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coarse/medium/fine sponge?

humdingerx

Member
Joined
8 Feb 2015
Messages
81
I figure sponge is sponge so instead of paying premiums for filter sponges why not just get regular sheets and cut to size? Trouble is, where from? Anywhere in Berkshire? Or to order cheap online? Any links? :)
 
You can try garden centers in your area, ones that sell pond supplies. Ring up first though as some charge stupid prices. You can use pretty much use whatever you want, people on this site like the plastic pot scrubbers, lego bricks, loose change...

Ebay and amazon aren't a bad place to try just look at filter sponge you should get 50cm x 50cm for about a fiver each, probably less. I'm currently using coarse 10ppi as prefilter on the intake, one 20 ppi in the first tray and that's it. You don't want to pack your filter full, flow is king.
 
Perfect thanks. I do need to get some more flow going as well so will try with just the coarse sponge and check out local garden centre too.
 
Perfect thanks. I do need to get some more flow going as well so will try with just the coarse sponge and check out local garden centre too.

I should probably point out that I've made the assumption that you have an over sized filter, ie if your tanks is 100L your filter is rated for 300-400L sized tank and you have a medium to heavy amount of plant mass. Don't want you running an aferican cichlid tank with an empty filter canister :D.
 
Aha well it's a 200l tank with Fluval 405. Not heavily planted and under stocked with small fish so I think I should be able to at least reduce the bio media a bit maybe take out the fine sponge in the bottom too. I'm having problems with flow/dead spots anyway and need to add in powerhead/internal filter too to help with that but that's another topic (elsewhere)
 
Hi all,
Aha well it's a 200l tank with Fluval 405. Not heavily planted and under stocked with small fish, so I think I should be able to at least reduce the bio media a bit maybe take out the fine sponge in the bottom too.....
Definitely take the sponge out. I don't have any sponge finer than PPI10 in the filter, but I have a PPI10 or PPI20 pre-filter on the filter intake. I rinse this pre-filter sponge out every 10 - 14 days, which takes ~30 seconds.

The pre-filter acts as an additional biological/mechanical filter and it stops bulky organic material ending up in the filter and reducing flow. This means that the intervals between cleaning the media in the filter body can be extended to several months.

cheers Darrel
 
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I took out the fine sponge, reduced the bio media noodles/spread them out more across trays and got the coarse sponges. Definitely more flow now so result :)
 
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