Some Advice Needed From The Experts

[purplemonkey]

Hi all, I posted here a couple of weeks ago, about my small tank. Well I now have a bigger tank and have a question about the pump that came with it. So if you would be kind enough to have a look over the pictures and question below and let me know if you can help.

The pump I have has a filter at the bottom, and a flared output vent on the side (identified as ..1.. in the pic below) and a strange thing at the top which doesn't seem to suck or blow (identified as ..2.. in the pic below)
Q1. I was wondering if I can use this pump to operate a treasure chest I have in the tank, it has a burping lid. So i was wondering if I can attach a hose to go underneath this to produce this effect. Or sould I buy a dedicated pump for this feature?
Q2. The inside of the filter has a plastic cage that sits inside the sponge filter, this cage has a load of plastic black things inside, anyone know if they are suposed to be there? I can't see how they would have go in there without being manually placed inside?
Q3. The pump has a fast and slow switch on it but I can' seem to operate it, anyone out there with the same pump know how this works?

Guess thats it, but one last thing is the filter was very clogged, and thats only after one week. how often do you clean yours? Also most of the dirt seemed to be food, is it worth turning the pump off when feeding?

Thanks.

 

[black angel]

First of all, is this the only filter in the tank as it seems too small for it?
You cant use it to operate the treasure chest, get an air pump.
Number 2 looks like where you would put a piece of air tubing to suck air down and out the nozzle.
The black plastic bits are probably for the bacteria to live on.
I dont have one so cant help with the speed on it.
As its blocked easily I suggest an upgrade to a fluval 3+ or similar.

 

[purplemonkey]

I thought I might need an upgraded pump/filter as I looked it up on the website and it did seem a bit small for this tank. will look at getting a bigger one this week. Thanks for the advice on the black bits. I don't know much about these bacteria things but if it works thats all that matters