Heavy Duty Sludge Products?

[JRM592]

I'm looking for something stronger than Rid-X to dissolve sludge and thick bio-film in old filters, without killing all the beneficial bacteria colonies. They are currently submerged in old tanks. Everything is so old, that I don't want to disassemble anything. I used daily mega doses of Seachem Pristine a few weeks ago, which worked better than double-dosing daily with Rid-X for about a week.

Does anyone know of any stronger products that has worked for them in their tanks?

 

[kno4te]

duanes RD.

 

[fishdance]

Citric acid will strip biofilm and thick sludge spotlessly clean and is organic so easily decomposes but will damage biofilter temporarily.

 

[duanes]

Rid-X is not a magical sludge eating machine, it seeds the tank with beneficial bacteria that help control and compete with stuff like Cyanobacteria, and over "time" help reduce sludge..
This is not an overnight or even over a few night process, it may take a month or longer depending on many conditional natural factors.
When I used Rid-X to compete with an outbreak of Cyanobacteria it tooka month to 6 weeks to see noticeable affects.
And double dosing is not beneficial, in fact may be detrimental.
Its like with beneficial bacteria, just because you pile a sump with tons of biomedia, the population of bacteria is codependent on how much ammonia your fish put out, not on media itself.
Same with Rid-X, the bacteria it seeds will eventually degrade the sludge (maybe faster than without them) but not faster than the capacity of bacteria to feed.

 

[neutrino]

Rid-X is not a magical sludge eating machine, it seeds the tank with beneficial bacteria that help control and compete with stuff like Cyanobacteria, and over "time" help reduce sludge..
This is not an overnight or even over a few night process, it may take a month or longer depending on many conditional natural factors.
When I used Rid-X to compete with an outbreak of Cyanobacteria it tooka month to 6 weeks to see noticeable affects.
And double dosing is not beneficial, in fact may be detrimental.
Its like with beneficial bacteria, just because you pile a sump with tons of biomedia, the population of bacteria is codependent on how much ammonia your fish put out, not on media itself.
Same with Rid-X, the bacteria it seeds will eventually degrade the sludge (maybe faster than without them) but not faster than the capacity of bacteria to feed.

Agree. Especially: "Its like with beneficial bacteria, just because you pile a sump with tons of biomedia, the population of bacteria is codependent on how much ammonia your fish put out, not on media itself."

Doing it naturally (not simply cleaning the filters) will take a little time.

 

[MrsE88]

I’m thinking a manual clean out is going to be the only way to get everything out. Not sure there is anything else you can do??‍

 

[DRUKENMUNKY]

Try using some bb that are more concentrated like the ones used for pond maintenance such seachem pond stability or similar products ponds are notirious for building sludge so i assume it might help......if anything 1 bottle will go a longer way for the dollar and bb is bb so it wont hurt anything