I use this guy on my 5g

Amazon.com : AZOO Mignon Filter 60 : Aquarium Filters : Pet Supplies

It is pretty good. Very small. Runs dead silent. You can turn it down with a knob on the top if the flow is too much.

 

+ one for the Azoo, I have a couple and they are tuff to beat. I looked and could not find a smaller HOBs.

And they are quite.


LionelC

 

All Pond Solutions (British based company) do some relatively cheap yet reliable hang on backs (200lph-600lph I believe)

- Brad

 

Get a Zoomed 501 .I have one on my 3g bowl .Its perfect ,no noise at all .

 

I have finnex pf5 on my 3 gallon. It's in my bedroom near my bed. The lid does rattle sometimes but I smack it on top and it stops. It has adjustable flow also.

 

Red Sea nano. Or whatever copy they make now.

 

Also, consider no filtration so its silent. Still tanks for just fine for cherries and plants. I have a 13 year old still system and a 1 mo old micro still system. Talk about quiet. I use fish in them as well

Water movement is optional for the stocking list you have and for the plants you have. Ammonia is still oxidized just the same in bog systems you just can't keep a lot of fish. The plants coming out of the 13 yr old still tank go all the way to my ceiling, and 200 cherry shrimp are in it. 5 gallons of water, no pump no heater.

 

True, I've done jars with no filtration that kept shrimp and endlers. But for some reason this tank gets icky without water movement. Not sure why, maybe because it is shallower than my jars?

 

i have similar situation. check my aquatop journal. link in my signature.

 

I think its either specialized substrate dusting, or even precipitation from some ferts that don't dissolve well in still water if those are being added, or bacterial blooms depending on tank age. If your substrate is curing and leaking ammonia, that is taxing to a stilled system and can create localized changes in water clarity

Reducing the experiment to a known body of water that will not go stagnant would just be removing the substrate and not dosing ferts. Not that anyone would want that, but thats how many steps back it takes to get to a guaranteed no foul setup, like betta jars. Mostly all the ones I saw over the years were clear as a bell and were still.

The major opposition to still tank issues is frequency of large water changes...they can lessen as the system ages but are key when its new, never allowing stagnation. I change my old planted tank water rarely. My two month micro planted tank is on 3x weekly water changes still, for a while to come. Considering those variables might help future cloudy tank issues although in this tank I would consider putting a small power head and nothing else, let the earthen material be the filter, save the looks of a filter, just help with circulation a little

The tank needs no filter for any reasonable fish bioload, all that substrate is plenty after its fully cured. Circulation is what limits, but doesn't stop, the tanks ability to oxidize ammonia relative to how many fish we want to keep. Merely adding a power head increases fish bioloading ability in many ways. It makes everything in your tank an equal filter to any hob

 

+2 on the Azoo

 

+3 on the Azoo - used to be called Azoo Palm Filter. I just add a sponge prefilter on the intake and use this in a 2.5 gal shrimp tank

 

There are small Zoo Med external canisters that might make it a bit nicer than having a Azoo Palm (even though I've also used this one and highly recommend it).

 

+1 I wish I had a mini canister vs. the HOB. The AZOO definitely gets it done though and it is super-cheap. Mini canister will run you about $40 - $50 vs a $20 AZOO

 

+15 The Azoo Mignon. For the price you can get it on Amazon, you can get it shipped and several packs of floss/media from Drs. Foster/Smith. Very customizable and quiet. Cheap enough to replace when needed.

 

So just to bring this topic to a close. I went back and forth between teh Azoo and the Zoomed canister. Serious waffling.

In the end I went with the Zoo Med 501 and now that it is set up I'm glad I did. I like canisters, always have, never thought I'd find one for a 3 gallon tank. I like being able to put my own media in them. And I was worried the Azoo would be so small I'd have a hard time putting what I wanted into it. I tossed the stuff that came with the zoo med and added instead a bag of Seachem Matrix, a bag of Purigen, and the sponge. Had to cut all the tubes very short for this tiny little tank but the filter itself is silent once it got the air bubbles out. Perfect. Yes, this tank could survive without a filter, even with lots of shrimp. But I like having the peace of mind of that over filtration, just makes me feel better, even if it isn't strictly speaking needed.