Hamburg Mattenfilter / Divider

The Hamburg Mattenfilter is basically a sponge wall inside the tank with either lift tubes or a powerhead to displace the water. In a typical Mattenfilter set up, the sponge wall is placed at the end of the tank leaving just enough room for the lift tubes to fit in between the tank end wall and the sponge. As the lift tubes pump water over the sponge wall, the water in the tank is forced thru the sponge where the lift tubes then pump it back over the wall again. I wanted to try something a little different. I wanted to create a tank that had both a breeding chamber and a fry chamber for my Altolamprologus species. Here's how I set up my 40g Long tanks with a 3ft breeding chamber and a 10in fry chamber.





I used Poret Foam material for this project. I bought a whole sheet, enough to do approximately six of these filters.



Since I wanted to have my breeding chamber set up with sand and the fry chamber bare bottom I decided to try a piece of plastic corner guard siliconed to the bottom of the tank to form a track for the foam to sit in. It not only holds the foam in place but also effectively sealed the sand out of the breeding chamber.





I decided to go with air powered lift tubes. I made the lift tubes out of 1/2 sch40 pvc with a pvc 90 (elbow) at the top and a pvc to cpvc adapter at the bottom. I drilled a hole in the adapter just large enough for the airline to fit in and painted them black with krylon fusion spray paint.



I used 3 lift tubes, 2 of the tubes are pumping water out of the fry chamber, over the foam wall into the breeding chamber. These 2 lift tubes have the air turned up to create max flow. The other lift tube is actually pumping water into the fry chamber, I keep the air down on this lift tube as I only wanted enough flow to create a slight current pattern in the fry chamber. To install them I just cut a slit in the foam material near the top and slid the top of the lift tube thru the foam which holds it in place.





I then made prefilters for the base of the lift tubes out of scrap foam material. These not only act as filters but they prevent the fry from getting sucked into the breeding chamber.



I'm really happy with the way these filter/dividers have turned out. I plan on setting up more tanks this way in the future. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Great info.

How is it working out now that it's been running for a while?

They're awesome!!! I still haven't cleaned them either I don't use airstones but the end of the airhoses have gunked up on me, pulled the line to the surface and snipped them with scissors. That's the only maintenance I have done aside from cleaning the prefilters on the lift tubes which aren't necessary in normal applications. I've got em in 10's too. No better way to filter small tanks. The 10's are on a rack with the ends facing out so the sponge looks like a black background. Have you ever tried netting fry in a 10 with a round hydro sponge or a square sponge in the tank? It's impossible without removing the sponge, not a major deal but inconvenient to say the least. This setup makes it easy, slip the net in front of the sponge wall, herd the fry to the front and lift em out. Everything considered, these are the ONLY way to filter those small growout tanks. No maintenance (ok, very little and not often), enough surface area to handle all the fry you can pack in a growout, and doesn't get in the way

Discus Hans has donated several sheets of foam to the cca meetings for the auction, never a lack of bidders for it

thats good to hear bra