Tetra Whisper Power Filter, 40-Gallons, 3-In-1

Recently I “adopted” two African Clawed Frogs from my son’s school. And by adopted I mean, his teacher sent out an SOS begging for someone to take these frogs so she didn’t get stuck with them and I foolishly agreed. Did you know ACFs can live between 20-30 years?

Yeah, me either. But NOW we know and that’s…got to count for something.

We had our tank set-up and cycled because we were going to get some goldfish to celebrate the end of Kindergarten, however the classroom science project needed a good home (they
raised the frogs from tadpoles). So, we got the frogs and everything was *almost* great.

You see the issue is that aquatic frogs need the water level to be several inches below your tank’s fill line, I know you’re thinking this isn’t a big deal but I promise you, it is. My Fluval C2 clip-on-the-back filter was a reliable workhorse, filtering out goldfish poop with the ease of a pressure washer dusting a bookshelf. But once the water level in my tank was lowered just 3”, the filter could no longer hold it’s prime. I emailed the good people at Fluval asking about extension tubes for the intake but they said it wouldn’t work until the water level was back to normal.

African Clawed Frogs are fully aquatic and partially Houdini. They will attempt multiple escapes just for funsies. So having the water level lowered in the tank is mandatory and that my friends prompted the 3 day intensive aquarium filter journey I embarked on. I am now an expert in all things aquarium filters. But only for the next week until my brain sets sail for a new information destination.

Finally, when all my hope was getting confused in a plethora of off name filters and random 3 star reviews talking about socks, I finally stumbled upon a review hyping up the Tetra Whisper and the wonders it works in a turtle tank.

Listen, I’m no zoologist so a positive review for a turtle tank felt like the right way to go for my baby aquatic frogs and I ordered that filter and didn’t second guess it. If it worked for turtles, it’ll work for frogs. And you know what? IT WORKS FOR FROGS!

Yeah, that’s right, Fred and Bread are now the happiest of happy frogs. They haven’t even croaked. (That’s a ACF joke because they don’t croak. They don’t even ribbit.) The excess food and frog poops (which technically are also excess food, so that’s neat) are now being sucked into a fancy, quiet, and easy to set-up Tetra Whisper 40. Fred and Bread currently reside in a 20g tank, so I opted for the 40g filter. It made sense at the time. But I was also buying a filter for my frogs based off of a turtle tank review, so ya know, perspective.

Happily, I was able to construct a baffle using an empty coffee creamer bottle to help muffle the noise of the waterfall effect, (again due to the water level being about 3” lower, in case you forgot that about 7 chapters ago).

Fred and Bread really like that the Tetra Whisper has an adjustable water flow valve. Bread, in particular likes to loaf around between the unplugged and totally useless but I have no where else to store it, so it’s staying in the tank, water heater and the side of the tank. I think the fact that she isn’t getting sucked into the filter is a really big plus for her, even though her back legs are bulking up at such an enormous rate, I fear someone may be juicing the water. Fred doesn’t care about the filter and spends most of his daylight hours hiding in the quiet dark peacefulness of his octopus hide. I judged him for it until I remembered that I too enjoy laying in bed during my daylight hours, so touché Fred, touché.

My favorite thing about the Tetra Whisper is that it’s self priming. So when the power weirdly goes out for 2 seconds at 3am on a Monday morning, I don’t have to get out of my super comfy, but non-octopus designed hide and pour water into the filter for an undetermined amount of time. Honestly, just for that feature alone, I am so happy I got the Tetra Whisper.

Anyways, if you’re looking for a filter for your frogs, take it from me, who took it from a turtle tank review, the Tetra Whisper is in fact the bees knees; or more accurately, the frog’s chonky legs.

Tetra filters are among the best. Fairly quiet and dependable. Filters can be costly if you have large fish.

Filter changes and cleaning is very easy. It’s quiet. Works as advertised.

I love this filter and highly recommend it!! Its so powerful and efficient and price is amazing!

Buy on the bigger side (20-30 gallon) if your fish naturally live in water with a current (will explain below)
Buy on smaller side (40 gallon) if your fish don’t do well with a current/need calm waters.

I bought a 20 gal tank kit for a betta tank. I bought this as a filter (rather than one it came with which I’ll use for quarantine tank, as needed as it was ok but not great). This is the most powerful HOB filter I’ve ever had. It creates a current in the tank, which is great for a betta, who’s natural environment is in moving water with current. I used to use power pumps but had one fall apart and suck a weak fish in so the fact this one creates its own current was a huge plus I wasn’t expecting- no need for pump!!! It’s strong but not enough fish struggle at all but it picks up even little bits of live plants that come up. I love this filter and plan to get another to have as back up for other tanks. I highly recommend it for 40 gal or smaller- I bought for 20 gal because I’d rather have more filtration than less and you can’t beat the price of this filter, especially for quality!

 Super potente y puedes cambiar la intensidad del chorro. La caja del material filtrante es grande para poder tunear con tus materiales preferidos. Deberían incluir este en el kit de 20 galones.

 I finally replaced two 30 year old Whisper filters that still work with these for my 36 gallon tank. One was making a little noise. Turns out the new ones work even better, and look and sound great. Couldn’t be happier. I do weekly water changes and monthly cartridge changes for my planted tank. I like my tanks to sparkle. I do minimum maintenance with the filters, clean the intake tubes and dump out the old water with water changes and they last forever. Hope these last as long as the old ones.