Still Cycling And Powerfilter Died!

[upsy daisy]

Lately I have been noticing that our generic brand powerfilter (that came in the same package along with the fishtank) has hardly any power left and today it is hardly letting out any water at all. Since I have to stay home with my son who is unwell, my husband brought this INTERPET PF1 home form the local fish shop, even though I gave him specific instructions.

The new filter has part sponge and part carbon. How will carbon affect everything now, any idea?

Maybe, maybe I might be able to cram the old sponge inside the filter, even though it is a completely different shape. Wait, should I maybe just leave old sponge floating in the tank? Will this set the cycle back?
Have any of you dealt with changing the powerfilter midway through the cycle?

 

[upsy daisy]

Nevermind.. I took the carbon sponge out of the new filter and crammed the sponge from the old powerfilter in its place. There was also a fine synthetic fibre mesh with the filter, not sure what that was for, but I put it in as well..

 

[waterdrop]

The fine fibre mesh sounds like a "polishing pad" as we sometimes call it. If I'm on to the right thing they are what we use to trap the very smallest debris particles. Technically this is referred to as "fine mechanical media" and it is to be expected that it may get dirty quite fast. It can be squeezed out in tank water a number of times before it needs to be replaced - and yes, its the most frequently replaced type of media (often the only one that gets replaced much.)

For your old sponge its absolutely great that you immediately got in on into the new filter as that's where it needs to be to do anything significant. Just floating it in the tank would do almost nothing. The bacteria really need that constantly moving water being forced past them in a manner more significant than simple tank currents. It does worry me a little that you mention "cramming" it in as sponge media is meant to be only lightly compressed such that water can still make its way through all the myriad passageways inside the sponge, that being the point of its utility as a superior biomedia.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[upsy daisy]

Just floating it in the tank would do almost nothing. The bacteria really need that constantly moving water being forced past them in a manner more significant than simple tank currents.

Only after seeing the new filter at work made me realize that the old one was kaput quite a while ago, I mean probably 3-4 weeks! I really dread to think how this has affected everything. Kids keep begging for fish and I keep saying "soon, soon"..


It does worry me a little that you mention "cramming" it in as sponge media is meant to be only lightly compressed such that water can still make its way through all the myriad passageways inside the sponge, that being the point of its utility as a superior biomedia.

Ok, I'll see how I can alter things! THanks for letting me know what to do with the mesh, I really had no idea!

 

[waterdrop]

Hang in there UD, this really is a very common problem and we'll try to help you as much as we can. I suffered a terrible amount of flak from my family during my fishless cycling, they were merciless!

My guiding motto for parents during this is that you -must- keep it strongly in your head that explaining "Why your new pet Died!" is a good deal worse than explaining that "We're growing little invisible animals called bacteria!" My son actually got quite good at drawing diagrams of the Nitrogen Cycle, complete with big artistic arrows. There did indeed come a wonderful day, like a year later, when he came home from science class exploding with excitement that the topic had come up and he had needed to explain the nitrogen cycle to the teacher and class, leaving them all quite dumbfounded.

~~waterdrop~~