Beneficial Bacteria/weekly Maintenance Question

[Will91]

Hi:

I've had a 26 US gallon bowfront tank up and running now for almost two months. I used BioSpira with great success and ammonia and nitrites quickly dropped to zero. In fact, I never even saw any large spike in ammonia. I have been keeping nitrate low with weekly 20% water changes.

Today, I did my first gravel vac which drained my usual 20%. I also replaced the filter floss/charcoal pack on my Whisper 30 filter. This filter pack sits directly in front of the Whisper Filter Bio-Sponge (which I did not touch at all). In other words, the water comes into the filter box, through the floss/charcoal, through the Bio-Sponge, and then back into the tank.

Herein lies the question. I know the benefecial bacteria establish themselves within the Bio-Sponge, but what about on the filter floss and in the gravel? Does vaccing the gravel remove some of the bacteria and have I discarded some that may have established on the filter floss/charcoal pack?

One thing I didn't do, but should of, was to place the Bio-Sponge completely in the tank water during the water change. Since this is an outside filter, as the water level drops, so does the level on the Bio-Sponge. But, it only dropped down about 1/3 of the way, so I suppose that's not too bad.

Any input appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[dizzied]

Some of the bacteria does live in the media bag, as well as the gravel, but enough should be established on the bio-sponge to handle your tank.

 

[n3ont3tra]

Generally only a very small amount of beneficial bacteria (BB) lives in the gravel, unless you have an undergravel filter. In your whiper filter, most of the BB is probably in the Sponge, so you won't harm it much by replacing the carbon and filter floss. Also, little, if any BB exist in the water in your tank, therefor it won't help new tanks at all just to put old water from mature tanks in there. That's usually brought up in topics like this, so I just thought I'd state it.

 

[Will91]

Thank you.

I forgot to mention the tank is nearly fully stocked. I added a few fish at the same time as the BioSpira and have been adding a few fish every week or so.

The Whisper30 instructions say to replace the floss/charcoal pack monthly and I waited a bit longer to let things get established. I noticed the filter did have quite a bit of debris on it so hopefully it was a good thing to change it out afterall.