Newbie Question

[pezant]

Hi there,

I am a very inexperienced person when it comes to fish. This past week I went out and got a 28 gallon aquarium and added fish. I didnt know about the fishless cycle thing until I read the post here. Currently I have 3 black mollies, 4 blackail orange platys, 3 mickey mouse platys and 2 corys. I did a water test today after a 10% water change and the levels are as follows: PH=8.4, Nitrite= .5ppm, Nitrate= 200ppm and Amonia 1ppm. My tank obviously isnt cycled yet and Im learning more as the days go on. Going to start daily water changes til Amonia and Nitrites are 0. The question I want to ask is how often do you change the filter. The person at pet store says once per month. Just wanted to find out for sure as I hear the filter media is what helps the tank out.

 

[celaeno]

what filter do you have? i have a bio-wheel power filter and change the filter media every 2 months, as the majority of the nitrifying bacteria is on the bio-wheel.

 

[pezant]

what filter do you have? i have a bio-wheel power filter and change the filter media every 2 months, as the majority of the nitrifying bacteria is on the bio-wheel.

It is a bio wheel. Ya didnt realize that the bacteria stayed on the wheel itself. Was thinking that tank counted on bacteria on the filter itself.

 

[fish-r-fancy]

Well first of all I just want to suggest that you rehome your black mollies because they are brackish and all of your other fish are freshwater. Secondly I have never owned a biowheel filter but do you know how many catridges it has? What I do with my filters (3 catridges) is take out a small bowl full of water out of the tank and rinse 1 of the catridges in the water every month but make sure to do a different catridge each time. NEVER rinse the catridges in warm/hot water it will kill all of the beneficial bacteria.