prefilters on draw tubes of filters...

[TwoTankAmin]

I do not bag pre-filters, I use a fine mesh net when I remove them. But removal means the entire intake assembly on my ACs. It takes me about 5-10 seconds to net the sponge part and then remove the intake assembly with the net around the pre-filter foam. For my ATI pre-filters I use a bigger net bit for the smaller sponged as I showed above, I use a brine shrimp net. With my canisters the pre-filter is all IO clean weekly. The internal media is only cleaned twice/year. Not having the pre-filter would mean a ton more maint. work to keep a canister running well.

I have the same media in all my ACs whether the 20 or the 110 and all those in between. Two blocks of foam, (now mostly 20 ppi Poret) with a piece of the ,ore rigid type filter floss between them. I used to use the Big Al's floss which came in rolls. But during Covid they shut down their American operation and I cannot get that floss any longer. I used to throw out the dirty pad and replace it. Now I clean and reuse them. I am stretching out the last floss roll as long as I can.

My first tank had a UGF which became an RUGF and then was removed. It is hard to do well planted substrates which get substrate ferts when one is using a UGF/RUGF unless you want to grow a lot of algae.

As far as I am concerned the best filter a tank can have is a well planted tank which has a majority of the plants with roots in the substrate. But not all tanks can or will be planted. Some fish eat and or decimate plants. Some fish keepers do not want to have to buy plants and.or care for them. In such tanks the next best filter option is a hamburg Mattenfilter. They are way more reliable, need much less maint. and work better than most other filters. It is the massive size of the foam and the rigid quality of it which makes this happen. Most mature Matten filters will also do a fair bit of denitrification using facultative bacteria. Plus Mattens need a real ton of junk to clog them to the point of needing to be cleaned. We are talking years here.

My best working Eheim canister uses 100% Poret foam inside except for the final floss pad which is needed to make things fit properly. I only need to clean it every few years compared to my other Eheims which I clean twice a year.

The best reason for using pre-filters is they help to insure that the media inside the filter is much less likely to clog. And I agree with fishorama on the time to clean a pre-filter v.s. the filter media on the inside of a filter. I rinse media in a bucket of tank water. I can rinse several of the smaller pre-filters I use on ACs in a single bucket of water. Rinsing the filter's internal media may required two buckets just for a single media set.

 

[Back in the fold]

Aqua Clear used to sell pre filters for their filters . They work best to keep fry from venturing where they shouldn’t .

 

[squirley]

In the early days of keeping brackish water tanks, I discovered a clump of Java Moss on the intake of a small canister filter. It had all sorts of debris imbedded within. With a siphon tube next to it, I squeezed, the debris dislodged and was sucked out of the tank. Hum I thought, what if I leave it there? Turns out it was a good move. That clump grew considerably requiring now and then trimming but continued to prefilter the water. Anyway, just thought I would mention it. Sure do like your posts Magnum Man!

I placed a moss pad in the path of the water pushing the food down to the bottom level. It holds the leftover food and then i suction it out of the moss pad

 

[fishorama]

@gimme30 You must use a powerhead on your UGF if they're so clean. We only did air stones (or just the naked tubes when air stones clogged). We also had fish go down the uplifts. I especially remember 2 very small skunk loaches that harassed our CA cichlids; gills were like food dispensers for hungry loaches. We tried to catch them many times, but they were too fast going down the lift tubes as soon as they saw us. We had to tear the tank down to catch them through the ton of crap that stirred up, yuck! 20 years ago I removed our only UGF & haven't looked back, lol.

My husband & I have always shared our hobby for 45 years. When my husband worked his professional job, I was mostly the fish keeper, chef, gardener, housekeeper, etc. Now he's retired, helps more & we have fewer tanks

I admit it, I rinse pre & all filter media in running chlorinated tap water. I use Prime dechlor & run 2 filters on all tanks & alternate media cleaning. It works for me!

 

[gimme30]

That's the way I do it too. I can't imagine how much longer it would take in a bucket of tank water where the gunk you squeezed out just gets sucked right back in.
Maybe that's the key here....Under the tap it gets rinsed until nothing is coming out. Takes a few minutes but you're left with a like-new sponge. How long would it take in a bucket to get to the same level of cleanliness? You'd have to change the water at least once. That's a few more minutes. Maybe you don't care that it's sparkly clean as long as you get that brown cloud after a squeeze or two and all the external debris falls off into the bucket. That'd take less time for sure. Of course it'd clog sooner, meaning you're cleaning it more often. So, a few more minutes.

I'm not seeing the advantage here.

Let's say I take my un-prefiltered filter out of my hob for cleaning. Can't clean that under the tap, so add time for at least one water change. I don't have to bag (or net, same thing) it first though, so take off time there. I start squeezing my foam and floss at the same time you (The collective you, again not singling you out fishorama) start squeezing your prefilter. Regardless of size, unless you have a REALLY big pre-filter, we're going to finish at roughly the same time.
But that prefilter needs to be cleaned weekly, or every two weeks if you push it. The HOB? 3 weeks to a month.

But I'll stop tilting at windmills to announce my NEW line of super duper extra special Instasponges! Check out the pink and blue swirl version for Glo tanks, or try our patented Candystriper for barbershop quartet lovers. And compulsive squeezers will LOVE our FidgetSponge! No intake hole for extra squeezylishousness!

Boy oh boy I'm gonna be RICH!!

 

[Magnum Man]

so, I have a Tidal 75, that I somehow misplaced the slotted end of the draw tube, this happened quite a while ago... having been down the sponge end thing, I did put one of my mesh bags over the end, loosely, and zipped it to the pipe.. it worked well, but was unsightly... when going through my fittings this last weekend, I found pieces to fit the draw screen for my water changes... I had a spare... it's 1/8 inch stainless mesh... it's been on the filter, since Sunday, on one of my former Tilapia tanks, I'm changing uses of... and it's half blinded by "stuff" in 2 days... that will get better with the new use of the tank, but shows the vertical factory slits, don't clog near as fast, as something with horizontal cross wires, even if the squares are twice as wide as the slits

 

[anewbie]

For anything other than preventing fry/shrimp getting sucked up I hate pre-filters. Filtering the filter is just dumb to me and like you said they clog up so quickly you're constantly cleaning the stupid things. I find Japan mat to be kinda messy but if you could get it to stay on it'd be a much better option. It might still trap fry on a strong intake though.

I disagree - i use a large sponge block over the intake to my fx6 and i tell you i much ratehr take 5 minutes once every few months to clean it then to take apart the fx6 to clean it. In this case i only clean to prevent clogging. For my sump i use sponges to keep small fishes from getting sucked into the sump but also it reduce the amount of cleaning effort on the sumps. These are of course larger aquariums - for small aquariums i just use matten or well sponge so all my aquariums under 100 gallon are filtered via sponges. I will admit some of the larger sponges used for matten filters are a bit annoying to clean.