Will a fluval external inlet pipe suck up small fish

I am changing my filter in my 70 litre aquarium to a fluval 105 external, I am having celestial pearl danios, and Ember tetras, two very small type fish, will I have to cover the inlet pipe to stop these small fish from ending up in the filter, I have a piece of fine mesh curtain material was thinking of attaching with a rubber band, any other ideas, or do I not need to bother.

I would use a coarse sponge cover but the mesh idea seems ok to me. Be wary of it getting clogged if its a finer mesh though

Not really a concern for the fishes that much, But I had fish get stuck on water input in the past and that killed them. These are really dangerous for long finned fish.

Also If the fishes have babies then they get get sucked in like nothing. Baby shrimps even worse.

So I always used coarse sponges like Matt suggests or something home made. And it solves both issues at the same time.

I prefer sponges because, mesh clogs really fast. and once clogged it can give the same result, fish getting stuck.

I use a similar idea on my Fluval except I use a fine filter bag over the intake with a spacer inside to keep the flow at the surface slow, ie the final diameter is 2". I find the fish keep it clean so I don't have to.

Uberhoust said:

I use a similar idea on my Fluval except I use a fine filter bag over the intake with a spacer inside to keep the flow at the surface slow, ie the final diameter is 2". I find the fish keep it clean so I don't have to.

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That is a good idea, I tried the fancy stainless intakes and they where clogging really fast... Because they are too small. If they where like yours 2" the pressure reduction would be good, that would be awesome.

At the moment I use diy coarse sponge that I damaged enough by rinsing and squeezing all directions the mulm goes trough no problems but at last check there are still no shrimps in the filter. even seed shrimps have difficulty to make it trough. And it doesn't clog too fast.

But I still have to go down there every so often. I'm going to check that out. I have tons of bags.

I don't really worry about it. A healthy fish is very unlikely to get caught. A sick, or long finned 'fancy' fish might be in danger, if it already has problems swimming. A filter can also catch fry.

Generally, a fish that can get caught on the intake is one that should be in an isolation tank by then. And I've had large numbers of fry grow up in tanks with those filters.

Yeah, I heard that...

"It's easier to remove the dead ones that way."

I hate it, when fish rubs on them it always damages their slime coat.

But still you are pretty right, because when fish gets scared once or twice, they have good chance to avoid the trap in the future.

I'm probably preventing some well earned "Darwin Awards" to be distributed.

But I was always "stupidly" pretty proud when a crippled fish could make an happy living in one my tanks.

Only one time in 59 years of aquarium and fish keeping have I ever seen a fish get sucked into a filter and it lived because it stayed in the intake tube . I remember seeing it swimming downward quite vigorously trying to escape .

I had neons living under the basket of an Aquaclear mini for unknown periods.

Just thinking how they made it trough the impeller is mind boggling and the fact they lived after returning to the tank... And back in the filter more than once is funny in itself...

I cleaned my 105 fluval external yesterday, and there was a live neon inside, returned it to the tank, you might think this is a silly question, but do you get a sponge to cover the bulb end of the filter pipe, or do you take it off, and put the sponge on the pipe.

When I feel the need to protect fry, I get two wide pored sponges. Always two. I cut holes in the top of them, so that the intake pipe can fit without being jammed. Usually, that puts the hole off centre. I use large sponges - that's important. Aquaclear replacement sponges are ideal.

The holes only cover the depth the filter strainer fits in. They're pockets and don't go all the way through. I jam them on the inlet and fire it all up. If I've cut them badly, they interfere with the placement of an inlet for a HOB, and sometimes you have to play with it.

Whatever size filter I use I use the correspondingly sized Aquaclear sponge, even for other brands. I don't try to hide it. This is for fry tanks, which aren't well scaped anyway. Fish will start to feed off these sponges, as they rapidly attract a bacterial fauna. Dwarf Cichlids will even lead their fry to them.

Every week or two, I switch the sponges out, rinse the dirty one and often sit it in an out of view spot in another tank. You might as well profit from the bacteria and archaea on it, right? Dry it out and it's just mechanical.

My system now is largely air driven, but when I raised a lot of dwarf Cichlids, I used a lot of power filtration, and that's how I'd deal. I wouldn't use prefilters on community tank filters because I have never had a problem with fish going up them. And I only keep small fish. If I had loaches, I might prefilter everything.

Country joe said:

I cleaned my 105 fluval external yesterday, and there was a live neon inside, returned it to the tank, you might think this is a silly question, but do you get a sponge to cover the bulb end of the filter pipe, or do you take it off, and put the sponge on the pipe.

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You put the sponge on the outside of the cage that's on the intake tube. The cage stops the sponge being sucked into the filter.

External power filters do not come with a sponge to go on the inlet cage. You have to buy a separate sponge to put on.

Country joe said:

I cleaned my 105 fluval external yesterday, and there was a live neon inside, returned it to the tank, you might think this is a silly question, but do you get a sponge to cover the bulb end of the filter pipe, or do you take it off, and put the sponge on the pipe.

Click to expand...

I use this on the intake of all my filters; very good to have, not to mention for the extra mechanical filtration. Select the one for your tank size.