AQQAAquarium Sponge Filter Submersible Fish Tank Filter Ultra Quiet Biochemical Sponge with 1 Spare Sponge 1 Bag of Bio Ceramic Media Balls Suitable for Freshwater and Saltwater (5-20 Gallon)

This sponge filter is really nice. I really like sponge filters because they don’t eat the fry, they do a really good job of biological filtration, there really is nothing to break and you also get the air flow oxygenating the water as your filter. This one is exceptionally nice because you can add media in the box at the bottom. I like to put crushed coral in mine to keep the water from going acidic…. This filter is not the course sponge but I like the fine sponge better. The only issue with the fine sponge is you need to clean it once in a while or it stops up. But the upside is you can pick it up and not have it dump all the waste right back in the tank, so cleaning is much easier. Plus, fine sponge does a better job filtering finer particles. Another upside of a sponge filter is simplicity. I just lost power when Ian came through. Media in canister filters and HOBs can become stagnant and when the power comes on they shoot some nastiness back into your tank. The canister filter had to be cleaned and set up again, the HOB actually stopped working and would not start up again. The sponge filters well, I didn’t have to do anything and they just started right back up again. This filter also has a never clog air stone built in. Most sponge filters are great and this one is even better being an innovative design. And last but not least, I think it looks nice. Thumbs up on this filter.

Easy to setup, looks good and seems to do a great job

I'll cover some cons with this filter and how to easily fix them, so if you have issues with this filter it may help to read.First some pros- filter seems great. I like the airstone but the bubbles could be smaller and quieter. The filter is definitely not "silent" as advertised which is obvious because it's powered by bubbles, but either way it works great.Fine sponge is super nice. Seems to catch a lot of dirt and cleared up my messy 10g quickly. Jury is still out on how quickly it cycles but it seems like it'll work great.Setup was also easy. I love the detachable airline connector so it's easy to attach the airline then plug it right in. I also love the look, it's super clean and looks better than a big circle.Finally, I swapped the included media with pre cycled Seachem matrix biomedia and a small bag of purigen and cuprisorb for a shrimp tank. The media compartment is nice but the plastic feels flimsy to access it, I just used a butter knife.Now the two big cons that go hand in hand- the dang filter doesn't sink! I fully squeezed the sponge out and let it run underwater for an hour and it still sorta floated around and didn't stay in one place.It also only has intakes for the media on the BOTTOM of the unit, which is really strange because if I set the filter on sand or aquasoil like I intended to then I'd only be sucking up dirt and no water.To solve both of these issues was a super simple fix: glue a few rocks to the bottom. Just don't block the holes for media. The rocks lift it up slightly so it sucks in water, and obviously helps it sink. I also glued a pretty dragon stone to the front to help with looks.Works great, highly recommend!

I got the large sponge filter and am very pleased with it. I didn't even realize it came with an extra sponge and it took me a minute to figure out why there was such a ridiculous amount of sponge crammed onto this thing - but then I took it apart and realized it was 2 squished up together 😆 just set aside the extra for later use. I will probably keep the extra sponge in another tank to seed with beneficial bacteria for those times I like to "instant cycle" a tank. It's a fairly fine foam for the sponge - should help with good water clarity by filtering out tiny particles. I like that it has the extra compartment with ceramic filter media so if you clean the sponge you dony have to worry about losong your cycle. I also like how the air hose attaches to the side instead of down through the middle of a tube like traditional sponge filters. I would buy this again.

Do not get this filter it does not stay up water

Great

I have this sponge filter in my 9 gallon shrimp tank. It works ok, does what it needs to as a sponge filter. The pore size is definitely baby shrimp safe. I wasn't sure about the bottom intake. I didn't want any baby shrimp or any shrimp to wander in that way, so I put some fine stainless steel mesh to cover the slots. It still allows circulation but shrimp can't get in that way.Overall, it's quiet, a lot quiet than my old style sponge filter that has a media chamber. It recently has become slightly noisier, so I took it apart to look at it. Couldn't really figure anything out. However that is when I saw that the beneficial bacteria in the media chamber didn't seem to be growing. In fact it seemed like it was dying off. I had already cycled media I had placed in the chamber. It was a good brown color. When I took it apart today, there were not as many brown coated bio media. Even the new media I added did not seem to be housing anything, as they were still particularly clean/white. This makes me think the design of this sponge filter with it's media chamber is rather useless. The sponge itself works but I don't think any real water flow is getting to the media chamber, thus not able to sustain bio media/bacterial colony.

A dose bio, chemical, and mechanical filtration that just takes this product a little farther than just sponge alone. The cutout layering of the sponge also seems to do a better job of overall filtration. I did a test. I set up two aquariums exactly the same, one with the AQQA and the other with just a simple sponge filter about the same size. Both had the same substrate, water, and water cloudiness. After 12 hours of filtration, the difference was dramatic. The aquarium with the AQQA Biochemical filter was dramatically cleaner and clearer than the one with the simple sponge filter. I was convinced by seeing it with my own eyes.

This is as good as it getw. A low flow fry friendly filter with the benefits of a sponge filter and that can store filter media as well like hang on back or canister filter. My shrimps and bette love it!

definitely made a good choice works good and looks really nice keep in mind it kind of floats wants to float at first i just put a couple rocks on it

Works well, but you have remove some of the media and use some small stones to keep at the bottom of the tank. Thanks to another reviewer for that tip.

Il fait bien son travail.

its literally a LITTLE media cartidge. not worth the money. I would return it but I am in desperate need of something now.low quality crap for the price. save your money