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Power aquarium filters are popular with owners of small tanks because they are inexpensive and can be quite adequate so long as the demands on them are not too great. You'll find power aquarium filters easy to recognise – many of them need a hole in the top of the tank to accommodate the filter. Water is powered up through the filtration media by means of a small pump – hence the name power aquarium filter.
As the water reaches the top of the filtration container, it overflows or spills out. The water, once it spills out of the power aquarium filter, is collected in a spillway, and from that point returns to the tank.
Maintaining A Power Aquarium Filter
Generally speaking, power aquarium filters are easy and inexpensive to maintain. They usually have factory manufactured cartridges which are easy to replace. Mechanical filtration cartridges do not need to be replaced until they start to be physically damaged – all you have to do until that point is to wash them gently in waste water from your aquarium.
When changing biological filters, they are ineffective for a period of time because of the loss of bacterial colonies. This can be a potentially disastrous situation, and can be avoided by the simple expedient of using a filter that employs two or more methods of filtration, so that wastes are still removed from the tank while the bacterial colonies in the new filter cartridge develop and come up to full strength.
Remember to also clean the various tubes of the filter from time to time, as well as the pump. This isn't at all hard to do, and you get special kits at any pet store that will let you clean the tubing and pump of your filter quickly and easily.
There are negative aspects to power aquarium filters, of course. Firstly, they can be rather inefficient. They draw water from the same point they deliver filtered water to – this results in the filtered water being drawn back into the filter, while the water in the rest of the tank remains dirty. They also lose a lot of water due to evaporation as the water overflows from the top of the filter.
On the other hand, this overflow also ensures that the water in your tank remains well oxygenated, helping to keep your fish healthy. One potentially dangerous aspect if you have fish or amphibians that are good jumpers is that a section needs to be cut from the cover of the tank to accommodate the power aquarium filter, and this can result in you losing perfectly good fish through the gap.
But all in all, for the small tank owner, power aquarium filters do exceptionally well. |
