Nitrates

[Zachary1941]

Hi Guys,
After a couple of false starts regarding fishless cycle.. I am now on my way...Day 4... Right reading a post this morning saw a post that mentioned that some filters have something in the filters that removes NITRITES....Thought better check mine.. My filter is a jewell 125 Compact.. It contains a course sponge that is suppose to remove NITRATES...should i remove this sponge during the fishless cycle...Or will it be benificial to leave it in.. Regards Zac

 

[MrPurplePickle]

It won't matter either way.
When I cycled my Juwell tank, I left it in.

 

[kbekll]

it dosent remove the nitrates thats what water changes do

most companies make different colour sponges just so they can extract the most ammount of money out of you it makes no reals odd which one to use be blue green or cirtain black ones (some are carbon)

 

[waterdrop]

Agree with both of the above. The "nitrate" sponge may have a bit of chemical coating that reacts with a few nitrates but I would not expect it to be significant or last long. Nitrate filters exist but the are complicated, a huge pain and absolutely not worth it for typical aquarists compared to all the benefits of water changes.

The important thing is that those sponges won't harm your fishless cycle. Don't know if you are also wasting any space with carbon or a carbon sponge but that's a good thing to change out to gain some more biomedia volume (replacing it with ceramic rings, ceramic gravel, sponges etc.)

~~waterdrop~~