I have a 10 gallon aquarium set-up that houses 5 peppered cory cats and a pair of loaches that I am told are kuhli loaches...I have had these two for about half a year now and they are only 2-2.5 inches long and pretty thin and they are not striped...all brown (not the typical striped kuhli). I have Willow Moss taking up over about half of the tank...I love the stuff, but it gets caught in the filter and catches in the impeller to slow down. I have put a standard sponge filter...the type you are supposed to hook up to the open end of an air line from an air pump...around the intake of the HOB to prevent moss getting to the propeller.

I guess my question is...Is it ok to have the sponge set-up this way, considering an air pump would push air out of the sponge, while the intake pulls water through the sponge?

I don't know much about sponge filters and I was just looking for some advice.

Thanks Guys.

I don't know much about sponge filters either, but with my HOB's, I cut the net part out of a net and put that over the top of the intake. and secure with a rubber band/hair tie.

In my case it keeps the HOB's from sucking up the baby Cichlids..

if you are not protecting anything as Nickie is, i will not put anything that could
restrict the flow of water. i always leave the suction point open so that all waste
and left over foods will be sucked. if you will notice, i always have clean tank
bottom because of that.

I used some sponge or cotton wool as a prefilter for my canister.
But it got clogged very easily and had to be changed 2 times a week.
So it didn't work for me.
But i do not have any expierience with spongefilters.

used pantyhose for the purpose nicki described. worked fine. id have used a sponge but i didnt find one that would fit properly over my intake.