Sponge filter surface area and effeciency?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I have several tanks running on them alone with medium bio loads and they work great. They just don't do much for mechanical unless you hook a power head to them. They are cheep and you can put alot of them in.
 
thanks :) Really appreciate the feedback P) I've added 3 big sponges to my tank to help with Bio filtration, for mechanical filtration, i usually just siphon the poop when doing water change .
 
I currently maintain a 120 run on 4 sponge filters that are stacked on 2 powerheads
 
thanks. i guess they can't handle huge loads by themself , We just had a power outage 2 days ago. my canister stopped, but the 3 big sponge filters were still working since they were on acdc pump.
after 2 days i tested and detected ammonia. .
 
batang_mcdo;5116113; said:
thanks. i guess they can't handle huge loads by themself , We just had a power outage 2 days ago. my canister stopped, but the 3 big sponge filters were still working since they were on acdc pump.
after 2 days i tested and detected ammonia. .
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Were they established with BB yet? It takes them a couple of weeks even in a established cycled tank. I've had them alone run my hevy stocked 180 for 2 days during a power out and had no amm.
 
Yeah you can't expect them to handle you bioload 100% when a lot of your beneficial bacteria is obviously living in your canister filter and that suddenly gets cut off. Your bacteria colony only grows to the size of its food source--your bioload. Cutting off half of it suddenly is going to give you a mini cycle no matter what the situation.

Does that mean they can't handle a large bioload given time by themselves? No.

I would bet they did a whole lot better by themselves than if you had no backup at all. :)
 
aclockworkorange;5118459; said:
Yeah you can't expect them to handle you bioload 100% when a lot of your beneficial bacteria is obviously living in your canister filter and that suddenly gets cut off. Your bacteria colony only grows to the size of its food source--your bioload. Cutting off half of it suddenly is going to give you a mini cycle no matter what the situation.

Does that mean they can't handle a large bioload given time by themselves? No.

I would bet they did a whole lot better by themselves than if you had no backup at all. :)
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2nd this.

My 2 cents worth... I spent 10 years in the German aquarium industry and most of the fish importers/breeders (upwards of 300 tanks) used a combination of central filtration and sponge filters in each tank. The sponge filters were there for when a tank had to be taken off the central filter. There were even one or two importers that only used sponge filters so i think you don't need to worry too much. These guys only used what worked. I know because some of them told me all the things they'd tried over the years.

As for ammonia spikes, there is no filter on the market that can stop a short term ammonia spike after feeding as the water has to get from the fishes' back end to the filter first. Only understocking a tank can solve this problem as the ammount of ammonia then produced will be small in comparrison to the volume of water. For argument's sake I wouldn't consider your tank understocked

j<><
 
thanks, One of the 3 sponges has been in the tank for more than a month, the 2 others were only added to the tank a week ago.
I tested my water and was able to detect higher ammonia now.
the power outage was only about 3 hours. could this power outage cause BB in my canister to die off and I'm going through a full cycle again? or do you guys think this will just be a mini cycle? before the power outage, i fed all my bichirs and arowana full . was not expecting the power outage :(
 
thanks :) Just tested water parameter, and ammonia is back to :)
but will have to test again tomorrow as i fed my bichirs.
 
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