Old Driftwood causing Nitrate to go up??? HITH experts needed.

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Have you cleaned the hoses on your FX5? You will get a build up of matter in them and it can reduce your filter performance as well as possibly raise the nitrates.
 
Have you cleaned the hoses on your FX5? You will get a build up of matter in them and it can reduce your filter performance as well as possibly raise the nitrates.

Fo sho! Check those hose out!
You can also look into making a filter specifically for reducing migrated by stuffing a hob full of live plants. I seen a really informative post a while back on Oscarfishlovers. I'll find and share the link.

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I just siphon the sand once a week. I removed my driftwood. One of them had a lot of holes in it that would trap a ton of poop. I don't want to clean it every week so I just tossed it. Otherwise, NOW I just have 3 little plastic plants and sand.

My sand is pretty shallow also, maybe an inch. I'm hoping it helps. I rinsed my filter pads. They weren't that nasty. Just a little brown. After the 50% w/c, and rinsing filter pads and removing drift wood. My Nitrates are at about 10-20 ppm. So I guess I just need to do water changes more often than once a week? gahh. :P

Whan you do a water change.

Do you rinse your filter pads with tap water?
Do you rinse your media and how?
What is your media set-up in your FX5?
 
I rinse the sponges in tap water, but have the trays full of ceramic rings. I rinse the ceramic rings if they are really mucky with TANK water.

I wring out the sponges really well after rinsing them with the tap water, but is it bad that i'm rinsing them with tap water? Even if my ceramic rings are untouched? Let me repeat. I rinse the SPONGES with tap water and wring out well, I rinse the ceramic rings with TANK water.

I figured since its the ceramic rings that hold all the bacteria, its ok to rinse the sponges with tap water to power all the gunk out of them.

Is that my big mistake? The fx5 is only 6 months old so far. The ceramic rings are all old from my old filters.

I just added an Aqueon quietflo 55/75 (hang on back) for extra aeration and filtration.

I do water changes once a week. When I remove the water I turn the filters off, then fill the tank back up with a hose straight from the bathroom (I temp control it to make sure its the same temperature). Then when its full, and I have added Prime in the amount to treat the entire tank (plus a little extra), I wait a few minutes and then turn the filters back on.
 
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