ashleynicole
Aquarium Advice Addict
O.k., so I have been having issues with my 5 gallon betta tanks and the filters causing too much outflow for the bettas. So first I tried stuffing more media in but all that did was cause backflow of water coming out of the intake side. Then I tried stuffing some sponge into the intake tube. These are planted tanks so it helped a bit, but the intake tubes sponges got clogged too fast and the water had a lot of gunk floating around. Then I bought the hagan elite internal filters but they didn't filter as well as I liked, and with no surface agitation the top of the water looked slimy and gross. Also the output on these mini internal filters are adjustable but still pretty strong and one of the bettas fins got torn from swimming underneath it. So I decided to put the HOB filters back on and try to figure something out.
Then I rememberd a thread on here where someone had used filter media on the output of their hob filters so I decided to try something similar. I cut a piece of sponge from an old sponge filter and slid it onto the intake tube so that it rests where the outflow is. I also cut a slit to attach it to the plastic part of the output. I think I finally found a good solution because it disperses the outflow nicely and doesn't reduce the filtration capacity of the hob filters. I prefer aquaclear filters but these are the aquatech filters that came with the tanks. I've attatched a picture. I hope this helps for anyone experiencing the same problem with their betta tanks. This is really working well for me and I just wanted to share it.
Then I rememberd a thread on here where someone had used filter media on the output of their hob filters so I decided to try something similar. I cut a piece of sponge from an old sponge filter and slid it onto the intake tube so that it rests where the outflow is. I also cut a slit to attach it to the plastic part of the output. I think I finally found a good solution because it disperses the outflow nicely and doesn't reduce the filtration capacity of the hob filters. I prefer aquaclear filters but these are the aquatech filters that came with the tanks. I've attatched a picture. I hope this helps for anyone experiencing the same problem with their betta tanks. This is really working well for me and I just wanted to share it.