Rekord 96 Filtration

[AdAndrews]

so im looking into buying the jewel rekord 96, i wondered if anyone could help me on the filtration as following the manufactures guidelines i will spend £7 a month just on the filter sponges, is there shortcuts to make to make this cheaper and how much do you guys spend on it a month??


cheers

 

[AdAndrews]

bump

 

[waterdrop]

Filter sponges can be used and reused for years, until they physically break down and have tears in them. You have to inspect them for these tears, which would allow water a "path of least resistance" where it could pass through unfiltered.

When you do your filter maintenance (often people choose to do this monthly), you lift the sponges out and squeeze them in tank water (-not- tap water!) Then you put them back in the filter, still dirty, just not loaded with debris. During the first year or so in the life of a filter you should be relatively gentle with your filter squeezings, but after a year, when the bacterial colonies have become very mature and tough, you can probably squeeze quite thoroughly without any noticable effect on the bacteria.

The above comments are based on pure sponges. If your sponges are a "construct" with the sponge being a container for other media then there may be different considerations.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there ad andrews, it's sunday afternoon, there's not a heap of people browsing. bumping your thread after less than 10 minutes is a touch impatient, give us half a chance to get to it!!!

you don't need to replace filter sponges regularly, it's something the manufacturers say to get more money out of you, you can keep them until they are literally falling apart after several years and even then it's a bad idea to replace them all at once. You'd be basically throwing away your filter bacteria colony so you only ever change half at any one time.

 

[AdAndrews]

hi there ad andrews, it's sunday afternoon, there's not a heap of people browsing. bumping your thread after less than 10 minutes is a touch impatient, give us half a chance to get to it!!!

you don't need to replace filter sponges regularly, it's something the manufacturers say to get more money out of you, you can keep them until they are literally falling apart after several years and even then it's a bad idea to replace them all at once. You'd be basically throwing away your filter bacteria colony so you only ever change half at any one time.

thanks peoples, bump bump bump

 

[AdAndrews]

plz help me im desperately in need of help

wat about the green and catbon sponges wont the chemical filtration ware out over time

 

[VictorMeldrew]

It all depends on how much waste your tank generates, you can change the white top pad as little as a month apart and still keep your water clear, i would take the manufactuers guidlines and trible maybe even more the time scale they give for replacing the top layers of media, its well cheap to run, as far as the more course sponge, see above

 

[waterdrop]

Carbon is not needed under normal circumstances. The function of carbon is to perform chemical filtration, not mechanical or biofiltration. The 3 most common uses for it are first to clear away medications after they've been used, secondly to clear away yellow water from new bogwood and such, and thirdly to help remove the rare organic smell that might be caused by an unusual event such as a dead fish body accidently left in the tank too long. Carbon only lasts about 3 days and then is ready to be removed and discarded.

That said, there still may be useful discussion to be found here with other jewel owners, as part of your situation is that you are dealing with the typical proprietary situation where the manufacturer combines various media in "constructed objects" (like sponges that hold carbon inside, etc.), raising the chances that you will feel you must keep buying the object on a regular basis, which is part of their goal.

Also, can we hear from a jewel person about whether the green pad contains chemicals?? ..think I remember perhaps it does.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[AdAndrews]

thanks for your help