cichlid-gal
New Member
A little over a year ago I set up my 1st tank using a Hamburger Mattenfilter. I purchased the red waffle 20ppi from SwissTropicals. It came with a lifter so all I had to do was attach an air pump and put it in the tank.
I chose to put this on a 20G long tank installing it at one end of the tank with the waffles out and running horizontally up the filter. I put this filter in the tank the 1st of May 2013. Over the course of the year this tank has housed my betta sorority group and now is acting as a fry growout tank. I have some plants in the tank and have gravel substrate. Water changes have been done once a week at 50% every week.
Today was water change day for the tank and I did a nitrate test to see where I was at in the tank. The nitrates were at 20-30ppm. This again, IS AFTER A YEAR OF NO MAINTENANCE ON THIS FILTER AT ALL. In the year I have run this tank I have never had a fish loss (due to disease...I did have a betta jump) or illness either. So overall, no complaints at all.
I felt is was probably time to go ahead and clean the filter so I set up today for doing that. I siphoned my 50% water out. Made sure all my babies where on the far side of the tank from the filter and put a divider in the tank between the babies and the filter. I pulled the lifter, cleaned it (it was hardly dirty at all), then pulled the sponge and did the squeeze thing in a couple of buckets. I used two buckets to make sure I got it clean. I also used a regular siphon to clean the area where the sponge filter sits and rests against the substrate. I then put the filter back in the tank, put the lifter back on, pulled the divider, filled the tank with clean primed water, and turned everything on. There was a little poof of stuff that came out but it cleared right up in under 3 minutes I would say. Babies look happy and healthy. Crossing my fingers there will not be a spike of any type in the tank. Maintenance on the tank probably took an extra 20 minutes to do the filter and clean things up.
Anyway...at this time I am super happy with this filter and would highly recommend it to anyone thinking about one of them. The other thing I really liked about this type of filter was that when doing my water changes I didn't have to prime an HOB when I fired the tank back up.
I chose to put this on a 20G long tank installing it at one end of the tank with the waffles out and running horizontally up the filter. I put this filter in the tank the 1st of May 2013. Over the course of the year this tank has housed my betta sorority group and now is acting as a fry growout tank. I have some plants in the tank and have gravel substrate. Water changes have been done once a week at 50% every week.
Today was water change day for the tank and I did a nitrate test to see where I was at in the tank. The nitrates were at 20-30ppm. This again, IS AFTER A YEAR OF NO MAINTENANCE ON THIS FILTER AT ALL. In the year I have run this tank I have never had a fish loss (due to disease...I did have a betta jump) or illness either. So overall, no complaints at all.
I felt is was probably time to go ahead and clean the filter so I set up today for doing that. I siphoned my 50% water out. Made sure all my babies where on the far side of the tank from the filter and put a divider in the tank between the babies and the filter. I pulled the lifter, cleaned it (it was hardly dirty at all), then pulled the sponge and did the squeeze thing in a couple of buckets. I used two buckets to make sure I got it clean. I also used a regular siphon to clean the area where the sponge filter sits and rests against the substrate. I then put the filter back in the tank, put the lifter back on, pulled the divider, filled the tank with clean primed water, and turned everything on. There was a little poof of stuff that came out but it cleared right up in under 3 minutes I would say. Babies look happy and healthy. Crossing my fingers there will not be a spike of any type in the tank. Maintenance on the tank probably took an extra 20 minutes to do the filter and clean things up.
Anyway...at this time I am super happy with this filter and would highly recommend it to anyone thinking about one of them. The other thing I really liked about this type of filter was that when doing my water changes I didn't have to prime an HOB when I fired the tank back up.