80 ppm nitrates in 125 gallon

[Irecruitfish]

Hello; for the long term reduce the feeding amounts or times. Too many MTS is a sign of overfeeding.
Short term suggestion I have read is to put some lettuce in the tank at night and in the morning it likely will be covered with them for removal.

Thanks I'll try that!

 

[Jhay3513]

After cleaning the fx6 it wasn't terribly awful in terms of gunk but it's looking good now. I'll do a 50% water change tonight too. Thanks for the advice everyone. It truly is annoying to clean canister filters. I get it now.

I just have to remind myself to clean it every 3 months at least.

I’d do that every 30 days if you want to stay on top of your nitrates. I clean the filter media in my sump every 3-4 weeks and my levels stay good enough to keep adolescent Black Nasties alive

 

[Irecruitfish]

I’d do that every 30 days if you want to stay on top of your nitrates. I clean the filter media in my sump every 3-4 weeks and my levels stay good enough to keep adolescent Black Nasties alive

Thanks I'll be sure to do it more often. Can't say I'm a fan of it as this is my first canister filter I have only had HOB filtered tanks.

 

[Jhay3513]

Thanks I'll be sure to do it more often. Can't say I'm a fan of it as this is my first canister filter I have only had HOB filtered tanks.

If you do it more often it’s easier with less scrubbing. What i do on my tank is siphon the water out for the water change while I’m cleaning the filter. That way when you’re ready to fill it back up the filter is already cleaned out. I use a 5 gal bucket wit tank water in it and just shake your mechanical and bio media clean in it. If you don’t have your bio in media bags it REALLY makes that step super easy. If you want a cheap option for bags you can use these from Walmart. They were $0.94 each. I just close the open sides off with zip ties

 

[clm08k]

Hello; The sponge and ceramic media are good to house bb until they get clogged up with detritus. If the trapping media is too thin or the trapping media is too porous then the bits of tank trash (detritus) get by and into the bio-media

(bio-media = solid surfaces often in filters meant to give a place for the bb to colonize. My take is bio-media can be pretty much anywhere there is some water flow. The greater the surface area equals more surface for the bb the form a bio film. That way more can be packed into the available space.
Seems to me that the porous nature of some bio-media will likely get clogged up over time with fine detritus. I used some carbon back in the 1970's that was not very dense meaning it was porous. I would bake it in my oven in the erroneous notion I was re-activating the carbon. I have since learned a home oven does not get hot enough to re-activate. It did however bake away a lot of the organic stuff that had clogged up the spaces in the carbon. That made the carbon a decent bio-media that was a bit more cleanable and I could reuse it several times.
I suspect ceramic media that is only gently rinsed off from time to time will lose some of the available surface. Not sure how to go about cleaning the clogged spaces.
A sponge can be simply squeezed a bunch of times in water to clean out a lot of the detritus. Likely should be squeezed out fairly often)

Ceramic bio-media ought to be useful as long as it is in good shape. I have not used it so cannot say how long it stays in good shape. Back a few decades ago when none of the current choices were available I used small glass marbles. Not porous but they packed fairly tight and allowed good water flow. They were also easy the rinse.

Another thought - The bb make a sticky bio-film which clings to a surface. It is my understanding a simple rinsing does not wash it away. I suspect a scrub brush will get it off exterior surfaces. I think the term is sessile to describe how it sticks to surfaces. The bb can and likely will be on surfaces thru out the tank.

On carbon. Activated Carbon has the property of adhesion rather than absorption. That property makes it useful for only a brief time. It is good for removing chemicals such as medicines after a tank treatment.
In adhesion a chemical molecule is picked up by the carbon and bound very tightly. The carbon can only pick up and bind so many molecules and then it is "full" so to speak. This could take only a few hours or days and the carbon is full.
I think of it sort of like carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide being picked up by the hemoglobin in our blood. Red blood cells can pick up CO2 in our bodies and carry it to the lungs where the CO2 can be released. However when a red blood cell picks up carbon monoxide (CO) the cell cannot release it at all. That red blood cell will become useless and will circulated thru our bodies until it dies and is replaced.

Thanks so much for responding. Really appreciate the detailed information. Going to clean out the entire AC110 today instead of just the sponge. Upon reading your descriptions, I think the ceramic media is at its max and will replace it.

 

[Irecruitfish]

If you do it more often it’s easier with less scrubbing. What i do on my tank is siphon the water out for the water change while I’m cleaning the filter. That way when you’re ready to fill it back up the filter is already cleaned out. I use a 5 gal bucket wit tank water in it and just shake your mechanical and bio media clean in it. If you don’t have your bio in media bags it REALLY makes that step super easy. If you want a cheap option for bags you can use these from Walmart. They were $0.94 each. I just close the open sides off with zip ties
View attachment 1289346 View attachment 1289347

Excellent tip thanks!

 

[skjl47]

Thanks so much for responding. Really appreciate the detailed information. Going to clean out the entire AC110 today instead of just the sponge. Upon reading your descriptions, I think the ceramic media is at its max and will replace it.

Hello; Do not throw away the ceramic media unless it is structurally weak. It is still a decent bio-media surface even if a bit clogged up. Being ceramic it may be that a bake in an oven might cook away a lot of the stuff in pores. That and a good scrubbing should at least clean the surface nooks and cranies.

Also I would not replace all of the ceramic media at one time. Keep the old media wet and maybe replace half. That way the old media will seed the new with bb right away.
I try to clean/ replace parts of filters in segments. If replacing old filter media with new I do not clean the tubes and filter body parts at the same time.
If cleaning out the tubes and filter body parts ( I know it sounds like something wrong but these parts can get too built up with stuff and restrict flow.) I do not add brand new media. I keep it wet and put back the old media to seed the newly cleaned surfaces.

There may be a way to clean the old ceramic media.

 

[squint]

I'm sure it can be cleaned with a soak in bleach or acid (not both at the same time). Or even in an ultrasonic cleaner if you have one. There's no reason to throw it away.

 

[Mr Pleco]

Hello; There are a few threads on this on the forum. I have tried Rid-X myself

If you have driftwood in the tank be careful with rid-x in your tank it will start to break down the cellulose and turn the driftwood spongy .. adding to the nitrate build up ..

Cellulase breaks down toilet paper, vegetable matter and some foods

 

[kewpiefishypewpie]

Thanks so much for responding. Really appreciate the detailed information. Going to clean out the entire AC110 today instead of just the sponge. Upon reading your descriptions, I think the ceramic media is at its max and will replace it.

As already stated there's no need to replace the ceramic media, just give it a good thorough rinse in tank water during a water change. I've literally had the same bag of media for two years, same filter/media as yours.