Putting a sponge on my AC 110 intake tubes

I have 2 AC110s on my 125 gallon. I use sand as my substrate and it gets sucked up into my filters when the sand gets disturbed. My lfs has intake tubes with big sponges on the bottoms. Will these cut my gph down on my filters at all with the water having to get sucked through the sponges?

 

Yes it will

 

Well looks like that idea is scratched. Also, I just bought a canister filter to run on the tank as well, can I cut a few pieces off the foam in one of my ACs and put them in the canister to help speed up the building of bacteria in the canister?

 

I don't think it makes a difference if you're running the canister filter in the same tank. The media in the canister should get seeded all the same.

How low are your intake tubes? Are you using extensions on them? If the tubes are at least 6 inches above the substrate, the sand shouldn't get sucked in.

 

They are way above the sand, it only sucks it in when I do sand vacuums or a fish playd in the sand

 

Try using nylon stocking around the intake tube.

 

You can, but there's no need to do that if you're keeping the ACs on there. The bacteria will colonize there anyway.

And you can buy prefilter sponges online for pretty cheaply. They fit over the intakes of the AC filters.

 

Yes the ACs will be staying, and thanks for the input! With the 2 ACs and the canister ill have roughly 1300 gph filtration. And thank you for the info of the prefilter sponges! I just found them and ordered 2!