Filters are an integral part of any fish tank or aquarium setup. Filters are necessary to remove visible as well as invisible harmful elements from aquarium water and make the tank a habitable and safe place for fish community.
If filtration is absent aquarium water will quickly become dirty and toxic causing deaths every day. To ensure that water quality is absolutely healthy having the correct type of filtration is necessary. Filter not just make water healthy but at the same time maintain a levels of hygienic conditions required for health of your fish.
In order to achieve this it is also necessary that filters themselves are maintained efficiently. If you ignore maintenance of filters then it is going to cause trouble for fish and their health. That is why while selecting a filter see to it that it is easy to maintain and it fits your budget.
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What are the different types of filters?
There are many types of filters for aquariums but all of these fall under 3 basic types.
- Mechanical filter
- Chemical filter
- Biological filter.
Let’s have a look in brief what they do?
1) Mechanical filer – These filters remove all types of visible harmful elements from aquarium water such as dirt particles, dried leaves of plants, uneaten floating food particles if any, etc. Mechanical filters have a mesh type of material in them that holds the solids in them and dirt free water passes out from the outlet. Maintenance of the filter media is necessary from time to time to avoid clogging and increasing efficiency of mechanical filter.
2) Chemical filter – These types of filter are mainly used to remove invisible toxins from aquarium water. Your aquarium water may look crystal clear because of mechanical filtration but invisible gases and elements can seriously harm your fish causing death. These filters include a filter media that holds the toxic elements in them and passes out nontoxic water from outlet making it habitable. The filter media consists of charcoal type material that holds the toxic elements in it.
The downside of these filer media is that once the space in the filter is filled they are become inefficient in making the water nontoxic. These filer media needs to be replacing from time to time to increase the efficiency of filtration. These types of chemical filter are more suitable for industrial types of water filtration and can be slightly expensive for an aquarium.
3) Biological Filter – These are considered the best as far as removing invisible dissolved toxic gases from aquarium water are considered. These filters include colonies of beneficial bacteria in them The construction of these is done in such a way that beneficial bacteria grow in them. When toxic water passes through the filter media they convert harmful gases into slightly less harmful ones making the water habitable for fish. If set up correctly biological filter requires very less maintenance
The filter media in a biological filer is in the form of bio balls which are designed and constructed in such a ways that they have a large surface area within them where colonies of beneficial bacteria can brow and survive. When toxic water passes through them the bacteria convert the toxic gases into less harmful material making the water safe for fish community.
Do I need all these 3 in my aquarium?
You don’t need all 3 filters in your aquarium but a combination of mechanical filter and any of the other two is an ideal situation. The ideal way to set up filtration in any aquarium is to have a combination of mechanical and biological filtration in series.
First he mechanical filters remove visible and solid dirt form the water and then pass the water to a biological filter where the beneficial bacteria convert all the toxic invisible elements into less harmful elements making the water healthy for sigh community. However one thing you must always remember that a biological filter is not a replacement for the nitrogen cycle that you must go through before you stock your tank with fish. A biological filter will maintain a cycle tank forever if all the parameters are taken care of.
Does fish tank filter need to be on all time?
The correct answer to this is yes. Filters are responsible for maintaining healthy habitat for your fish by cleaning visible and invisible toxins from water. Most filters circulate water and help in aeration as well. As water circulate its surface area increase and exchange of gases takes place.
In biological filters beneficial bacteria convert toxic ammonia into nitrites and nitrites into nitrates. These beneficial bacteria require lots of oxygen to do this job. That is why it is necessary that filters are running all the time.
There are some times when it is not possible to run filters such as power failure or a damaged filter. In that case a gap of a few hours may not kill your fish at once. But you must make sure that in such situations you have a backup of power supply or an extra filter that will take care of the situations. Depending on the size of the aquarium you may adjust the flow of water through it if the construction of the filter allows you to do but it has to be running all the time.
Can fish sleep with the filter on?
Yes fish can easily feel better even if filters are running for whole night. Secondly there is a big question whether fish sleep during night or not. In fact filter should not be turned off at night hours because there is a possibility that ammonia and nitrite levels will spike up causing trouble.
If you turn off filter at night hours which are for most people almost 8 hours the biological process that happens in a biological filer will stop and for a tank 8 hours of zero filtration activity is not a good idea. SO just make sure that filter keeps on running even during night hours
Do fish tank filters use a lot of electricity?
Calculating cost of electricity required to run a filter is an important point to consider before you set up your tank systems. Since a filter is an absolute essential entity of any tank for survival of fish, it becomes necessary check power consumption of filers so that everything remains in your budget. The power consumption of aquarium filters is measured on Watts and here are the filters required as per size of the tank in gallons.
- 10 Gallons tank – 5 Watts filter
- 30 Gallons tank – 10 Watts filter
- 50 Gallons tank – 10 Watts filter
- 100 Gallons tank – 10 Watts filter
There is a simple formula to calculate the power consumption of any filter per month. Here’s how you can find out that.
A 5 watts filter running 24 hours a day means 5 x 24 = 120 Watts/day
The filter will run every day for 30 days of the month = 120 X 30 = 3600 Watts/month
Now convert these Watts into Kilo Watts = 3600/1000 = 3.6 KW/month
Average rate of electricity in United States is $0.13 per KW
So the total cost of electricity consumption for a 5 Watts filter will be
3.6 KW x 0.13 = $0.46 approx.
Just like this you can easily calculate the power consumption of your filter by checking the Wattage value written on the back of it’s surface.
Should I turn filter off when feeding fish?
Ideally speaking you should never turn off filters even while feeding fish. If your tank is small then it’s possible that the filter flow agitates the water too much. If that’s the case you can find a spot the opposite end of the tank where you can feed the fish and keep the filter running. If the filter flow is disturbing the water surface too much that food particles will get dispersed all within tank and fish will most likely leave out most of the food particles uneaten. This is not good for health of your fish because these particles settled down and start to decay releasing toxic gases in the tank.
In rare case it can also happen that you turn off the filter and forget about it. If this happen then this is very dangerous for tank environment. Toxic gases can quickly build up and cause trouble in the fish community.
Many people fear that if filter is running when feeding fish it will suck food particles inside and fish will have less food to consume at the same time filter media will get clogged quickly. This can happen in smaller tanks where filter agitate the surface too much and filter flow affects almost entire area of fish tank. In that case instead of turning the filer off you can reduce it’s flow a little and when fish finish off eating food increase it again.
However if your filter does not have function to reduce flow then it is fine of you turn it off for a minute or two when fish are consuming the food. The only backdrop is you must remember to turn it on again when they have finished eating. Turning off filers for a minute or two won’t harm the fish tank water chemistry.
Is it OK to turn aquarium filter off at night?
You should never turn off a filter during night hours. Filters are responsible for continuously cleaning visible as well as non visible toxic elements from water and keeping it safe for fish community. For most people night hours are almost 8 hours long and if you turn off filters for those many hours then the process of cleaning practically stops completely.
During these hours it is possible that there is a spike in ammonia and nitrite levels in the tank. When water flows thought a biological filter the colonies of beneficial bacteria in the biological filter media convert the toxic gases into less harmful ones creating a balance.
-When water flows though the biological filter media dissolved oxygen gets supplied to the beneficial bacteria using when the process of converting ammonia and nitrites happens. If you turn off the filter all these processes are stopped and harmful and toxic gases again start accumulating in the tank.
As fish are continuously producing solid waste from their bodies it is necessary that filtration process is also continuous without breaks. The only times when there should be breaks in filtration is when you have a damaged filter or power failures. In such case be prepared for a secondary filter just for replacement for a few hours.
In case of a secondary filter also it will not give you the same kind of efficiency because the biological filter media will not have the same amount of colonies of beneficial bacteria present ion the filter media.
How often should I run my aquarium filter?
You must keep running aquarium filter all the time without interruptions. If you have power frequent power outages in your area then you also must have backup facility. The only time when you can shut down filter for a small amount of time is when you are doing water changes.
Filters are responsible for keeping your aquarium water healthy by removing visible solid particles and invisible toxins. If you shut down filter even for smaller hours then there will be spike in toxic gases because fish are always producing solid waste from their body after eating and if not taken care of will harm water chemistry. A combination of mechanical and biological filter will give you best results in maintaining a perfect nitrogen cycle in the tank. That is why never shut down you aquarium filter.
Can a filter be too strong for a fish?
Yes this can happen if you install a too strong. Normally filters have water circulating capacity motioned in the description from where you buy them. You can have a filter that circulated 4 to 6 times capacity of the tank per hour that’s all is required.
For example if you tank is a smaller one with 20 liters capacity then check this against the water changing capacity per hour and then install it on your tank. If it is pulling too much water then fish will feel discomfort.
Will my fish be OK without a filter for a day?
A day has 24 hours and being in a tank without a filter is not good for your fish. If you have a cycled tank then probably your fish will not die because of filter being off because during cycling process the excess harmful gases have been eliminated and a habitual place is being created.
But to be practical you must keep in mind that having an extra filter handy can be good idea in case it takes you time to replace the original one. If you have a larger tank then keeping filter off for a day for unavoidable reasons won’t kill your fish the next day. Fish are extremely sensitive to sudden changes in anything like temperature and excess entry of harmful gases. If you keep filter off for a day then the spikes in toxic gases won’t be sudden obviously but should not be ignored at all.
How long will fish survive without filter?
Without a filter your fish are likely to survive a day or two. The reason behind this is filter help clean water and not just clean but make it healthy too. Biological filters convert harmful invisible gases in the fish tank water into less harmful elements making it habitual. Beneficial bacteria in the filter media require oxygen to do this job efficiently. Filter flow helps mixing of oxygen by agitating water surface and encouraging mixing of surrounding oxygen in the water. The beneficial bacteria consume dissolved oxygen and help conversion of dissolved toxic gases into less harmful ones.
If you shut down the filter the mixing of oxygen and hence conversion of toxic gases stops or becomes too slow. In community tank where several fish species are present the build of ammonia and nitrite starts immediately and can cause trouble for some species. Some fish species are too sensitive for spikes in ammonia levels.
If you have a situation where your filter needs to be repaired and cannot be run for two days or more then you must see that enough oxygen is being supplied in the tank so that at least the beneficial bacterial in the filter media are supplied with oxygen so that they can do their job. In case of filter repairs you can remove filter media and still use it in the tank because it has colonies of beneficial bacterial that help conversion of toxic gases.