Amonia spike every time i change filter media

Any filter media that may carry biological bacteria of some use you wash in tank water.

If you rinse it under the tap then the chlorine in the water will kill all the bacteria in the filter.
 
Is My penguin 330 supposed to have that white cartridge? Because it doesnt. I have a Blue cartridge and a Media basket.
 
Okay, to clarify, when you do your water changes you probably drain the old tank water into a bucket or container, right? I meant to rinse the filter cartridge in aquarium water after it is removed from the aquarium.

Secondly, your Penguin 330 does not have the white biological cartridges, nor does it need it. The biological filtration is performed by the bio-wheel and it is much more efficient. The Regents don't have the bio-wheel, instead they have those white cartridges. I forget what they call them but it is a place where the beneficial bacteria colonize. Since you never remove this cartridge eventually it will fill up with large amounts (or so the thinking goes) of beneficial bacteria to get rid of the ammonia and nitrites.

They're definitely not the best at biofiltration but try only replacing one cartridge at a time and also try rinsing and reusing the cartridges as long as possible. If you still have ammonia spikes you may want to get a Penguin or Emperor with the bio-wheels. My guess is as long as the filter is big enough for your tank and you're not over stocked and you perform routine weekly or bi-weekly water changes of 15%-25% you won't have any more problems.
 
BobK said:
By the way, you can save a lot of money by rinsing the blue cartridges in a bucket of aquarium water. Did you, by any chance, purchase an aquarium starter kit from Walmart? That's the only place I've ever seen Regent filters.
I thought you had to change your filters becasue the carbon wore out. Does rinsing the cartridge in tank water refresh the carbon too?

I did buy my filter from walmart with a 55 gallon tank.
 
You can leave the carbon in there. Some people think that once exhausted the carbon will leech organics back into the tank but this is not the case. The carbon simply will not absorb any more. You can't recharge the carbon. Carbon isn't necessary in most cases anyway. If you like you can cut out the carbon and use a rubber band to reattach the fiber to the plastic backing of the cartridge. The manufacturers tell you that you must change your cartridges every month to get more money out of you. This simply is not true.
 
k2snowboards88:

What kind of substrate do you have? I would have expected a lot of the beneficial bacteria to be in the gravel (as well) so just changing the filter would not affect it so badly.
 
It's harder for beneficial bacteria to colonize a sand bed because there is no room for the oxygenated water to get between the sand grains like it can get between pieces of gravel.
 
k2snowboards88 said:
I use sand. I don't think much beneficial bacteria lives in sand.
I believe that quite a lot of bacteria live in the sand, hence the term 'live sand' in marine tanks.

This phenomenon should hold true for freshwater tanks as well (atleast to an extent). So if you regularly stir the sand to prevent anaerobic areas from forming you should have enough bacteria to compensate for any filter deficiencies.

Pls. see Culturing Live sand
 
You know. I wonder if i have alot of the same type of bacteria thats in a marine tank. In my tank my nitrates never ever rise. They're always 0. I still change 25 percent of the water each week. But mostly just to vaccume. Its always 0 nitrate. 0 nitrite and 0 amonia.
 
Thats great!!! The bacteria are from the same family I believe (Nitrosomnas, Nitrobacter etc.). Plants can help keep nitrates down (esp fast growing ones like Hornwort, Elodea etc.)
 

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