It’s a fun and relaxing hobby when you decide to set up a freshwater fish tank. The fact is that it’s easy to maintain a tank. It can also help to provide hours of enjoyment and beauty to your home.

But, when setting up the aquarium, you have to consider some very important factors like choosing the right freshwater aquarium filters. A good aquarium filter will be able to maintain several things in your tank.

Indeed, it can keep the water clean, circulated, and aerated. This is essential for the health of your freshwater fish. There are some things to know about aquarium filtration systems. Check out this article to learn about them.

The Purpose of Aquarium Filters

If you own a fish, you surely wonder if you should purchase a filter for your aquarium. A filter basically has the purpose of cleaning the water of debris, aerating the water, as well as removing the toxic buildup of ammonia and nitrates. They allow your fish to breathe.

Sure, thanks to very simple tanks, you can clean the tank, remove the fish, replace the water, as well as return the fish. But, it’s traumatizing to remove the fish. In fact, a filter doesn’t require you to do all that work every week.

There are three things to deal with when it comes to your filter. They include biological, mechanical, and chemical.

Biological:

Fish offers ammonia from their gills when breathing. Also, they realize as their waste breaks down. You need to remove this ammonia from the tank because it’s toxic to fish.

Mechanical:

Water contains many chemicals that harm fish such as chlorine, dissolved proteins, copper, or even dissolved medications and dyes. The task of aquatic filtration systems purposes to remove all the harmful chemicals.

Chemical:

Water contain many chemicals that harm fish such as chlorine, dissolved proteins, copper, or even dissolved medications and dyes. The task of aquatic filtration systems purposes to remove all the harmful chemicals.

Types Of Aquarium Filters

Now, you get the general understanding of the purpose of an aquarium filter. So, you can easily decide on the type of aquarium filter you should look for. There is a wide range of different types of filters.

Power filters:

Aquarium power filters are available in a variety of price ranges. You can easily use them. They come with all three of the basic tank needs. In addition, they have a bio-wheel or replaceable filter. It helps to give additional biological support to the tank.

Canister filters:

They are great choices for larger tanks. But, this type is a little more difficult to maintain. But, they can be able to give you excellent water filtration.

Undergravel filters:

They are placed under a layer of gravel of the tank. They rely on an air pump to work. These filters can be able to work well as biological filters in spite of many models including replaceable filters at the end of the tube for mechanical filtration or chemical.

Setting Up Your Aquarium Filter

One of the most important steps in setting up your freshwater aquarium filter is priming properly the pump. This helps you make sure the filter can perform at its most optimum level. When you want to set up your freshwater aquarium filter, you need to follow these 3 basic steps:

Set up the filter:

It’s important to follow the instructions to the right placement of the filter system. Whether you have to place the filter under the gravel or attached to the back of the tank, it’s essential to place all of the components properly.

Clean the filtration system first:

You need to rinse all of the filter parts. These parts are actually washable clean water before you submerge it in the water.

Prime the pump:

The motor will be burned by running a filter without water. That’s why you need to make sure that the pump is primed. Some freshwater aquarium filters can have a priming button. If not, you have to follow the instructions included with the filter. Actually, it’s related to filling the pump with water before turning on.

The Fish-Filter Ratio

Maintaining a clean healthy tank involve in both the size of the tank and the filtration system. The filter system may be unable to keep the water fresh, healthy, and clean because of the overstocked tank. If there is overcrowding, your tank will become dirty. Also, it can cause loss of fish over time.

Regular Filter Changes

It’s important to pay attention to a regular schedule of changing the replaceable filters in your filtration system. If you have the replaceable filter, you need to change it at least once a month.

This depends on the type of filter, the size of the tank, as well as the number of fish. And, if you have large tanks, you needn’t change them as often. The thing you need to do is maintaining the right balance in the tank.

In order to make sure the chemical levels are adequate, you need to test the water using a test kit in the water. You may have to take six weeks or more to set up a healthy and maintained tank. But, once you intend to set up, it’s easy to maintain the tank with regular filter changes, the right feeding of the fish, as well as tank cleaning.

It’s easy to use freshwater aquarium filters. Also, they can help to keep your tank healthy as well as clean for you to enjoy for years..