A Couple Of ?'s About Filter Media And Cleaning

[LittleMick]

Ok, large post so apologies in advance. I've had my aquarium for 6 1/2 months now and I've had a fair few conversations with numerous fish keepers about different topics regarding tropical fish which raises a couple of questions about filter media and the cleaning/maintanence schedule.
FILTER MEDIA
I have a Juwel Jumbo filter containing a
WHITE PRE FILTER - I know what this is for, basically getting rid of the large amounts of waste. Changed weekly.

BLACK CARBON FILTER - Removes chemical impurities, now, I have a heard a few say that they don't bother putting this in as it serves no real purpose, but why would it be in there? Is it a money spin? Or does it actually serve it's purpose and what sort of impurites is it removing? Ohers have also said that it does not need to be replaced monthly but can be left 2 months

GREEN NITRATE FILTER - Ok, this one is obvious, and contains bacteria. Changed every 2 months. Again some people have said it can be changed less frequently.

BLUE COARSE FILTER - According to the Juwel guide this has bacteria in it that removes chemical impurities as well, changed every 3 months. Someone told me this was not necessary, as long as it was not deformed it can be just washed out and put back in.

BLUE FINE FILTER - Also contains bacteria that removes even smaller chemical impurities and replace every 9 and 12 months in turn. I'm not sure but are these the ones that remove amonia? I was told to keep the schedule as per the Juwel guide.

So , the ones I am unsure about are the B Carbon, Blue fine and coarse filters, they all remove chemical impurites, but precisely what impurities are they removing? And should I go by the Juwel guide or are they just after people spending more money than is necessary?

CLEANING SCHEDULE
Right, I currently have a 2 week cleaning schedule, regardless of of how good the water quality is. If the water shows any undesirable readngs I obviously do more. So, every 2 weeks is a 20% water change of 300 english litres. I gravel clean while the water is low, clean the glass, change any filter media if they are due for a change, treat new water with Tetra Aquasafe, with weekly water treatments of Easy Balance and Nitrate Minus. Now for the past god knows how long, prolly 2 - 3 months ALL readings have shown 0.
During conversations with numerous keepers or ex keepers they have asked me why I clean my tank so often, my brother for example, lives in Ireland, he changed his water once a year and that was only because he keeps moving house, he said he just does a weekly water treatment with Stress Coat and Stress Zyme, and tops up the water if any has condensed. I would have thought the tank would be minging but I have seen it and it looks well clean. And he says he doesn't have any unusual amount of fish deaths, maybe the odd one like any keeper I guess. Another person I spoke with said he used to do a water change every 6 months. And he is from the same town as me.
What gives? So questions I have been asking myslef are;
Is my water quality good because of the schedule I keep?
Should I try and leave a water change for longer?
Should I try and leave water treatments (ecept Aquasafe) for more than a week?
Are their still harmfull bacteria in the water that is not covered in the usual tests? So water changes are necessary.

I just thought I would get some opinions on this before and if I try it, I don't want to have another problem like when I first started out.

Regards
Mick

 

[ThePiggy]

More frequent, smaller water changes are better for keeping the stress level of the fish low. It also depends on the size of your tank. For my 10 gallon tanks, I do 25% water changes weekly. Then, once a month, I do a large water change and clean the gravel.

The longer you keep your filter media, the more effective it is. The only reason there is to replace the filter media is if it is damaged. Every time you do a partial water change, you should swish the filter media in dechlorinated water to rinse away solid waste that becomes lodged in it. When you replace your filter media, you are throwing away the bacteria that removes the ammonia and nitrates. The companies that make the filters want you to keep buying their products, so they tell you to change the media more often than necessary. The carbon is beneficial, but not needed. It removes organic impurities and chemicals.

The bacteria that grows in your filter media first breaks down ammonia into nitrate, then nitrate into nitrite. The reasons for water changes are to remove the nitrite that doesn't get broken down, and to replenish the oxygen supply.

I hope some of this helps you out, good luck!

 

[Rezatii]

I like /never/ change my sponges, not until they start falling apart! Once I've siphoned out the water for the change I give the sponge a quick squeeze in it and then pop it right back in the filter, this just removes any solid icky-ness. I do change my filter floss quite often though, every week or two really *shrugs*


-Rezz

 

[ThePiggy]

I like /never/ change my sponges, not until they start falling apart! Once I've siphoned out the water for the change I give the sponge a quick squeeze in it and then pop it right back in the filter, this just removes any solid icky-ness. I do change my filter floss quite often though, every week or two really *shrugs*


-Rezz

Your sponge houses the bacteria that is needed to remove the ammonia. So as long as you have that sponge in there, the floss can be discarded without harming the balance. You wouldn't want to remove them both though because too much of the bacteria would be removed and the ammonia would spike.

 

[OldMan47]

Water changes are the easy subject to start with.
The brother in Ireland may get away with topping up the tank if he has very soft water that is very low in minerals. When water evaporates from a tank, as happens in any tank, the water that evaporates is basically distilled water and all the minerals are left behind. When you add back tap water the minerals in the tap water get added. Repeat this often enough and you can easily end up with 4 or 5 times the original mineral content. If that same brother keeps lots of vigorously growing plants, the plants become the water changes. Plants will use minerals from the water for growth and nitrogen too. By using the nitrogen, the plants tie it up in their cells rather than having ammonia and nitrates build up in the water. Again, a happy circumstance may be limiting the build of nitrates in his tanks. Attempting to use this approach to care for your fish means testing total dissolved solids, nitrates and pH frequently enough to make sure it is actually working and being ready to do a water change whenever it is called for by the test results. Attributing the health of the tank to some water treatment is misguided at best. Water treatments, by their very nature, add things to the water, they don't remove anything.
Filter media questions
All filter media can be left in the filter until it starts to break down or becomes so dirty you can't get it clean any more. Washing them out in used tank water is the best bet but the "nitrate sponge" is either completely misnamed or is an ion exchange media which you do not want in the filter anywhere. The carbon is optional and is no way good for 2 months as a chemical filter. Lets look at filter basics. A filter can do one or more of chemical filtering, mechanical filtering or biological filtering. Sponges in general make good mechanical and biological filters. Floss makes an excellent mechanical filter but is too hard to clean to keep it around as a biological filter so it gets tossed. Various ceramics and plastic shapes are also designed to be used as biological filters. Carbon is a chemical filter with a very short useful life. It works by having adsorption sites on its surface where chemicals can stick to it. Once the surface sites are occupied, it no longer does anything as a chemical filter. Carbon will remove organic materials fairly well until its adsorption sites are exhausted. Carbon makes a terrible mechanical filter because it often releases more particles into the water than it could remove, so it always needs a mechanical filter behind it in the flow path. Ion exchange media such as zeolites or ion exchange resins will remove any ionic compounds from the water by replacing them with less tightly bound ions. How tightly bound an ion or element is depends on a characteristic of the ion called electronegativity. Tables are available to figure out what ion will replace what other one, but the typical approach for a DI is to regenerate the resins with strong acids and bases so that the resin ends up with hydrogen and hydroxide in the ion exchange sites. The exchange in a de-ionizing (DI) column is an exchange of hydrogen molecules for the metallic part of a salt and a hydroxide ion for the non-metal ion, like nitrate, chloride, sulphate or similar non-metals, in a salt. The result of these exchanges is HOH which is water. The ions are bound at locations on the material and the most common use of an ion exchange media is to purify already fairly pure water in an RO/DI setup or something similar. A claim to actually remove nitrates, that could be supported in court in a lawsuit, would probably mean the use of some kind of ion exchange media. Ion exchange media have no place in an aquarium filter but have plenty of uses in other places.

A side note to Piggy. You got your cycle backward. Nitrite, with an I, becomes nitrate, with an A, which we remove using a water change.

 

[Rezatii]

ThePiggy; I know, I don't like, scrub the sponges or 'wash' them in any way at all, just a lil squeeze to remove bigger lumps of icky-stuff, and never 'squeeze' all the sponges in the same water change

-Rezz

 

[LittleMick]

Ok, I should have pointed out that I already know about the nitrogen cycle, I mean the basics. What I could really do with, is knowing exactly what filter removes what, the juwel guide is abit vague in stating it removes CHEMICAL IMPURITIES. So according to the Juwel Guide

The Juwel Filter System is a hightly effective two-stage biological filtration system, using components specifically designed to perform together perfectly.
Etc, etc.

FILTER WOOL (WHITE PAD)
The white filter wool acts as a mechanical pre-filter, removing large particles of dirt and excess food which in turn ensures that the other sponges do not get clogged.

Right, I'm ok with this one, pretty easy.

ACTIVE CARBON SPONGE (BLACK)
The black activated carbon sponge sits on top of the blue coarse filter sponges, and removes chemical impuritiesfrom the water which cannot be removed biologically.

What impurites are this sponge removing? I know how it does it, but what? Metals? Micro Organisms? Also, the Juwel guide is contradictory when it comes to this sponge, according to the written guide above it sits above the Blue COARSE sponge, but then according to their colour diagram it it sits above the green nitrate sponge. If this media isn't actually capturing/removing anything that is ahrmful to fish is it worth having? A few people have said they never bother with it.

NITRATE REMOVAL SPONGE (GREEN)
The sponge contains micro organisms, which will, once developed, reside inside the sponges and in the water. These micro-organisms feed off nitrates and will reduce them significantly. The Juwel Filtrationsystem provides the optimum housing for these micro-organisms.

Again, I'm ok with this one. OLDMAN How did you come to the conclusion that this is misnamed or is and ion exchange media? This is what it is Nitrate Removal Sponge. If it is an IEM then why wouldn't I want it in teh filter system, and why would the put it in there? From another source as well, "I've read that the green filter sponges have a tablet inside them which removes nitrates and so these need to be changed as the tablet get used up- not sure what it is, probably exchange resin or something."

FILTER SPONGE COARSE (BLUE)
The coarse blue filter sponges allow bacteria cultures to develop quickly, cleaning the water which is now free from chemical impurities.

Again, what impurities is this sponge removing? Is this removing/converting the Nitrite into nitrate? Or is this the AMONIA removing sponge?

FILTER SPONGE FINE (BLUE) 
The fine blue sponges and the bacteria cultures living in them, clean the water of even the smallest impurities.

So more impurities? But what are they? Amonia, Nitrite? None of the above?

 

[OldMan47]

Coarse and fine sponge, by their descriptions, are biofilter media. The activated carbon is used to remove organic compounds, in our tanks that usually means it is used to remove medications or odor producing materials although the carbon is not selective and can become exhausted removing other organics. The filter wool is a simple mechanical filter which, as we said earlier, is often discarded because it is too hard to clean and reuse it as a biofilter.The nitrate removal sponge is described as being a nitrate biological system which could work as they suggest to remove nitrates by converting them to nitrogen gas which would then be released. We do not normally experience this reaction in an aquarium because it proceeds using anaerobic bacteria and we usually try to avoid having any anaerobic locations within our freshwater tanks. In a saltwater tank, the deep sand beds they use are for exactly that process to take place. The real world cycle is a full closed cycle that proceeds all the way through to producing nitrogen gas from nitrates but we seldom try to do that in our open cycled tanks. It would be interesting to see the real science behind the green sponge but a water change is so easy to do that there is no reason to fret over removing nitrates biologically in a FW tank.

 

[ThePiggy]

Oh, thanks, oldman47. I couldn't remember which way it was... 50/50 chance I would have been right Oh well.

 

[OldMan47]

Don't you just love the 50/50 90 rule? When you have a 50/50 chance you will be wrong 90% of the time.

 

[ThePiggy]

Heh, that's a new one to me.

 

[LittleMick]

Thanks Oldman, you've certainly given me a lot to look into, on my fortnightly maintanence and when I do my weekly tests the water shows 0 on everything, I mean not even a tainted colour which would suggest the water quality is excellent, the only thing that really looks unsightly at the 2 week period is a SLIGHT discolouration (brown) of the water and the fish waste which sometimes gets cleaned weekly via a gravel clean. If then then defnitiely 2 weekly. I was just windering if the while filter media/ wtaer treatments was just another money spin from these manufacturers.From my experience from all my pet buying it's rare to come across honest sellers.