I Would Like To Change My Filter

[TropicDan]

Hello all,
My name is Dan, I am new to the forums and fairly new to the world of aquatics. Recently (5-6 months ago) I set up my first aquarium, besides a 10 gallon goldfish tank I had as a kid, which was basically ran by my father. I bought the tank in one of those packages (tank, filter, heater, etc) and am basically looking to upgrade the filter. Are there any tips or methods in doing this to minimize the loss of my biological filter?
Any advice is much appreciated and my apologies if there has been numerous posts on this topic. I've been reading on these forums for a few weeks now and am very happy I found it. Forums really are the only way to find information. Simply googling will lead you to, in my opinion, simply just peoples opinions or ways of doing things, in many cases.
Anyway thanks for any responses. I look forward to reading/learning much more on these forums. And also can't wait to setup another tank soon and run my first fishless cycle.


edit: I forgot to mention I plan on using the old filter to setup a bio-filter when I setup a new tank soon.

 

[BigIan]

Simply use the media that is in your filter to seed the new one..... dead easy

 

[TropicDan]

Simply use the media that is in your filter to seed the new one..... dead easy
The thing is, it is one of those cheap filters that simply uses replaceable cartridges. Btw, thanks for super fast response. As I said in my first post forums are grrrreat.

 

[BigIan]

what are the cartridges like???

 

[TropicDan]

They are sealed, just pop them in and out. They aren't the ones that you add the carbon in.

 

[BigIan]

never the less if water flows through them then you should be able to use them to seed your new media....

or run the filters in tandem. for a few weeks, so the new filter has chance to grow some bacterial colony.
then remove the other filter and test regularly

 

[Ficious]

depending on how big your tank is...why not just keep that original one and add a good filter to double your filtration? i bought a 36 gallon kit, it only came with a 30 gallon filter so i bought a good 3 stage 30 gallon filter too.