10 gallon tank ? are the corner filters any good ??

[crushingmyself]

hello i wanted to set up a 10 gallon tank and i want to go old school meaning i would like to put two corner filters one in each corner of my new 10 gallon tank now i will be using the carbon along with the filter and i have a bio filter i will add to it to hold the good bacteria i wanted to know what you gals and guys thought i will be using two air pumps to run both filters also i will be using a heater called theo , along with no gravel i want to put a tiget barb and perhaps two cory fish , i will be cleaning the algee by hand along with the battery powered gravel cleaner i will do this once or twice a week use the gravel cleaner to clean the waste from the bottom of the tank and i will do a 1 gallon water change every week how does this sound to you thank you for your time also the two corner filters i will be using are called clear free 1 , petsolutions and that pet place along with drs foster and smith sells this filter , please give me any feed back on theses type of filters thank you and also i am aware that i will need to get my hands wet to change the filter and media that is no problem for me thanks alot and happy 4th to all god bless

[A340]

Is there a reason why you want to go old school?

Personally, as long as your water parameters are OK and stay stable, I don't see why it wouldn't work. I've never used them, but I know that many people have very successfully for years without any problems.

I'd say give it a shot, just really keep an eye on your chemistry.

[SkarloeysMom]

The 1 gallon a week water change might not be enough. That's only a 10% water change. You may not see enough of a nitrate reduction from changing only that much water. I think something like a 25-30% water change each week would probably work better.

[RobbieG]

I would changemore water also. I do 50% on all of mine.

[NeonJulie]

I used the Corner air bubbler Penn-Plax one for a while on a 16g rubbermaid bin while I was quarantining 2 Otos, 1 dwarf gourami and 3 neons. It held it's ground. I hear it can be used up to 30 gallons... I'm not so sure about that. I think it works better in the 4 gallon rubbermaid it's in now. Eventually I was getting small amounts of ammonia that would climb, despite 3x weekly water changes. Moving to the Eclipse 12 filter from my tank hung over the 16g worked better.

For a quarantine situation, for keeping a bacteria crop ready like I do, or other small tank/small time period methods, I think it does really well, unlike the Whisper 3i.

But I don't think you want to go there permanently, because first of all, they take up a lot of real estate in the tank. True the fish like to hide under it, but that doesn't make for any kind of viewing and they look kind of tacky. *lol*

Second of all, I'm not sure they really constitute as a "filter" and it most definitely doesn't work like one. What ends up happening is that a layer of brown film/slime/waste will collect in the area around the filter, on the decor nearby, all over the filter itself, along the tank side, etc. It's like it just hangs around it. But I think the problem is that most filters are out of the tank - water is drawn thru it/over it, and what you don't want is strained and not put back into the water. (At least, some of it is held back). In a corner filter, it SITS in the water. Which means all the uneaten food and broken down waste sits in the water too.

It's better than nothing, but it's not better than a real filter, IMO. As far as bacterial filtration, I would say it does an excellent job, although it's not very much media - most of the corner units are pretty small in size. I always had two cartridges in my Penn Plex though, to try and add surface area. It did get to the point where I had to clean the filter every time I did a water change, it would just get so gunked with brown slime. And where things gunk up, it begins to reverse the bacteria colony because it prevents as much oxygen and real estate from bacteria to colonize, so you'd have to replace the filters on a regular basis.

[dev]

Corner filters .. I'm not sure what they are. Is it the kind of air pump driven filters often used for fry?

While I agree that 10% a week might be on the low side, I'm not very fond of large water changes. Mostly because it is not practical, and i'm worried about unstable water values.

I might add that I use cold water for water changes, and I change about 40 gallon of water every week. A 50% change forces me to either put all that water into buckets for temperation or use water from my warmwater tank. I would prefer not to do either.

I do 20-30% once a week, twice a week if I think there is reason to. The fry tank gets 10% every day.

I might also tell you about my mother in law who has a Juwel 14 gal tank with stock lights and filter in her kitchen. When she last year wanted to get a fishbowl, I talked her into the small tank instead. To keep things simple I asked her to change one bucket of water (probably about 2 gallons) once or twice a week - she is mostly doing it twice a week, and showed her how little to feed them. Now, a little short of a year later, she has the tank fully stocked plus more than a hundred fry from swordtail and guppy. Both the fish and the plants seem to be doing absolutely great. Wish I knew how this happened :) Now she has ordered a 50 gal for her living room.

Good luck with your tank, crushingmyself!

[NeonJulie]

I think it depends on the tank, on the stocking, on the person's water, and other factors. I have a 12g tank that it's almost impossible to do a good gravel vac before I'm down 50% of the water. Which is fine, because a 6g water change is pretty easy. I use bottled spring water buffered or mixed with my tap, with the same pH and temp every time. And I end up doing between 2 water changes 4-5 days a part 25-50% each, per week. I know my tank isn't perfect, but in some ways it's doing very well, even considering I have nothing but sensitive fish in the tank (neons/dwarf gourami/Otos).

Now in a larger tank you probably don't have to worry about that. It's my opinion and a lot of people's opinions, that if you do frequent regular changes with matching parameters, there's nothing wrong with larger water changes. If you go 2-3 weeks and then hit the tank, you may have a big problem shocking the fish. But 3-5 days in between water changes is not going to change it much, especially since I try to use as little tap water as possible (And we all know all the city water is changed in the summer time and seasonally, and probably whenever they feel like it!)

In a 10g, I don't see how 10% is going to work - if you had superior filtration (and corner units can't be called that), or was very VERY understocked, it may work. Most people stock small tanks to the limit (myself included. But only because my tank is situated next to the toilet, and water changes are a snap and everything is full grown out.)

[Rue]

Won't 2 interior filters take up a considerable amount of room in a 10g? You'd be reducing your swimming room more than I'd care to...

I also have to do more than 10% WCs on my 2 small tanks - it amounts to 3-40% by the time I'm done cleaning gravel...but even in a bare-bottom tank, you still have to vacuum out the debris...

[NeonJulie]

Most definitely, although when I went searching for the type mentioned in the OP (which I never DID find on Drsfosterandsmith.com or petsolutions.com...???) it does appear that they are making the corner filters in clear plastic, which is better than my tacky blue one. But still, the filter pads don't come in clear, so what you'd be seeing is dirty brown filters?

I'm thinking perhaps this is sounding like an ideal Betta-only tank. 10g are pretty small, two corner units are probably going to decrease the swimming room by 4" probably, each side. A betta is still a great fish, beautiful, personality. And won't put out the kind of waste that other fish will?

[dev]

Ah, I didn't even consider the vacuuming part, I don't do a lot of that since I run planted tanks, and when required I use the Eheim automatic gravel cleaner. A very valid point though!