# Biological sponge filter



## fleabilly (13 Dec 2012)

I bought a BSF to try my hand at breeding shrimp in a 32l tank.
Could I put the sponge filter in my 2217 eheim canister on the larger tank to gather bacteria to help cycle the smaller one? If so how long would I have to leave it in the canister?

Cheers

R

Sent


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## GHNelson (13 Dec 2012)

Hi 
I presume its a air lift sponge filter.... will it not fit on your intake pipe on your external :?:
hoggie


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## windyboona (13 Dec 2012)

Hi
Next time you do a water change keep some water
Back , and put it in a pint glass or jug and place the
Sponge in it ,place a pebble on top to weigh it down.
Leave it in for a week, and you should have some nice
Bacteria growing in there


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## ceg4048 (13 Dec 2012)

fleabilly said:
			
		

> I bought a BSF to try my hand at breeding shrimp in a 32l tank.
> Could I put the sponge filter in my 2217 eheim canister on the larger tank to gather bacteria to help cycle the smaller one? If so how long would I have to leave it in the canister?


Hello,
   If the sponge fits in the canister then this is a great idea. It will take about the same amount of time to gather the populations and varieties of bacteria as it does for any other filter media, so count on a few weeks to be on the safe side. You can remove some of the canister media to make it fit if necessary.

Cheers,


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## fleabilly (14 Dec 2012)

Next problem...
I leave to go stateside on the 20th for a fortnight.
Which means I don't have time to cultivate bacteria in the BSF.
So 
I am thinking two options:

No filter, just an air stone. 
Or
I could pull out some nice old raggedy floss from the 2217, and make a DIY sponge filter. 






( or could I tie the floss around the BSF?)





What do you think ceg?

Cheers

R


Sent


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## dw1305 (14 Dec 2012)

Hi all,


> will it not fit on your intake pipe on your external


Easiest option. 


> No filter, just an air stone.


 Just connect the filter sponge up to the air pump, this is how they are designed to run.

If neither of those options is suitable, just place the sponge in the larger tank whilst you are away, is doesn't have to be connected to anything. When you  come back you can wash the already seeded sponge in the filter washings from the external filter and you are ready to go straight away. 

A wet sponge anywhere in the tank will act as a biological filter, you only need to add air (or flowing oxygenated water) to ensure all the filter media is aerobic. In a planted tank with a reasonably low bio-load it doesn't make a vast amount of difference where the sponge is, or whether it has any flow through it. 

You can see this by the success of HMF filters, the flow through most parts of the filter wall is negligible.

cheers Darrel


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## fleabilly (14 Dec 2012)

Also 
the hinge pin in all this, is I was given about 20 shrimp that are a variety of sizes, but too small to go into the big tank. (Strainer)

I have less than 7 days to set them up in a low maitence living environment until I return in the new year.

I could put it on the intake, or make room in the canister and put it in there but from what ceg said, I don't have have enough time to cultivate the bacteria.

That is why I am thinking of knicking some floss from my canister, wrap it around a perforated tube with string. Stick an air stone in it, job done... 

Right?



R



Sent


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## dw1305 (14 Dec 2012)

Hi all,


> I could put it on the intake, or make room in the canister and put it in there but from what ceg said, I don't have have enough time to cultivate the bacteria.


You do have enough time, you have a week, and it is a planted tank and that is plenty long enough. As soon as the sponge is wet it is accumulating bacteria. A spare dry sponge is no good for emergencies, but a wet seeded one is.


> That is why I am thinking of knicking some floss from my canister, wrap it around a perforated tube with string. Stick an air stone in it, job done...


 Just wrap it around the sponge, it won't do any harm. Personally I'm not a great floss fan in filters. It is too fine and slows flow speed even when it isn't clogged. If you can keep water circulating through the filter quickly it will keep all the filter media aerobic. 

Various filter media and systems claims to support both anaerobic (N2 out-gassing) of NO3 and aerobic filtration, but these aren't things we can easily quantify, and in practical terms we can can ignore anaerobic N2 out-gassing. 

Biological filtration just requires the level of dissolved oxygen to always exceed the BOD of the water, and all the filter media to be oxygenated.

cheers Darrel


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## fleabilly (14 Dec 2012)

Ace,
Thanks
The floss actually serves as a media to slow down my flow a bit.
The 2217 really pushes water through my 100l tank.
The floss slows it down and polishes up my water.

The sponge is in transit, so I can't really start cultivating.
If it doesn't come today, I may pop down to ADC and pick something up.

R


Sent


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## dw1305 (14 Dec 2012)

Hi all,


> The 2217 really pushes water through my 100l tank. The floss slows it down and polishes up my water.


Point taken, that is a big filter for a relatively small tank.

cheers Darrel


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## fleabilly (14 Dec 2012)

I have just read a few blogs that say you can just squeeze a media sponge from a seasoned tank into the water, 
And the bacteria will take hold immediately.

Is that true?



Sent


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## Ed Seeley (16 Dec 2012)

Your shrimp will produce so little waste that your filter won't have to cope with lots of ammonia etc. so squeezing dirty water from a filter or adding some of the floss to the sponge should do fine.

Interestingly i find with my sponge filters that once they've been matured once i can dry them out without cleaning them and they mature really quickly when used again, almost without a cycle. Imo the bacteria are a lot tougher than we are often led to believe.


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## dw1305 (16 Dec 2012)

Hi all,


> I have just read a few blogs that say you can just squeeze a media sponge from a seasoned tank into the water,
> And the bacteria will take hold immediately.


 It is better to soak the sponge in the mulm from a seasoned filter, but this will work to some degree as the bacteria will end up back in the filter from the tank water. This is from earlier in the thread.


> Next time you do a water change keep some water back, and put it in a pint glass or jug and place the Next time you do a water change keep some water back , and put it in a pint glass or jug and place the sponge in it ,place a pebble on top to weigh it down. Leave it in for a week, and you should have some bacteria growing in there........When you come back you can wash the already seeded sponge in the filter washings from the external filter


 Ed wrote, 





> Interestingly i find with my sponge filters that once they've been matured once i can dry them out without cleaning them and they mature really quickly when used again, almost without a cycle. Imo the bacteria are a lot tougher than we are often led to believe.


 I'm sure this is true as well, I think that there are probably 2 reasons for Ed's findings, one the one he suggests that as the sponge dries this stimulates some of the organisms within the filter to encyst, and secondarily that the dried dead organisms provide an instant and accessible substrate (food source) for the colonizing bacteria, as well as possibly providing a sticky surface to retain passing bacteria. 

I've spoken to a colleague who is a microbiologist, after I'd wondered about "_always wash your sponge in tank water, because chlorinated water will kill the bacteria_" and he told me micro-biologically it doesn't really make any sense, the chances of killing enough of the bacteria to enter "a cycle" must be so absolutely minimal that you can ignore them.

cheers Darrel


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