To filter or not to filter?

Promelas

Thanks Angel. Between the internal filter and sponge filter which would you recommend? Are they comparable or does one have any advantages over the other? Are they pretty quiet?

Mean Harri

I've not used either but I would imagine both would be fairly quiet. A power head with a sponge filter on the intake of it would be silent under the water. If you are going to do plants, even if eventually but not now, I'd shoot for something that isn't adding air into the tank to work. Powerhead with sponge filter will trap the bigger particles floating in the water. The plants scrub the ammonia and bacteria scrub the nitrites. Water changes take care of the nitrates. And it's cheap and simple.

Angel079

I'd pers get the small Cascade Internal.
The way I have mine set up I can add Ehfisubstrat Pro on the bottom part and then topped off by 2 sponges; the finest one being on the very top, works great for my set ups.

Comparing the Cascade vs the Sponges in the 10g:
- Cascade 0 sounds; Sponges will give off the bubbling sounrd (simply cause of the way they're built)
- Cascade I can add different media as I want; Sponge is a Sponge that's it
- Raising fry or shrimp works great having a sponge; with the Cascade they'd get sucked in the filter if its not protected
- Cascade (for your case Model 400) uses 7 watts; the sponge about 1 watt

That's really "all" pro-con's I can think of now, hope that helps.

Promelas

Yeah thanks a bunch that helps! I guess now my question is on putting a new filter into an almost cycled tank. Is that going to screw up the bio filter?? The cycle was done with fish, and the ammonia is at 0, with nitrites down to between .5 and .25.

Angel079

I'm assuming you have some sort of filter on there right now?
Take out the pads you can from that existing filter and either stuff them in the new filter and/ or rinse them out REAL good in the tank to get all the muck into the tank (which then get's sucked in my the new filter) so you won't have a new peak.

Promelas

Yeah I have a hang on the back filter at the moment. From what I can gather, I'm going to leave it on there for around a month to give the foam filter time to catch up then just take it off for good. The tank is pretty close to fully cycled, nitrites are down to .25 or so, so I'm hoping that will be done shortly.