surface agitation?

[DeadFish]

I'm in the process of setting up one of those famous 7 gal. bow fronts, it's been a freshy tank until now.
I'm using one of those hang on the back filter units and I was wondering if there was an easy way to get the surface water to go through the filter unit instead of mid tank water going through it like now, the thing that I'm worried about is the air intake through the filter unit, would air intake harm the pump?
has anyone done anything for surface agitation?

[Jefe12234]

Air intake could conceivably harm the pump. Although in some cases people purposely inject air into pumps. I guess it would probably be ok as long as it wasn't running dry. But it could push bubbles into your tank which most people try to avoid.

I would suggest using an overflow. It will skim only the surface water and you should get very little air. You would have to buy or make one of these and you would probably have to modify your filter intake to fit in the overflow, but it would pump only the surface water like you stated.

If you only want surface agitation, just get a powerhead and aim it towards the surface.

HTH