Alternative

[Bettafish]

Okay so ive been cleaning my tank out and i have a ten gallon with rock and a few plants.

I grab the filter...package? the squishy carbon pack thing. and itake it out and its covered with algae or something. it was brown and slimy.

Anyways my point is. Is there any other good filter out there?

Like i hear about how good sponge filters but are they good for a small amount of room? and do they get all dirty like my filter is?
Id also like something that disterbs the water less. just for my betta. he kinda gets pushed around a bit so i built a plastic buffer for him but that gets all slimey too. and makes alot of current in the water. just on top.

Help appreciated. thanks

[LeoTheLakerBetta]

Sounds like you got diatoms or brown algae. That stuff is a real pain and usually occurs in new and/or uncycled tanks. Either way, the only thing you can do is during water changes, just scrub everything until it comes off and eventually it will go away. Turning off the light won't do much, except maybe slow it down. ANy filter you have is going to get the nasty stuff on it. For your filter, scrub it with a soft brush and then rinse it out.

I'm still battling with diatoms in my tanks but it's starting to settle down now...

[Tikibirds]

I think all filters will accumulate that brown slime, if its what I'm thinking it is. All my filters get it too but it accumulates much faster in the 20G planted tank. It may be algae, not sure.

This is what I do with my filters. Plus I put some tall bushy silk plants in front of it to break the current up even more

[itsuki]

i saw a vid on the same filter as tikibird has (and me as well) and the guy pulled out a brown filter aka he's accumulating the same type stuff that i can assume you are getting and seemed unconcerned about it. he said that he hadnt changed the filter in over a yr!! plus he didnt mention any death of fish or odd ocurrences in his tank which would lead me to deduce that brown stuff while gross looking isnt all too bad and

just saw your pic tikibird and wanted to say thanks for the idea. i already have a filter underneath the diffuser gird where the water comes out and between the bioholster and diffuser but didnt think to put one behind the bioholster, good thing this thread caught my eye :) thatll slow down the flow even more :)

but if u want some adjustability AquaClear 20 Power Filter comes with a flow adjustment. ive been doing research lately because i was in the market for a new filter recently but decided to go with the Aqueon Quiet Flow 10 ( baffled and with extra sponges/filters). if u can wait like a week or two i will actually buy an AquaClear 20 and do a side by side comparsion between the two for flow comparsion. filtration comparsion is abit harder to do....

[waterdog]

Sponge filters are a good alternative if you don't want a lot of water disturbance. I just wrote a column on them in this section. Check out SPONGE FILTERS: Why and How