LAQUAL 5 Gallon Aquarium Filter with Surface Skimmer, Small Quiet Fish Tank Filter, Biochemical Cotton Filtration & Adjustable Water Flow, Waterfall Design for Increasing Oxygen, Hang on Back Filter

I’m using this for my small 20 cube tank. In the tank, I have live plants, soil, and dragon rocks. Planning to get a betta fish soon. It’s made of plastic. I used my own filter media and cut the sponge to fit in (3rd picture). When I saw many negative reviews, I noticed they didn’t follow the directions such as minimum water level, etc. You also need to fill the filter with water before plugging in. It’s working perfectly as expected. The filter doesn’t make a sound after properly starting. It’s cheap too! If it’s broken, I will buy the same product. In the picture, I intensionally blocked the outlet with my plant hanger to slow down the water flow, but you can also adjust it without doing so. I didn’t use the skimmer because my new betta doesn’t seem like it. Without the skimmer and blocked water flow, he swims peacefully and doesn’t swish due to water flow Update after 1 week of use: Still five stars. I didn’t use the skimmer at the first time, but noticed there is some oily surface. Added skimmer, and it works fine. Attached the video for sucking up the floating plants. It removed the oils on the surface and my betta swims ok.

This is the littlest filter that could! It has been filtering the water in a heavily planted 7 gallon tank for a year now and shows no signs of slowing down! The population is limited to a Beta female and some unfortunate snails but plant detritus is picked up and I am not even using the extension tube that came with it. I use pieces of water polishing material and they absolutely let me know that the filter is working because they pick up all that yucky stuff. I clean using some straw brushes. Note that the knob you turn to increase or decrease the flow does come out for cleaning so the tubing is not as hard to clean as one might think at first. The biggest “con” is that the motor cannot be pulled out for cleaning but since the impeller can, this is not a real impediment to longevity, the straw brushes fit right around the stick that remains when you pull the impeller out and presto! It is a bit finicky when it comes to water level but it is a small filter and I think that is to be expected. There is no media except their media for this filter and that is not an issue for me because of the heavily planted environment but someone else might not be willing to put up with the smell for a few days during the early days and might want to use charcoal and this may become an issue.

I love these little five gallon hob they work fantastic. Just took mine up today it's working like a dream.

Product is poorly made and does not work at all. Pretty noisy as well. I can live with the noise if it worked.

I ordered this as a replacement for the pump that came with the aquarium. This pump is slightly different. The tube is not as long (missing the small extender section) and it didn't come with the sponge screen filter for the end of the tube. The biggest disappointment is that it isn't as quiet as my old pump was. That one was practically silent. This one is quiet, but definitely has a low hum vibration, similar to what started happening with my old pump at the start of its downfall. The old pump did great for 10 months, then started getting noisy. We'll see how long this one lasts. Quality is questionable.

The downstem is several pieces so you can adjust it to what you need and water height, I DIY'd the media to include bio balls and a sponge and trade off rinsing them out. This fits on the back of my 2.5 gal mini bow aquarium by placing an unwrapped coin towel between the filter and outside of the tank to wedge it in the right place. Looks really nice and works well. If it makes noise I just open the back and turkey baster some tank water into the first chamber and it quiets right down. Prefilter sponge keeps shrimps out of the filter, easily rinsed to reuse.

The pump did not work, and it was noisy. The quality of the pump was actually very nice. I’ve gone through my fair share of pumps and this little one is made fairly well, but it didn’t work and was very noisy. I returned it. Not sure if I got a lemon and they all are noisy, or if the excessive noise was from a faulty pump (and a properly working one would be quiet).

Love the products but it’s an absolutely distasteful to clean. I use Q tips as much as possible and it is still very hard to clean. It takes me about two hours to clean the 3 gallon tank. This is one for he items that takes a long time. One of the plastic tubes broke on me while cleaning it so I’m a bit featured however I made it work with out purchasing the whole new item. Overall, I’ll give it a 4 stars but for cleaning by hand I give it a 1!! It’s quiet when you turn the dial which I like, I actually added a pad between the glass and the filter for noise reduction and to prop it forward.

Dont buy this garbage filter, within 15 minutes of running, the motor was so hot that I couldn’t even touch it, as you can see in the picture, the motor was almost gonna blew up, thank god i checked it, wish i could give it 0 star

For $20, this is an amazing filter, 3-7 gallons works no problem. Strong flow and skimmer works. I just bought another one for a tank already with a canister filter as a surface skimmer.

Do not buy this waste of money

Au début il faisait un vacarme incroyable et puis j'ai réglé le soucis en tournant la petite valve plusieurs fois et maintenant tellement silencieux, c'est parfait.

I have these on my betta tanks and they are really good, on the lowest setting its not too low where I worry there's not enough oxygen but also not strong enough where its stressing my fish out. They are also pretty quiet, as long as you keep your water topped off if you're running rimless tanks like I am. I would say the max tank size you can put it on is a 10 (cubed or tall). Only negative is the surface skimmer doesn't work on this and for the 15-30 gallon + 30-50 gallon filters, they wont work WITH the skimmers attached so just a heads up.