fishfriendly fliters

[jennypenny]

After a few months of moving around I am settling into a new permanent residence and would like to set up new tank. I had success with a small tank before, but my old fish have a new happy home and I want to start again. I have a hanging filter which works well but occasionally sucked up an unlucky little fish. Even after putting a fine net over the intake I had fish injured by the filter. Would an under gravel filter or other filter be safer for small fish? Also can you have plants with an under gravel filter? (For a 10 or 20 gallon tank)

[Jericho]

A UGF is an option, it is old school and it needs to be well maintained. And yes you can have plants with a UGF. Usually fish can avoid the HOB filters unless they are sick or weak.

[violatorjf]

That's odd, like Jericho said, all my HOB filters only suck a fish onto it if they're dead or sick and dying. In which sometimes it's even a nice feature, as if it points it out to me that the fish needs disposed of or placed in a hospital tank. What brand & size of HOB filter are you using and what size tank are you using it on? I could understand maybe running an Aquaclear 500 on a 10 gallon tank, but that's extreme. I actually had an Aquaclear 300 on a 10 gallon tank once, with about 23 or 30 smaller goldfish in it. The only onces who got stuck to the filter intake were the dead ones. But, if for some reason it is a real problem, you could look into sponge filters. It might take awhile before just a spong filter can maintain your tank, but not too long.

Have a good day.

[jennypenny]

IN my last 10-gal tank it was just a 5-15 filter. I don't recall the brand. When I was younger I didn't have this problem, but it happened to an apparently healthy but small cory catfish. I saw it happen to one of the catfish and saved it. Later it happened to a kissing gourami that was hurt by another fish. I was actually cleaning a dusty hospital basket for it when it got trapped. The gourami lived for a sort time, but dies about a week later