Built-in Filters

[Tropical_Fish]

I've seen a couple of tanks with built in filters in the back - Are they any good? Or a waste of time?

 

[doresy]

I've seen a couple of tanks with built in filters in the back - Are they any good? Or a waste of time?

Hi, most are pretty good but it would be a good idea to add the exact model you are interested before anyone could give a valued recommendation

 

[Tropical_Fish]

Thanks for the reply - the honest answer is I don't know! It's a 2nd hand one I was looking at. It's approx 2'x1'x1'.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, there are many types of exotic filters that go beyond what we usually talk about in the beginners section. There are "wet/dry" filters which add an area of biological media that uses some method to expose the bacteria to both tank water and air, thus allowing a much larger gas exchange to the biofilm the bateria are living in. These filters can be useful for specialized tanks, often ones that support overstocked numbers of large cichlids and other fish. Its generally overkill and not necessarily recommended for normal community tanks that beginners are trying to learn on and it can have some down sides in terms of being easier to kill the bacteria.

The next larger volume type of filter after an external cannister is the "sump" filter. Often a sump filter is simply another fish tank, sitting below the tank inside the tank cabinet and converted into a filter. There is an "overflow" or other method of getting tank water down to the sump and then a pump to lift the filtered water back to the tank. Often the pump is like a little motor sitting right down in the water in the sump. Sump filters can have huge volumes of media and usually have several pieces of glass to direct the water through a specified path. Versions of these for salt water get even more complicated and there are types called refugium that even harbor plants and are lighted.

Sumps can either involve outside "overflows" to bring the water down or can be "drilled out," possibly receiving the water from an internal overflow or weir. A drilled out tank has holes in the tank and matching stand (usually) to bring hoses directly down to the cabinet equipment. These are pretty common with large marine setups.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Tropical_Fish]

Thanks for that waterdrop - very useful info.

Looks like I may end up with a 'spare' tank with a filter in the back - not sure how easy it would be to setup as a fry tank? If it's got the filter built in - I'd just need a heater, are they suitable for this purpose?

 

[waterdrop]

Well now I guess you could be talking about a tank with a sectioned off area that has a filter and could take a heater placed in that section, there are some of those types too. Hard to tell from the descrip. ..perhaps a photo?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Tropical_Fish]

should be picking it up at the weekend so will take a photo then,

to cut a long story short, I need a heater and a bulb for the cheap tank I bought the other day, so I've just bought another cheap tank to use the heater and the bulb (the whole setup was cheaper than buying a heater and bulb) This tank isn't what we wanted (ie shape/style) but should finish off the other one.

I'm then left with an additional tank with built in filter and it also comes with another filter which I may use with the other tank.


It's all getting complicated now, I started off wanting to start a cheap fish tank for my daughter to watch the fish, now I suddenly have 3 tanks and hopefully enough bits to get atleast one tank running! Just got weeks of cycling before we can even have any fish, and I've already spent weeks reading up on it

 

[waterdrop]

goodbye life, hello water change