Hamburger Mattenfilter

A little over a year ago I set up my 1st tank using a Hamburger Mattenfilter.  I purchased the red waffle 20ppi from SwissTropicals.  It came with a lifter so all I had to do was attach an air pump and put it in the tank.  

I chose to put this on a 20G long tank installing it at one end of the tank with the waffles out and running horizontally up the filter.  I put this filter in the tank the 1st of May 2013.  Over the course of the year this tank has housed my betta sorority group and now is acting as a fry growout tank.  I have some plants in the tank and have gravel substrate.  Water changes have been done once a week at 50% every week.  

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Today was water change day for the tank and I did a nitrate test to see where I was at in the tank.  The nitrates were at 20-30ppm.  This again, IS AFTER A YEAR OF NO MAINTENANCE ON THIS FILTER AT ALL.  In the year I have run this tank I have never had a fish loss (due to disease...I did have a betta jump) or illness either.  So overall, no complaints at all.

I felt is was probably time to go ahead and clean the filter so I set up today for doing that.  I siphoned my 50% water out.  Made sure all my babies where on the far side of the tank from the filter and put a divider in the tank between the babies and the filter.  I pulled the lifter, cleaned it (it was hardly dirty at all), then pulled the sponge and did the squeeze thing in a couple of buckets.  I used two buckets to make sure I got it clean.  I also used a regular siphon to clean the area where the sponge filter sits and rests against the substrate.  I then put the filter back in the tank, put the lifter back on, pulled the divider, filled the tank with clean primed water, and turned everything on.  There was a little poof of stuff that came out but it cleared right up in under 3 minutes I would say.  Babies look happy and healthy.  Crossing my fingers there will not be a spike of any type in the tank. Maintenance on the tank probably took an extra 20 minutes to do the filter and clean things up.

Anyway...at this time I am super happy with this filter and would highly recommend it to anyone thinking about one of them.  The other thing I really liked about this type of filter was that when doing my water changes I didn't have to prime an HOB when I fired the tank back up.

Very nice. Can we get a picture of this filter?

If you enlarge the pic....its the filter on the right of the tank...the red ribbed thing. I'll get a pic of the tank now also and a clearer pic of the filter.

And here's the site I bought mine from...the load on these pages is really slow but it will load ... you just have to wait for some reason

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Nice! I just put swiss tropicals HMFs in 2 of my tanks - a 10g and a 20g. I opted for the 30ppi foam, as it offers better mechanical filtration. In my experience (I have a 4" 20ppi swiss tropicals cubefilter), the 20ppi foam never clogs, which keeps maintenance down, but it doesn't clear the particulates out as well as the 30ppi. Either way, they're all outstanding biological filters.

I'm glad to hear your tank is doing so well with it! I've been meaning to post photos of mine, but they need a bit of plant cleanup first...

Updated pics...this is the tank today after the cleaning. I had to pull roots out the filter from the anubias they were so long.

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I have a 2nd 20G long that is also running a HMF. I cleaned it today too. It had been 11 months on that tank. I truly am amazed at the capacity of these filters and the work they do.

As for the 30ppi vs 20ppi...with my 20ppi I never noticed "stuff" in the water. It did a fantastic job of keeping the tank clean and the water sparkly. Highly recommend this to anyone looking to do sponge filters on their tanks.

Looks great!  It matches the decor well.  I opted for the black, non-waffle variety (it's a bit cheaper  ).

I'm constantly pulling roots out of my cubefilters, and whole plants in the case of one of my 20ppi cubefilters.  My Brazilian micro swords send runners in the sides and leaves out the top of it.   

The air-driven "jet lifters" really move a lot of water.  I had a bunch of shrimp trapped on the wrong side of the HMF when I put it in my 20L, so I stuck the lifter in, kicked the air on, and had some fun sucking them up one by one and spitting them out into the main tank.  There were 2 that I couldn't catch, but they were back on the other side by morning.

I think HMFs are really underrated in this day of high tech canisters, uv sanitizers, and all that noise.

Looking and reading this has given me some ideas, thanks Donna.

pbmax wrote:Looks great!  It matches the decor well.  I opted for the black, non-waffle variety (it's a bit cheaper  ).

I'm constantly pulling roots out of my cubefilters, and whole plants in the case of one of my 20ppi cubefilters.  My Brazilian micro swords send runners in the sides and leaves out the top of it.   

The air-driven "jet lifters" really move a lot of water.  I had a bunch of shrimp trapped on the wrong side of the HMF when I put it in my 20L, so I stuck the lifter in, kicked the air on, and had some fun sucking them up one by one and spitting them out into the main tank.  There were 2 that I couldn't catch, but they were back on the other side by morning.

I think HMFs are really underrated in this day of high tech canisters, uv sanitizers, and all that noise.

Glad you are enjoying these also pbmax. I have an adjustment valve on my airtubing from the pump to the lifter on my tanks. If the flow needs adjusting I just turn it one way or the other. When the valve is open full, this filter "flows" across the entire length of the tank giving great water movement. For the babies I turn it down a bit and I also had it turned down for the betta females.

Madness wrote:Looking and reading this has given me some ideas, thanks Donna.

Thanks Madness. Make sure to share how you put your ideas to work. Very interested to see what comes about.

Yup, I use penn plax plastic gang valves (flow regulation and anti-siphon combined) for all of my air-driven filters. Generally I adjust the flow rates so I get the highest possible flow in all tanks attached to each pump (I drive my 4-10g rack with a single pump, and 4 garage tanks with a pair of pumps). My tanks are so crammed with plants that I need as much flow as I can get to achieve decent circulation. Or at least it feels that way.

The jet lifters generate tiny bubbles without ever clogging; the noise is quiet enough that it doesn't disturb movie watching in the tv room.