Pre Filter Sponges

[Photobelle]

My platy is pregnant so I put the pre filter sponges on the filters however I am not sure I like this. It seems like all the bigger debri in the tank is just getting stuck to the sponges rather than going up into the filter. Are these useful at all? I am trying to cycle my tank so I an not sure if these will help or hinder but I don't like seeing everything stuck to them.

 

[Ohio Mark]

My platy is pregnant so I put the pre filter sponges on the filters however I am not sure I like this. It seems like all the bigger debri in the tank is just getting stuck to the sponges rather than going up into the filter. Are these useful at all? I am trying to cycle my tank so I an not sure if these will help or hinder but I don't like seeing everything stuck to them.

For what it's worth, I've successfully kept platys & guppies and never used pre-filter sponges. I do have well-planted tanks and the fry have quickly hidden away in the plants.

 

[Photobelle]

For what it's worth, I've successfully kept platys & guppies and never used pre-filter sponges. I do have well-planted tanks and the fry have quickly hidden away in the plants.

I do have 2 pieces of driftwood with Anubias sobtheh would have hiding places.

 

[75g Discus Tank]

The sponge will accumulate a lot of debris, so I would clean it every 2 weeks(In tank water) If the fry are already born by that time, turn the filter off very quickly and clean quickly. Then add the sponge cover back, and you should be good.

I used a more natural approach instead of a sponge. I had a ton of wild moss I harvested from a river and it naturally got stuck on the filter intake. I had guppies at the time and none of the babies were sucked up.

 

[Biev]

For what it's worth, I've successfully kept platys & guppies and never used pre-filter sponges. I do have well-planted tanks and the fry have quickly hidden away in the plants.

Fry can definitely get sucked up into the filter if the flow is strong enough. It happened to us a lot at work, before I convinced them to change from HOB to mattenfilters. Never had that issue with canister filters, but that's because I use the ones with adjustable flow.

If you're using a canister filter but the flow isn't adjustable, one thing you could do is use a 2" thick, 20 to 30 ppi poret foam sheet and use it as a barrier so the fry can't reach the intake. I do that in my axolotl tanks and it's fantastic, you get a lot of extra biological+mechanical filtration. The larger pores mean the sponge never clogs, and you can easily siphon from behind the foam wall without having to worry about sucking up fry!

 

[yukondog]

For guppys and platys I never worried about the filter and always have enough fry to use as feeders.