Cleaning Media??

[Chooka]

Probably another stupid question but here it goes anyway......

When i clean out my filter foam and polishing pads in my filter how should i be cleaning the media, if at all and how often?

Thanks,
Brett

 

[CichlidsGoneWild]

Fill up a bucket of water from your waterchange. Use this water to rinse out your filter pads. The reason behind this is so you do not kill any beneficial bacteria left in your foam pads. If you have a second filter running then you could go ahead and use your garden hose as long as you do not clean both filters in the same week. Other may disagree with my method as water from garden hose contain chlorine. I have three filters running so I have enough beneficial bacteria to do this.

 

[bukster]

the bio media which i think is what u'r talking about shouldn't be cleaned. that's where u'r beneficial bacteria grows. if u clean this off u kill all u'r bacteria and have to partially cycle u'r system again.

 

[Chooka]

Hey Buckster,

Yes that is what i am talking about, the bio media, ceramic noodles and eheim substrate.

So no cleaning of that ever?

Brett

 

[bukster]

exactly, it's like the wheel on the bio wheel filters. they don't look the greatest but they work awesome. all that gunk is what keeps u'r fish alive.

 

[Chooka]

Ok cool, so keep the murky water in the bottom of the eheim bucket also?

 

[bukster]

nah that u can dump. the bacteria mostly grows on the surface area of the biomedia. so as long as you keep that moist and don't use any chemicals while cleaning the rest of the filter u'r good. gl

 

[Chooka]

Excellent, thanks for the info!

Brett

 

[bukster]

no prob. anything else ya need to know just let me know. i dunno pm me or something.

 

[Mystix212]

What I do is rinse the filter pads and sponges in a bucket of my tank water and put the media back into the filters, then turn them on again. Thats all you need to do. If you have mech filtration before anything else the bio media shouldnt get that dirty anyway.