New Filter...Dont Want To Lose My Cycling Progress.

[DropkickDragout]

so the filter that came with my tank has died...i think it was a hagen elite 10...Im going to replace it with an aquaclear 20 but i dont want to lose all my good bacteria...the problem is that the pieces from the elite 10 dont fit in the AC at all so i see no way of transferring media.... i took out the sponger like material from the bracket in the Elite and put it ontop of the media for the AC but the Elite also had a bio bad....what do i do...please help!

 

[Tolak]

Fold the bio bag up & stick it in. If it has a plastic frame slice that off.

Doing this generally works best if you put the transferred media in the first position, all the way at the bottom. The sponge, fitting in the middle position holds it in place. This also allows any nitrifying bacteria to tranfer to the other media easier, being the next thing in the path of the water flow.

 

[DropkickDragout]

thanks for the advice, it turned out that it wasnt a bag nut some bag like material bonded to a plastic frame filled with carbon. i used scissors to cut off as much of the bag like material as i would and put that at the bottom, then I put in the sponge, then the carbon from the new filter then the little white things (dont know what they are...ceramic maybe? then the black mesh from the old filter.....i hope thats ok.

 

[waterdrop]

What Tolak has described is exactly the way to do it. I believe the AC20 comes with both a sponge and a mesh bag of ceramic pellets about 3/8 inch in size and rounded on the edges. Make sure that you are using ceramic pieces like this and not that you are adding granular white stuff (granules typically smaller than the granules of carbon typically seen) which could be zeolite. I believe AC also sells zeolite packs and you definately don't want that as it would remove the food your bacteria need. You can examine the AC replacement materials on the LFS shelf the next time you are in the store to familiarize yourself with these differing types of filter media.

~~waterdrop~~