i was reading through the 'instructins' and it says one of the pad things need changing every week, the other every 4 weeks or so the other every 6-9 weeks and the bottom one every 6 months.


does anyone actually do this? this adds up to an awful lot of money(!!!) i didnt realise before. the bloke i got it off said he had only ever changed the white 'wool' stuff at the top, which is all ive ever changed.

can i not just rinse the pads in aquarium water to remove any gunk. or does the plastic/material they are made out of deteriorate over time??

dont buy the juwel ones, you can get big pads from craft shops for about 50p

you cant rinse them to get the gunk off

The white pad needs replacing every 1-2 weeks, a pack of 5 juwel pads costs anywhere from £1-3 or you can buy a sheet of filter wool from ebay - approx £7 for 5 metres (should get 100s of pads from it).

As for the blue foam blocks, 2 of them in my tank have been in there for 7 years now, I rinse them in tank water every 4 weeks or so and they are as good today as they always have been. I only replaced the other 4 blocks because when I was cleaning them they fell apart.

This post has been edited by maximinimus: Jul 3 2008, 09:27 AM

yeah i have a big bag of the white filter wool which i change weekly as it gets grubby.

the others ive just left as they are, unless they had slimy bits on which i rinsed off.


i was looking at the price of the filter media by juwel and it was like in the high £20 just for a pack of three small pads. i need the large ones which convieneantly they only do in the big mixed packs which the cheapest ive found being £60+!!

I got my white filter from ebay. few quid for 100's of pads which are already cut to size. The other filters I have not changed since new which is about 9 months. To be honest I have never rinsed the blue ones and everything is fine. I change 1 white one every fortnight and give the tank (rio180) a bit of a hoover on a weekly basis.

Iain

yeah mine is a rio 180! it has soooo many pads in there about three huge ones at the bottom then four or five different ones in the top basket, including a little sack like thing with gravel or something in it? i should have asked the previous owner what the were all for!