Aquarium Filter | Aquarium Filter - The Basics

Aquarium Filter - The Basics

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An aquarium filter is important to your aquarium setup because for your fish to be happy, the water quality had to be high. I know purist will say that having aquatic plants and those sucker fish is enough to clean up the fish environment. This can be true if you only have a few fishes in your aquarium, but once your population of fish exploded, an aquariumfilter is essential for enhanced bio-loading.

Aquarium filters works in a variety of ways, but there are mostly three types of filtration. Mechanical, Chemical and Biological Filtration.

Mechanical Aquarium Filter

Imagine a sieve that you use to separate out the solid rubbish from your liquid rubbish. That’s how a mechanical aquariium filter works. This type of aquqarium filter is mostly used to filter out things like uneaten fish food, excretions, plant or algal debris.

Some of the material used for a mechanical aquarium filter include sponges, polyester fiber, synthetic foams or filter wool made of polyethylene terephthalate or nylon.

Once the solids particles are trapped within the aquarium filters, the pore size of the sieve will get smaller and smaller. This will affect the flowrate of the water within the aquarium. For maximun efficiency and not overloading the power pump, you have to change the mechanical aquariumfilters once they are clogged.

Chemical Aquarium Filter

Other than solid waste, there are also chemical waste in the aquarium environment. Some common chemical waste included toxins from the fish waste, medications for the fishes, heavy metal in the water and chlorine found in tap water.

The most common material for chemcial aquarium filter is activated charcoal or carbon. As the aquarium water pass through it, the activated carbon will absorb the chemicals and hold them until you removed the carbon. They are not reusable and must be changed frequently.

Biological Aquarium Filter

Like your intestine that will break down the food you eat with friendly bacteria, biological aquarium filters work the sam way. The filter will consist of a medium that will house friendly bacteria that can break down the bio waste excreted by the fish.

A common toxic biological waste is ammonia. the bacteria will break it down into nitrite and then into nitrate. The nitrate will then be used by the aquatic plants as chemical fertilizers.

Sometimes aquarium filters can serve dual mode whereby a mechnical filter can contain bacteria inside to do the biological filter part.

These are the basics of Aquarium filter. There will be more articles. Stay tuned.

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