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Preparing a new filter

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PeteA

Member
Joined
20 Jun 2011
Messages
170
Location
Devizes, Wiltshire
Hi All,

I'm in the process of getting everything ready for a new tank that I'm picking up this weekend and received my new external filter yesterday. Now my original plan was to take the filter sponge and pop it into my existing 37 litre tank for a week or so to get it covered in beneficial bacteria, however upon opening the new filter I've realised that the new filter sponge is massive - 6" diameter and almost as thick. Clearly this is a tad large to pop into my existing tank.

Has anybody any ideas on how I could prepare my new sponge? If push comes to shove I could put it in, I just know that it's huge and will likely highly stress my fish out. I know I can buy a thinner sponge so could get prepare one of those with less impact to my fish.

Also the new filter comes with the sponge, a bag of carbon and five white floss pads. I've heard about bio balls, ceramic noodles, ceramic tubes amongst other filter media - what do they all do and what would be best to put into my filter?

pete
 
Hi all,
Has anybody any ideas on how I could prepare my new sponge? If push comes to shove I could put it in, I just know that it's huge and will likely highly stress my fish out. I know I can buy a thinner sponge so could get prepare one of those with less impact to my fish.
Click to expand...
Yes, put it in the existing tank, near to the filter outlet is best, and then when you have your new tank/filter, take out the existing sponge from the filter, squeeze it out into a bowl of tank water, and then soak your new sponge in the suspension of filter gunge, before immediately placing it into the filter on the new tank, pour any of the remaining filter gunge into the new tank, run the filter. Job done.
Also the new filter comes with the sponge, a bag of carbon and five white floss pads. I've heard about bio balls, ceramic noodles, ceramic tubes amongst other filter media - what do they all do and what would be best to put into my filter?
Click to expand...
Throw the floss pads away, they will clog and are more trouble than they are worth, if you really want to polish the water you can run them for a short time. The carbon is quite a good biological media if you leave it in the filter, but you don't need it as carbon. Any of the ceramic media etc are fine. The cheapest are usually the ceramic rings, I bought my last 500g via "A World of Fish" on Ebay for about £6.

Even cheaper options, that still work well, are either "Alfagrog" or "BioCell Moving Bed Filter Media". You should be able to buy both of these from "Rainbow Koi" in Melksham ("The PondKing" on Ebay).

cheers Darrel
 
If you want something for water polishing and to absorb some organics but not ferts then you should try Purigen
 
Thanks for the info both. I think I'll pick up some ceramic rings and pop them into my existing tank as the sponge is physically too large 😀 I'll also not use the floss.

How much hassle is purigen to use? Reading up on it, having to recharge it in bleech sounds like a lot of extra work, but that could just be the impression I've got.

Thanks for the info on Rainbow Koi in Melksham - I didn't realise it even existed, let alone is 20 minutes away!
 
Quite nice to find that there's people and shops fairly local. I know I've got Old Forge Tropicals in town and then there's a Maidenhead in Melksham and a fish section in Whitehall. I'm needing bog wood soon so will be visiting as many places as I can 🙂
 
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