After a complete tear down and restart of my sons 36 gallon bow front, The tank started the first stage of the bio cycle as ammonia was at .0 ppm till I removed the fluval prefilter from my fx5,still leaving two full trays of bio rings my ammonia went up to .25 ppm in less than 24 hours. My nitrites also increased some.
So Fluval prefilter dose indeed hold bacteria.
I had the prefilter mixed with bio rings in the first tray,and wanted to reduce the number of rings to use more biofoams the 1st 2 in the top tray kept the rings much cleaner, so I thought I would put one foam over the rings in each tray like a prefilter/polishing pad for a total of 4.
I have 2 bio foams in the top tray, and in the following trays I have a biofoam on top of bio rings like a polishing pad.
So the FX5 has the 6 large outer foams,4 bio foams, and 2 baskets of bio rings.
My other filter is a very large sponge filter for up to a 124 gallon tank powered by a fluval Q2 air pump running full out.
So my sons 36 gallon with 2 fancy gold fish will stay pretty clean.
And yes, there is a lot of flow, and the fish love it.
But I was told the prefilter dose not make good bio media at the LFS and this has shown me they are very wrong.
I squeezed a very old polishing pad from a well established tank into the water so in a day or two the bacteria should start to wake up and cycle.
Sadly it takes for ever even in ideal conditions for beneficial bacteria to divide and multiply so I'm not expecting miracles. If it completes in 2 weeks I'll be happy.
So Fluval prefilter dose indeed hold bacteria.
I had the prefilter mixed with bio rings in the first tray,and wanted to reduce the number of rings to use more biofoams the 1st 2 in the top tray kept the rings much cleaner, so I thought I would put one foam over the rings in each tray like a prefilter/polishing pad for a total of 4.
I have 2 bio foams in the top tray, and in the following trays I have a biofoam on top of bio rings like a polishing pad.
So the FX5 has the 6 large outer foams,4 bio foams, and 2 baskets of bio rings.
My other filter is a very large sponge filter for up to a 124 gallon tank powered by a fluval Q2 air pump running full out.
So my sons 36 gallon with 2 fancy gold fish will stay pretty clean.
And yes, there is a lot of flow, and the fish love it.
But I was told the prefilter dose not make good bio media at the LFS and this has shown me they are very wrong.
I squeezed a very old polishing pad from a well established tank into the water so in a day or two the bacteria should start to wake up and cycle.
Sadly it takes for ever even in ideal conditions for beneficial bacteria to divide and multiply so I'm not expecting miracles. If it completes in 2 weeks I'll be happy.