THE BEST SPONGE FILTRATION FOR YOUR AQUARIUMS!
- Most efficient form of air driven sponge filtration on the market
- 5x the surface area of standard sponge filters
- Easy to install, pre-cut to size
- Clean 1-2 times per year*
- Black, so livestock pops against the filter
- 18" Wide filters have dual lift tubes
- Proudly Made in Ohio
- Lift tubes included, not extra!
Sponge filters have been around for a long time in our great hobby and have been unchanged for the most part. Until now. We took the idea of the sponge and made it better. A sponge filter works by providing a lot of surface area for aerobic (beneficial) bacteria to colonize and do the filtering of your aquarium water. A typical sponge filter that measures 4″ round and 5″ tall has a surface area of about 50 cubic inches that can house bacteria. Our smallest Hydrodynamic Sponge Filter has a usable surface area of 239 cubic inches! That’s almost 5 times that of a standard cylindrical sponge filter.
The filter itself is a 2″ thick black reticulated foam material made in the USA and assembled in Ohio. We CNC cut each filter to size prior to shipping so that you have a nice exact and tighter fit. The filter is designed to fit very tight side-to-side and leave about 1/4″ – 1/2″ gap between the black frame of the tank and the top of the filter. We drill the output holes in each filter before shipping also. You put the lift tube in place, drop the air line in the tube, and you’re set! The lift tube creates enough flow to keep water moving through the filter efficiently enough that you don’t have to clean these but every 6-9 months.
The filter works using hydrodynamics, which is a branch of science that deals with forces acting on or exerted by fluids. So what’s that mean exactly? Sponge filters all work the same way which is taking air and forcing it to a point lower than the sponge and turning on a pump. The air creates bubbles which travel up a lift tube and out of an opening. This upward lifting of air through water is what makes the filter work. Our lift tubes are 3/4″ I.D. plumbing to allow the most upward lift within the tube.
Because of the extreme efficiency of these filters, there are stores that run heavily populated aquariums with the Hydrodynamic Mattenfilter installed and they only have to clean the sponges about once every six months. *This will vary based on your tank's biological demand.