Advice Needed On Car Boot Purchase Of Air Pump And Filter

\i picked up a 10 litre tank for £3, a colour changing LED light strip and what I thought was an Interpet mini filter for £2.50. Unfortunately I didnt actually look in the box until I got home and when I did I found it contained a layal SK-9102 air pump and some airline to connect it to the thing in the picture.

It has a hole on the side of the base that connects to an internal air stone. The base unscrews and contains carbon and another mineral (zeolite probably). The airstone sits inside the blue sponge and the air bubbles come out of the cone shaped top

My query is how would this work as a filter?

I think it will work in a similar way to my home made one, which is also in a small container.

As the airline is taking air through the sponge it will be dragging water in behind it and also particles in the water which are caught (initially in your case by the stones) and through the centre of the sponge.

I have added filter floss to the top of the jar and you can see this works because it has become discoloured.

For such a little sponge filter I have been quite impressed. It worked well in my 12 litre quarantine tank. I took all the sponges out and kept them in the filter compartments of the Aguanano tank.
When I was ready to use the small tank to house my extra WCMM I managed to cycle it in a couple of week, getting zero ammonia after that time despite being fed ammonia at a ration of 3ppm.

I am assuming that somewhere along the bottom edge, or up the sides or in the base, there are small holes which will allow the water to be pulled through.

I like yours, it's very neat, though if it was me I would swap those stones for more sponges

Well I based my home made one on Pond Guru and they are very simple, and IMO, work pretty well.
I'm considering taking mine out of the big tank for the shrimp tank and putting in another spare one I have.

This second one is a novelty one as it's made using a small baby's bottle (the bottle that is - not the baby )
I was trying out different shapes.
The first is short and squat, ideal for the 12 litre and the bottle is thinner but taller. That worked well too.

I do enjoy fiddling around!

The air that you pump into the one end of the tube inside the filter has to rise along the length in order to pull water through. So the answer is "Not Really!"

Ok it's now sitting upright on the bottom.  BTW I've decided I hate rubber suckers! One speck of sand and the damned things don't stick!!!