rinsing cartriadges
- Thread starter large_cichlids
- Start date
you van do this however most of them have carbon in them and this carbon will be exhausted and can possibly leach absorbed impurities back into the water. If you do this be sure to rinse it in aquarium water and not tap water.
its a better Idea to start a routine of replacing one at a time every 2-3 months
its a better Idea to start a routine of replacing one at a time every 2-3 months
In my experience the best way to clean those cartridges is with a garden hose spray nozzle followed by a rinse in aquarium water. The carbon is worthless however. I run clamshells with carbon in the same filters. You can reuse the filter pads as long as they dont have holes in them this way.
I do it every week till they get slimey and dont let water pass anymore. My water is very clear, it's crazy to throw away the things when they clog one time, I would be poor trying to buy them every week. I rinse mine under the tap water at full pressure till it removes everything and then really shake them to remove the excess water and have never had a problem in a few years doing this. I have a sailfin pleco and it really puts out the waste
I rinse mine and I am thinking about take apart the cartidges and removing the carbon because it is a pain! Then I can just pull it out, rinse it off, and put it back in. I may spend some time taking them apart, rip off the blue stuff and use the stuff I use in my pond filter. Speaking of which, I need to go to work tommorow and pick some of that up to replace it. That stuff you cannot rinse off because it is like having 100 plecos in a 10 gallon tank. The filter pads come out black in a matter of days.
I have some that I have been rinsing for about 6 months now. Once per week on my second water change of the week. I cut the tops open dump the carbon, and stuff them with polyester filter fiber. In my second filter I cut them open and stuffed them full of pot scrubbers for added bacteria colonization.
I take an exacto knife and cut the top to remove the carbon. You can then fill it with poly or somthing similar and rinse them very easily. I rinse them in tap water forget about loosing bacteria. thats what the biowheels and customizable cartridges are for but just do one at a time every two weeks. that way you don't remove alot of bacteria.
large_cichlids;527587; said:
I bought my cartridges in April and they are all going strong. I rinse them with a kitchen sink sprayer. Each takes about five seconds to thoroughly clean. I am too cheap to replace them every two weeks just because Penguin wants the extra income.
necrocanis;536793; said:
But what's with the tap water thing, with some people this is their only bio-filtration...and believe it or not a bio-wheel is NOT a big bio-filter. Yeah..There I said it. If you just watch it you can see how much water by-passes the bacteria, instead of flowing thru (by) it. I did't say not to use a bio-wheel, I think they're great add-ons, just don't kill off the other filter for the sake of convenience. If that were the case we could get plastic fish and fill the tanks with glyserin...hey no algae problems either
...
And now comes everyone saying they don't have any problems cleaning with tap water... alot of people don't SEEM to have a problem with secondhand cigarette smoke either! NOW. Same with fish. They are way to sensitive and with so many variables in a tank it's hard to prove other than empirically what causes what problems. Lateral line desease, hole in head syndrome are a couple of examples. (where's the guy who's Mom is a microbiologist maybe we can get some free lab time?)
I just don't what the noobies and the uninformed to take it the wrong way and think that if you can wash a HOB filter out with tap water then it follows that it's ok for the W/D too.
hhmm...
I think I need to cut back on the red bull.
Dr Joe
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