There are many things to consider when you have a home aquarium. Maintenance is an important aspect of having an aquarium and one of the things that will help you keep the tank water clean is filtration. This makes it safer for the aquatic animals to live inside the aquarium.
There are three fish tank filter categories that you will come across such as biological, mechanical and chemical filtration. In mechanical filtration, the items used are filter floss pads, sponges and filter socks. These help to filter out dirt and debris from the water physically and it collects the dirt requiring you to clean the filter regularly. This will make the water cleaner in the tank. In chemical filtration, activated carbon is most commonly used to remove impurities such as medications, tannins etc. from the water.
The media for chemical filtration can get saturated with pollutants after some time and will lose the ability to absorb further pollutants. Biological filtration refers to aquarium plants and good bacteria that can use up or consume nitrogen and ammonium compounds that are created from fish waste. These filters come with biomedia to provide a lot of surface area for the beneficial bacteria to live. Biological filtration is responsible for making the water safe for the fish to live in.
A sponge filter is very commonly used in aquariums. This is part of a basic filter and you will need an air pump and airline tubing along with a sponge filter. The air will be pushed through the tubing into the empty cavities inside the sponge filter. This allows for water to be drawn through the walls of the sponge clearing debris from water. This is an easy to clean filter but as it takes up some space in the tank, you will need to hide it with plants and aquarium décor. Live aquarium plants can provide biological filtration. These will grow by taking in ammonia and nitrogen compounds. This is one filter that you don’t need to hide as they are used for décor in many aquariums. But you will need to prune dead leaves and maintain them.
You can also use a hang-on-back filter which is located on the top of an aquarium with the filter box being outside of the tank. There is an intake tube that is inserted into the tank to take in water. This water will be passed through the media inside the filter box and returned back to the aquarium. You can customise these easily and the transference makes for a calming waterfall sound. Choose a filter that comes with an adjustable flow rate so you can make changes when necessary.
Canister filters will sit under the tank and they have an intake and output hose to the aquarium. This is powered by a motor and it allows the water to be taken into the canister so it travels through different layers of media and then clean water is transferred back into the tank. This is similar to the hang-on-back filter. However, this is a quiet filter and it can pack a lot of power as well. But because of the high performance, it can be a little expensive.