Do you think internal motors and/or impellers may bother fish

[iheartbettas]

There's a HOB that I've seen that has the impeller inside the tank. It's the Marina s-10, s-15, etc. It's supposedly quiet because the impeller is inside the tank, and the water gets filtered outside of the tank. I guess this applies to internal filters also. But my question is, do you think that having the moving parts inside the aquarium could bother and stress out the fish? Just curious what you think of this. Thanks.

 

[fishorama]

I've used power heads & they don't seem to bother the fish. But if any internal or external "device" starts vibrating in a loud or unusual way I think it can. It may be like white background noise to us, more easily ignored if it's on all the time at the same loudness +/or intensity. But I usually feel a relaxing of unnoticed tension when it's gone too.

 

[dbosman]

My only quibble or question would be about the intake.
If the intake screen or intake area screen is too small it will clog too fast.
If the intake is too large, it can suck too much debris in and clog under water where you can't hear it labor. You can hear when something like an AquaClear filter clogs. They're very quiet to silent most of the time.

 

[Narwhal72]

You can hear the difference in water flow from a clogged strainer whether it has an internal pump or not. The big advantage to an internal impeller is that there is no priming involved. You don't have to worry about a pump running dry should the power go out unexpectedly and the filter losing prime.

Andy