Air-Driven Waste Filter
Lifts waste off the floor using nothing but bubbles.
No motor and no impeller, so nothing can be pulled in and injured. That is why an air-driven sponge filter is the standard choice for fry, shrimp and long-finned fish.
Taxes calculated at checkout
- Driven by an air line, not a motor
- Traps solids instead of grinding them
- Bio-media chamber for beneficial bacteria
- Aerates the water as it filters
- Single or triple intake versions
Design: Single bowl
Why you'll love it
Made for happy, healthy pets
Nothing electrical inside the tank
An air-driven filter keeps the only powered part, the pump, outside the water and on a bench. For a fry tank or a shrimp tank that is the safest arrangement there is.
Fry and shrimp cannot be drawn in
Powered internal filters are the classic way to lose baby shrimp and newborn fry. Air-lift flow is gentle enough that it moves waste without moving livestock.
It aerates while it filters
The same bubble column that drives the filter breaks the surface and shifts gas exchange, so one air pump covers both jobs on a small tank.
Good fit if
- Breeding and grow-out tanks, where fry are at risk
- Shrimp tanks, where shrimplets vanish into powered filters
- Betta tanks, which need biological filtration without current
- Quarantine setups that go up and down regularly
Look elsewhere if
- You do not already have an air pump, which is sold separately
- You need mechanical polishing for very clear water
- You want something invisible, since it sits in the tank
How rising bubbles move water
Air released at the bottom of a vertical tube rises, and as it does it drags water up with it. That draws more water in at the base, which pulls it through the sponge or media on the way. The whole thing runs on the buoyancy of the bubbles, with no moving parts anywhere in the water.
The flow is gentle, which is exactly the point. There is no impeller to injure anything, no intake slot narrow enough to trap a shrimp, and no jet on the return. What you lose is throughput: this will not polish water the way a canister does, and it is not the right filter for a heavily stocked display tank.
Where it is the correct choice
Fry are the obvious case. Newly hatched fish are small enough to pass through most intake strainers, and a powered filter in a breeding tank steadily removes the fry you were trying to raise. The same applies to shrimplets, which disappear into a canister without the keeper ever seeing it happen.
Bettas are the other. They are poor swimmers with large fins, and a current that a tetra would ignore leaves a betta pinned against the glass. An air-driven filter gives full biological filtration with almost no flow, which is the combination that tank needs.
Single or triple intake
More intakes means more water drawn per minute for the same air supply, which suits a slightly larger tank or a more heavily stocked grow-out. A single intake is plenty for a nano, a betta tank or a quarantine box, and it is less obtrusive in a small setup.
Neither includes an air pump, so budget for one alongside. The flow can be tuned with a valve on the airline, which is worth having for a shrimp tank where even bubble-driven flow can be more than you want, and it lets you turn the noise down as well.
In the box
Everything you need
- Waste filter unit
How it works
Simple, from basket to doorstep
- 1
Browse
Shop by pet or category to find exactly what your cat or dog needs, no wading through thousands of listings.
- 2
Order
Check out securely with card, PayPal or one-tap Apple Pay & Google Pay. Free delivery over $59.
- 3
Delivered
Fast, tracked dispatch straight to your door, and a happier pet before you know it.
The details
Specifications
- Drive
- Air line, pump not included
- Versions
- Single or triple intake
- Media
- Replaceable bio-media chamber
- Material
- Plastic
- Weight
- About 370 g
Cleaning without killing the cycle
Squeeze the sponge out in a bucket of water taken from the tank during a water change, then put it straight back. Never rinse it under a tap: chlorine kills the bacterial colony living in it, and in an air-driven filter that sponge is the entire biological capacity of the tank.
Once a month is usually enough, and a slightly dirty sponge filters better than a scrupulously clean one because the trapped detritus adds surface area. Clean it when the flow visibly slows rather than on a fixed schedule, and check the airline has not worked loose at the same time.
Good questions
Before you buy
No, this is the filter unit alone, deliberately. The supplier bundles it with air pumps of unstated voltage, so we sell it bare and pair it with our own USB or 240 V pumps instead.
Any aquarium air pump with a spare outlet. Our USB pump drives the single-intake version on a small tank; the triple wants the mains pump.
Empty the solids chamber weekly. Rinse the bio-media in old tank water only, because under a tap the chlorine kills the bacteria that make it work.
No, the pump is separate. Any small aquarium air pump will drive it, and a flow valve on the line is worth adding so you can tune the rate.
A modest one. These need volume rather than pressure, so a small single-outlet pump is usually plenty for a single filter in a nano or betta tank.
Roughly monthly, or when flow visibly drops. Squeeze it in old tank water only, never under the tap, since the sponge holds the tank's entire bacterial colony.
Last reviewed August 30, 2026