A possibly foolish canister filter question

[macsmith77]

I have a Filstar 3, somewhat new, though I love it so far. The question is, when you rinse the sponges (as they reccomend you do monthly), does it matter if it is in either fresh or salt water? I understand that the idea is to get as much physical material out as possible to lessen decomposition etc., but is there a significant biological factor here? Should I strive to keep bacteria alive, or does it really matter. Thanks all, I feel a little silly asking the question, it seem like one of those things I should just know..

 

[tizzo]

Not a silly question at all, matter of fact, many people rinse with fresh water, or replace them and then have no idea why their tank appears to be cycling again.
Rinse them in tank water. That really is their most useful function, being surface area for your bio filtration.
catching food particles and containing them so that you cant see them does not remove it from your tank, so you need all the bio you can get.
HTH

 

[macsmith77]

Thank you, that is what my intuition told me.. Why not gain, or take advantage of, the surface area? So I will coordinate filter care with water changes.....

 

[jessica47421]

this is a good question, i rinsed mine out with reg. water and put it back together to latter see my tank go through a mini cycle causing me to lose some fish and corals. veryyy good question.

 

[b bauer]

I have never had a mini cycle when I clean my prefilter in fresh water.only if you change the ceramic media.i have xenia that grows crazy, mushrooms, purple digi,and never lost a fish after cleaning the filter

 

[kwiknezy1]

Now, i must admit. This is probably a question that every single one of us wanted to ask. I always wondered the same thing. From day 1 , everry time i do a water change i clean the filter media in the water that was removed from the tank. I had no idea if this was beneficial or not. Plus once every 3 months i completely replace all filter media. I have never noticed any small spike in levels. The main reason that i clean my filter media in salt water is because i even have copeapods in the filter ( i have a cascade 1500 ) so naturally i dont wanna hurt them. so i get as much crap off the media as possible, then reinstall it in the filter.. Darn good question..

 

[ophiura]

What other biological media is in there?
If you have biological media, then IMO the filter sponge can be rinsed in tap water as they are not designed to contribute to the biological filter. They are mechanical filters, and should be rinsed frequently.
All surfaces grow bacteria and are part of the "biological" filter but that is not their primary purpose.
They effectively are the same as filter pads in hang on filters would should not only be rinsed - but outright replaced - every month at least.
So I would be VERY concerned if your tank has a mini cycle after rinsing a sponge designed for mechanical filtration. That is a pretty tenuous filter, IMO.....that would be very scary to me.

 

[anthony17]

what is the purpose of the canister filter? my tanks been going for 2 years and ive never had one? is it something i should have? i have a protien skimmer, sump/fuge.

 

[ophiura]

No, it is simply another type of filter, such as a wet/dry, hang on back, etc.

 

[anthony17]

would it be beneficial for me to get one? they seem kinda risky?

 

[ophiura]

No...if you already have some sort of filtration you do not need one. It is just another type of filter, doing the same thing as any other. Some people prefer different types.

 

[anthony17]

ok. sounds good. is that the same as bioballs and stuff? i dont do that either, what exactly do they do? are they worth having?

 

[ophiura]

Well, bioballs can be placed in a cannister filter but typically another type of biological media is used. Bioballs are more regularly used in wet/dry filters.
The necessity of these media depends on the overall set up of the tank, whether there is LR or not, and whether it is a reef, FO, etc.

 

[anthony17]

ok well i have a 55 gallon with a 20 gallon sump/fuge, i have 75lbs of LR and a bout a 1" sand bed(2" sand bed in the fuge with about 5lbs of Lr), and a protien skimmer. do i need any other filtration device? or should all this be good

 

[macsmith77]

Thanks for the input everyone. I think I will rinse it monthly in tank water after a water change. I have no other biological media in the filter, just chem zorb and the various mechanical layers. I am going to get phos-zorb inserts with my next order of equiment/supplies. I do have approximately 80 lbs of live rock in the 55gal, as well as a 2" sandbed (slowly becoming 'live') so I feel pretty good about biological filtration. I also have a Remora C skimmer, which from what I can tell works very well and is largely idiotproof. Again, thanks for everyone's input.

 

[trigger11]

Hello Mac,
Not to completely change the subject but after reading your post and the thread there may be another route you may want to go down later. I am guessing if you have 85lbs of LR in your tank that you are set up with a reef.
You might look into going with a sump / fuge instead of the canister filter. In the end I believe the benefits are more worth it. It takes less maintenance time for the sump / fuge. You get the added benefit of having the macro algae like chaeto which will help keep nitrates down. If you put some LR in there you get a good place to grow beneficial copepods as well. Additionally, you will get the added bonus of having more total water volume in the system.
Typically the most daunting task to getting a sump / fuge to work is getting the overflow and overflow plumbling to work correctly.
Please dont get me wrong. Canisters work pretty well for what they are designed to do. And since you all ready have one you may not want to change anything. That's the nice thing about this hobby is there are several possibilities for filtration and such.

 

[macsmith77]

Hi Trigger. Yup, I had thought of that. Right now I have a 260 watt coralife light setup, so I believe I would be limited in what I can have in terms of corals etc. My general plan is to keep this a fowlr (with maybe some shrooms and zoos) and gain experience. The 55 is not very deep (front to back) and it is hard to set up rockwork. Down the road I am thinking of something like 120gallons 24x24x48, which would be a reef setup. Right now I need it to be more simple as I am somewhat new to the hobby. Besides, a fuge is a bit daunting as I don't really understand how it all works. Why are canisters considered "nitrate traps" for reefs, but I hear little about the problem with FOWLR tanks? Thanks for the advise, it is nice to get input from those with more experience..

 

[b bauer]

"the nitrate trap" is the junk that builds up on the bio material just clean it every 4-5 months

 

[trigger11]

Ahh, so you havent added corals yet then. Although with the lights you have you could certainly add a pretty wide selection of softies. Yeah, with being FOWLR it would be good to stick with the canister. However, as you gain more experience with the hobby you will likely be like a lot of us and start getting corals. Very addicting this hobby is. In the meantime can start researching other methods of filtration.

 

[college kid]

Say I have a canister filter (fluval). The inside of the canister has the filter pads first and then it has three layers for biological media or carbon or whatever. Right now I have the top layer and half the second layer filled with biological media and the rest of the middle and bottom with carbon. Should I be doing this any other way? No carbon? or am I just fine. Thanks for any imput.