Types of Planted Aquarium Filters

by Apr 11, 2021

In this 6 Parts Series of articles, we will discuss the types of planted aquarium filters, how they work, their features, pros and cons, and other tips on how to maintain them. How to take care of your beneficial bacteria and not accidentally kill them is discussed too.

HOB Filter Close Up Aquascaped by Omar Krishnan Afuang Philippines

Hang on Back/HOB/Power Filters

They are also called hang-on-back filters (HOB), and are designed to hang on the back of your aquarium, eing! Power filters are the most commonly used planted aquarium filter because they provide good to excellent mechanical and biological filtration simultaneously. They can also provide the needed water surface agitation for aerating your water.

Internal Filters

An internal filter is placed inside the tank and is totally submerged in water from the name itself. They were the first aquarium filters available for home aquariums. But with the dawn of aquascaping, these filters have lost their acclaim, but they still have their uses in planted aquariums.

Canister Filters by Billie Jay Basilio Philippines

Canister Filters

Canister filters are more powerful and larger than most other filters, and they are suitable for medium to large planted aquariums. This means you can stuff more media due to its larger capacity/volume, which in turn allows for better filtration and more beneficial bacteria colonization. The simple fact is the more volume your filter has, and the more media you can stuff into it, the more effective and efficient your filtration is and the clearer/cleaner your water is.

Using a Trickle Filter Aquascaped by Jei Joaquin Philippines

Trickle Filters

The trickle filter concept is to expose the water to as much air as possible, providing more dissolved oxygen. This will make your biological filtration very efficient and far better than other filters. If you can remember, your biological filtration’s efficiency in converting harmful substances (Ammonia and Nitrites) in your water into a less harmful form (Nitrate) depends on the amount of their food and oxygen in the water.

Sump Filters

Think about a trickle filter as vertical filtration stages and a sump filter as a horizontal one by utilizing chambers separated by baffles to route the water horizontally. The main takeaway here is that the filter media are always wet/submerged in water as opposed to a trickle filter. A sump filter can be positioned below your main tank, overhead, or integrated.

Fluidized Bed Filters

In its most common implementation, a Fluidized Bed filter is actually a 3 chambered sump separated by baffles. The big difference is that the biological media is held in suspension by a pumped water flow or bubbles from an air pump so that every particle of the media will have a large part of its surface area exposed to water flow and well aerated at any given time to home the beneficial bacteria that will filter the water off of Ammonia and Nitrites, as opposed to static media sump filters.

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