People With Top Filter

[mooey65]

If you have a over the top filter, What do you have in it and in what order do you have it in.

Am just thinking of putting some more sponge in there. As well as a spare in case I need to set up a new tank fast. (For illness ect)

Would it be safe to move the spare filter when need when its cycled?

Sorry if its a silly question I just want to be safer than sorry.

Thanks.

 

[bronzecat]

Hi

Used to run one but not now. If there is room to put an extra sponge then it wont do any harm. Probably take a couple of weeks to seed the new sponge fully. Then if you need it for an emergency its there

I used to have spare sponges hidden behind an internal filter just in case.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi mooey65

I used to run AquaClear filters with two sponges or one sponge and some filter floss in the chamber. It works well. If you move one of the sponges to another filter, you will be moving about 1/2 of the total bacterial colony. You could hold it down in a pail of tank water and cut a section of it off if you wanted to remove less of it.

A word of warning about HOB filters using extra media is in order. It's important to watch the water flow through them because if it shows signs of slowing down, it might be getting ready to clog up. If this happens, it will back up and flow out of the top of the filter. Since the pump keeps pulling water into it, it will continue overflowing until you stop it or it empties the tank to the level where it enters the intake tube. Frequent rinses in used tank water will prevent this from happening.