Filters are essential to modern fish keeping: they are home to bacteria which make the water safe for the fish.
The nitrogen cycle in an aquarium commences at the point where fish and dead plant matter produce ammonia. Some of the ammonia is then used up by plants, but the majority is converted, by bacteria which live in the filter, into nitrite. Nitrite is then converted by filter bacteria into nitrate. Some nitrate is used up by plants and the rest is removed during water changes.
The general format of a filter is some sort of pump which causes water to move through some media. This is usually in the form of an internal filter, an external filter, an air pump powered sponge filter, an undergravel filter, a sump, a trickle filter, a hang-on-the-back filter, and so on. For this aquarium, I will be using an internal filter, potentially moving onto an external later on.
There are three types of media usually used in filter:
- Mechanical media:
- This media includes various sponges, wool and floss, it physically removes dirt from the aquarium by not letting it pass through the filter.
- Chemical media:
- The primary function of this media is to adsorb undesirable certain molecules out of the water: for example, activated carbon can be used to remove the remainder of medication after a completed treatment. Some “chemical media” works on the basis of ion exchange. It should usually not be used on an every day basis.
- Biological media:
- Bio-media is the best media for the bacteria to live on because it is usually very porous, so has a high surface area. It is usually made out of some sort of ceramic material. In an undergravel filter, the bio-media is the gravel and in a sponge filter, it is the sponge.
The bacteria are not particularly picky, so will actually live on any surface they can, regardless of the type of media used.
The first step for setting up the aquarium will be cultivating these filter bacteria. They are present in tap water in very small numbers, so I will be feeding them ammonia to encourage the colony to grow. Once the colony is large enough to support fish life, I will be replacing the ammonia with fish (who naturally produce ammonia).
The filter which came with the kit is a Powerbio 700 by Classica (which is the Arcadia brand for non-lighting equipment). It consists of a standard filter power head with a screw-on spray bar attachment, on top of a filter media housing which contains a cage for loose media (containing carbon) and a rough black sponge (not carbon). The carbon has already been taken out and I will be replacing it with some form of bio-media. I will keep the carbon in case I ever need to remove medication after treatments.