sticking or making a lot of noise
you may need to take it out and clean it or lubricate it so Gary actually recommends using a
SuperLube grease because it is a food safe and non water soluble lubricant um i haven't done a ton of
research on it but apparently it is aquarium safe there's a lot of opinions out there on what is
proper impeller lubricant but if it's giving you trouble give it a shot take it out and make sure
to take care of it number 10 was something I'd never heard of before but apparently you can put
a surface skimmer outflow box around the intake of your filter which is pretty cool
so surface skimmers are more common i feel like in the saltwater hobby
where if you have kind of this oily scum on the top of your the surface of your water you
can suck it in and clear it out but i usually use something like an air stone or a sponge
filter to break up that surface tension and then i don't usually have a problem but how it works is
you take off the filter intake it's still going to suck up water through this tube and then you
have this box with slits in it that you position around the filter intake and so there's a magnet
on the outside so you can raise or lower the box so that the slits on the box are perfectly
positioned with a water surface and then that water surface will get sucked in through the slits
and then pulled in through the intake and then filtered out through your filter media as usual
there are pre-made versions that you can buy as well as DIY versions that you can apparently make
using a 3D printer so something to check out i really thought of hang on back filters as a good
beginner filter but thanks to your help i realize there's a lot of little advanced techniques that
i can apply to truly customize this thing and address any specific problems that I'm
personally facing such as getting crystal clear water now if you're curious about the differences
between a hang on back filter and a sponge filter i actually have a whole video over here
that talks about kind of the pros and cons of each and actually different circumstances when i like
to use one versus the other take time to enjoy your aquariums and I'll see in the next video