I have a 10 gallon quarantine tank set up at the foot of my bed that I occasionally use as a stud farm or fry tank for my guppy colony. I recently replaced my filtration unit (dating from the late 80s - phew!) with a Marineland Penguin Biowheel 100 (for up to 20 gal tanks) and hated it; I have too many people and pets in my life waking me at 2am for my fish tank to join in. The buzzing sound that developed within 12 hours of assembly was just awful, and couldn't be solved with adjustments. I returned the unit to PetSmart a day later and was given store credit (easy to spend on 4-legged friends).

I'm happily running (reasonably quiet) Marineland Penguin filters elsewhere in my home: a 150 (for up to 30 gal in my 20 gal) and 350 (for up to 70 gal in my 55 gal - along with another filter). Seriously, all three other filters together aren't as noisy as that Penguin 100 was!

I broke out my quiet, trusty old cartridge filter and was mortified to find that I can't get it running again. It won't suck, which sucks. Can anyone suggest a quiet filtration unit suitable for a 10 gallon tank? I'd prefer to get a replacement quickly, but don't think that my resident snails and plants will mind being filterless for a while - I'm willing to order online rather than dash off to PetSmart or Petco.

My fish and I thank you for your input!

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current tanks:
20gal: one small fancy goldfish, 4 mystery snails
10gal: many mystery snail hatchlings & 2 female guppies
55gal: 4 juvenile blood parrots & 5 giant danios, 2 gold tetras.
55gal: 10 mystery snails, 1 CAE, 7 guppies and 6 cory cats
wishlist: 75+ gal for BPs before they get big

Have you thought about using just a sponge filter and air pump, since the tank isn't likely to ever be heavily stocked. That way you can just get a quiet air pump. I'm a fan of the tetra whisper air pumps as they are almost completely silent. The air pump & filter from Dr Foster and Smith or Petsolutions, or wherever, should only run you about 15.00 all together.

If you don't want to go that route. You could use something like the Duetto DJ series, they have adjustable flow as well which can be useful in smaller tanks, and I had one running for quite some time in a 10 gallon, it worked great and the only reason I got rid of it was because I started using a canister for Co2 delivery.

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29 Gallon Planted
1 Angelfish; 2 German Blue Rams; 11 Rasbora Boraptensis; 3 Khuli Loaches, 1 BN Pleco

20 Gallon Planted
2 German Blue Rams; 5 Corydoras Paleatus; 4 Otocinclus Catfish; Amano Shrimp

5.5 Gallon
Betta, Some plants.

Hooray! My head is spinning from researching sponge filters (I've been in the biowheel camp for so long) but I'm confident enough to place an order online.

In the mean time, 24 hours later I've got my 10 gallon still filled with water and the heater running, is this a disaster waiting to happen, or should am I doing my gravel, (accidental) snails and plants good by leaving them there? (I could relocate my plants to a different tank) I was thinking of doing a complete water change when my filter situation is sorted out, but am reluctant to let my gravel dry out, in case it is harboring useful bacteria . . .

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current tanks:
20gal: one small fancy goldfish, 4 mystery snails
10gal: many mystery snail hatchlings & 2 female guppies
55gal: 4 juvenile blood parrots & 5 giant danios, 2 gold tetras.
55gal: 10 mystery snails, 1 CAE, 7 guppies and 6 cory cats
wishlist: 75+ gal for BPs before they get big

You could try an internal filter which are pretty quiet if you end up not liking the air pump (I find them noisey personally). I used to run them on my 10 gal betta tanks and they worked pretty well. A Whisper one runs about $12.

Leave your plants in there, they will be just fine, in fact they don't really need any kind of filtration. Snails should be fine too, I wouldn't worry about it there are no fish or shrimp in there. Don't change out all the water, just isn't necessary and like you say you will loose all your beneficial bacteria. If you want you could drop an algae wafer or even a piece of zucchini for your snails to snack on. Good luck!

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29 Gallon Planted
1 Angelfish; 2 German Blue Rams; 11 Rasbora Boraptensis; 3 Khuli Loaches, 1 BN Pleco

20 Gallon Planted
2 German Blue Rams; 5 Corydoras Paleatus; 4 Otocinclus Catfish; Amano Shrimp

5.5 Gallon
Betta, Some plants.