how do you clean the filter sponge without losing the bacteria in an aquarium?

Question

i have a canister filter which is totaly emersable, the tank is new and i'm still cycling it with no fish, but i want to know how to clean the sponge when it gets clogged up with poo without loosing thebacterial colonies in it.

the filter has a sponge and a charcoal container, and thats it.

Answer 1

When doing a water change, use some of the used tank water and rinse it in the water to be discarded. Tap water has Chlorine or Chloranine in it and it will kill the bio bugs.... tap water should never be used for this purpose.

Alway's add your dechlor/ammonia binder to the new water before adding to the tank too. The bio bugs are not just in the filters, they are on all the surfaces, rock, glass, plants....

Answer 2

What type of filter is it? Canister filters usually come with 3 different media. Mechanical (the sponge), biological (bio balls or ceramic rings) , and chemical (charcoal). If all these are present you should be able to clean or your sponge without losing any of the important bacteria.

Answer 3

Rinse the sponge in dechlorinated water. In other words treat some tap water as if you were going to put it in your tank and rinse the sponge with this. It will clean the sponge and won't kill the bacteria.

Answer 4

Any tank needs to be cycled. Do a web search for for "Aquarium biking" and "fishless biking" and also you may see fairly some articles in this. you do not favor a particular clear out for a tank with a sand mattress, yet you want one which isn't develop into clogged with sand. Canister or skill filters might want to have a topic with high quality sand fouling their works,till you employ a foam prefilter and sparkling or replace the prefilter typically. you could also use a foam clear out, yet again, you would possibly want to favor to sparkling the sand out of the froth typically. i'd not propose between the interior skill filters (the smallish ones that bypass contained in the tank), because that's likely to develop into clogged fairly instantly. Undergravel filters received't paintings in any respect with sand, because the sand grains are too high quality to allow adequate water stream through the substrate. With a sand bottom, you have to be very comfortable in siphoning waste from the bottom, or each and every of the sand will bypass up your siphon tube. Any fish that dig plenty may also keep the water roiled with sand and debris. Aragonite is a sort of calcium carbonate (it quite is why that's said as a "calcareous sand"), so it is going to buffer the pH of the water to someplace round 7.8-8.2, and it is going to also boost the calcium element and carbonate hardness of the water. that is all good if you're preserving saltwater animals or animals from confusing-water environments, like Rift Lake cichlids. that's undesirable if you're preserving animals from smooth-water environments, which consists of maximum fish from the Amazon Basin and West Africa.

Answer 5

Gently squeeze it a few times in a bucket of de-chlorinated tap water. Eventually, you will have to replace it so when you do I would suggest not feeding the fish the day of and the day after to give the bacteria a chance to re grow. Greatly restrict their diet for a week after that
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Answer 6

I have one of those filters for my turtle tanks and I usually just rinse the whole thing out. . . But I leave some of the dirty water in the tank when I change out the water.

Answer 7

i recomend cleaning the sponge when you do a water change. when you siphon out the water put some a side in a pail. the use that water to rinse your filter.

Answer 8

You just rinse it with tap water..thats it;-)

Answer 9

Hawk c is correct.