Of course! I rinse my sponges in the kitchen sink... the key to making it safe is to not tell anyone else that you are doing so.!Hello all!
I know that it's recommended to rinse your filtration sponges in tank water, but realistically the coarse sponges from my FX6 could never be done that way, as even after only a month of use, they are thick with sludge, algae, and detritus. I HAVE to rinse them in the sink and bang out all the gunk. Does anyone else experience this?
Thanks!
I am on well water so I don't have to worry about chlorine killing off the bacteria in the sponge. I am flushing a lot of bacteria when I clean my sponges but I am not disinfecting the sponge with chlorine so what bacteria that is left should bounce back very quickly.
If you do weekly sponge cleanings with chlorinated water my theory is the bacterial colonies will beef up else where in the tank if the bacteria in the sponge is being constantly killed off by cleaning with the chlorinated tap water. If you are concerned you could do some water tests to see if you are getting ammonia and nitrite spikes after a sponge cleaning which would be a mini-cycle. My gut feeling is you should be fine though.
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