I pasted this in from an old thread.
Instead I would turn them inside out and spray them out with a garden hose and a lot of water. Now some of that would go on my plants but lots of it was wasted, and it was a lengthy wet process.
Now I have taken to a different method. I put them out in the hot sun to drip-dry just as they come from the sump.
Once thoroughly dry, which takes one to two days depending on the weather, I turn them inside out and I vacuum them thoroughly with my shop vac.
While hanging in the hot sun, the bacteria in the filter warms up and eats more and more of the detritus. And then it all dies and dries up to dust.
The vacuuming takes about 1/10 the time & effort of washing with a hose, and I don’t get so much poopy fish water on my shoes.
also, on all my aquariums I have put solar screen bags over the overflow, so that lots of the detritus from the tank ends up on the screen. It gets consumed by all my fry and tiny fish and snails and not as much heavy detritus gets washed into the filter sock.
I am still running the redneck brute force garbage can 2-sock filter, with lava rock, bio-rings and the DIY submerged sand filter biologic filtration. I removed the third sock, (for the sand filter) since it was redundant. Any sand that came out of the sand filter would fall to the bottom of the sump and get back into the sand filter or lie in the bottom.
If it managed to come back up to the brute overflow and go into the pump chamber, it will still have to get through my final filter sock there.
Now the filter socks in the brute are covered from the sun and they do not grow algae: just a few snails.
But the final filter sock, in the pump chamber, is in the outdoor sun. It grows some algae as do a lot of the furnishings of that tank.
There is solar screen around the overflow of the 55 patio tank above the pump chamber: about a 1 x 2‘ piece of solar screen in and it is all growing algae, being exposed to the sun.
This, and the little creatures that feed on it, provide lots of nutrition for my fish and also help remove proteins and such from the water.
This takes so much out of the water that the show tank in my house grows almost no algae. Sometimes a small patch will grow on the underside of the plastic lid where the lamps are above it. The tank itself has a pleasing amount of greenery growing on the rocks and that’s about it. The snails take care of everything else.
Anyhow I thought you guys would be interested, and also I would be interested to hear if any of you are using this dry and vacuum method of filter sock cleaning.
I could never bring myself to put my filter socks in the washing machine.
Instead I would turn them inside out and spray them out with a garden hose and a lot of water. Now some of that would go on my plants but lots of it was wasted, and it was a lengthy wet process.
Now I have taken to a different method. I put them out in the hot sun to drip-dry just as they come from the sump.
Once thoroughly dry, which takes one to two days depending on the weather, I turn them inside out and I vacuum them thoroughly with my shop vac.
While hanging in the hot sun, the bacteria in the filter warms up and eats more and more of the detritus. And then it all dies and dries up to dust.
The vacuuming takes about 1/10 the time & effort of washing with a hose, and I don’t get so much poopy fish water on my shoes.
also, on all my aquariums I have put solar screen bags over the overflow, so that lots of the detritus from the tank ends up on the screen. It gets consumed by all my fry and tiny fish and snails and not as much heavy detritus gets washed into the filter sock.
I am still running the redneck brute force garbage can 2-sock filter, with lava rock, bio-rings and the DIY submerged sand filter biologic filtration. I removed the third sock, (for the sand filter) since it was redundant. Any sand that came out of the sand filter would fall to the bottom of the sump and get back into the sand filter or lie in the bottom.
If it managed to come back up to the brute overflow and go into the pump chamber, it will still have to get through my final filter sock there.
Now the filter socks in the brute are covered from the sun and they do not grow algae: just a few snails.
But the final filter sock, in the pump chamber, is in the outdoor sun. It grows some algae as do a lot of the furnishings of that tank.
There is solar screen around the overflow of the 55 patio tank above the pump chamber: about a 1 x 2‘ piece of solar screen in and it is all growing algae, being exposed to the sun.
This, and the little creatures that feed on it, provide lots of nutrition for my fish and also help remove proteins and such from the water.
This takes so much out of the water that the show tank in my house grows almost no algae. Sometimes a small patch will grow on the underside of the plastic lid where the lamps are above it. The tank itself has a pleasing amount of greenery growing on the rocks and that’s about it. The snails take care of everything else.
Anyhow I thought you guys would be interested, and also I would be interested to hear if any of you are using this dry and vacuum method of filter sock cleaning.
