What Filter to Use if you have a Freshwater Aquarium

Freshwater aquariums are the most common types of aquariums available today. Most aquarium owners across the world do not have the time to maintain a marine aquarium and as a result, they resort to freshwater aquarium. Pet stores are, as a result, well stocked up on supplies and accessories for freshwater aquariums, including essentials such as heaters and aquarium filters.

The Freshwater aquarium filter are of three basic types - Biological, Chemical and Mechanical. This differentiateion is mainly made on the basis of the filtration media and the principles involved in the filtration process.

1. Biological Filters: Ammonia is toxic to fish, to the extent that it can cause fatality even in small amounts. Biological filters use nitrofying bacteria at two levels, to convert this ammonia into useful nitrates.

The first kind of bacteria present in the filter breaks the ammonia into less harmful nitrates while the second level of bacteria further break them down into even lesser harmful nitrates. Biological filters are available in the form of spong filters where highly porous sponges have these bacteria residing in them. Power filters have floss pads that also contain these bacteria and add biological filtration to the regular filtration process.

2. Chemical Filters: Active carbon is the prime filtration medium that is involved in chemical filtration. The carbon filters out ammonia, excess harmful nitrates and phosphates as well as any other toxic metals. This form of filtration is not an absolute necessity however, when building up a new aquarium, this can be used to remove ammonia. It is particularly helpful when combined with other filtration methods. UV sterilization is a form of chemical filtration where the water is exposed to high intesity UV light within the filter, to treat disease riddled fish tank water. Organic pollutants can also be wiped out using Ozonizers that needs to be combined with a carbon filter to ensure safe usage.

3. Mechanical Filters: This form of filtration utilizes foam and other porous material for removal of debris and suspended particles. Mechanical filters normally use foam, ceramic rings or other porous material to trap these solid particles. They are relatively ineffective on dissolved impurities however, the filtration media tends to accumulate bacterial deposits that can utilize biological filtration techniques to purify dissolved impurities like Ammonia.

Canister filters and foam-based filters are commonly used as part of mechanical filtration systems.
All freshwater aquarium filters need regular servicing and are built for easy installation and servicing. For effective filtration, it is important to know the capacity of the fish tank and the population of fish that the tank will eventually hold. The freshwater aquarium filter needs to be picked with the required power in mind. A weak filter will never be able to clean out the fish tank and an ideal water filter must be capable of filtering the entire tank’s capacity 5 times in an hour.

Depending on your budget, the time you have available to service it and your preference in terms of a wet or a dry filter determines the type of filter you end up with. Something like a gravel filter will require you to break the tank apart so that it can be placed at the bottom of everything. This also means that everytime the filter needs to be serviced, the tank has to be taken apart and put back together again.

So a freshwater aquarium filter needs to be picked with the ideal combination of power, time for service and the cost.