Water Changes

[Cricketfish]

Hey everyone.

I've had a five gallon tank for several months now with three tetras. I do a fifty percent water change every other week and the fish are doing great.
My question is about the filter cartridge. I heard you can't change the filter cartridge and the water at the same time because it upsets the bacteria too much. I need to do a water change today and I was thinking of doing the cartridge as well. Is that a bad idea?

 

[Rip The Mangerez]

Churr

 

[This Old Spouse]

What kind of cartridge are you talking about? Generally you should be gently rinsing off the filter media in old tank water that you siphon from the tank, then put it back in the filter housing. You can do this until the media literally falls apart. When you put in a new bit of media, be sure to keep a good bit of the old media to keep your bacteria going strong.

 

[mattyeatsmatts]

Basically don't replace the whole filter cartridge at once

 

[FishFanatic04]

Your filter is probably a smaller one like I have on my small tanks. When I first started, everyone told me never to replace the filter cartridges, but what they forget to mention is that you CAN replace the filter floss. Thats what catches all the particles from the water and it gets pretty nasty. But the smaller filters don't have a lot of space for floss to be seperate from the media that the bacteria will live in. So your bacteria is probably living on your cartirde, unless you have added some kind of bio-media to it.

What I would do, is take the gunky floss off of the cartridge and swish it in old tank water, and put that in the filter with your new cartridge. {I made my own filter stuff, instead of having to buy cartridges. Just buy some flat filter floss and some kind of sponge like this, and cut both to fit your filter. Then whenever it's too nasty, you can replace the floss part and leave the sponge part in your filter until it literally falls apart, just swish it in old tank water when it gets gunked up. It works great for my betta tanks, and 2 months later, I havent had to replace the floss yet. Cheap!

 

[Cricketfish]

they're called whisper bio bags: disposable filter cartridges. The box claims I should change them monthly. Here's a picture

http/www.amazon.com/Tetra-26160-Whisper-Cartridge-Unassembled/dp/B0002DHZKS

 

[FishFanatic04]

That's the same filter cartridges I would have to use on my 10g, but I do not replace them every month,and like I said above, I made my own, which Is a much better home for the bacteria then those. The bacteria live in your filter, and if you replace the cartridge, you would have to start over every month. Carbon is not necessary unless you want it in there, it doesn't do much for your fish though. It cost less then $10 and It will last me a few years. for the floss, and many many years for the sponge.

 

[This Old Spouse]

I still use these in a couple of my filters. Don't use the carbon, unless you're trying to remove leftover medications from the tank. I just stuff the old deteriorating bag into the new bag. Then after a week or two you can remove the old bag.

 

[Cricketfish]

Thanks guys! I'm glad I can make my own cartridges and save tons of money. Kind of annoying that the company gives different advice than what's really best for the fish. Then again, if I followed their example I'd be buying their cartridges every month.

 

[FishFanatic04]

lol That's what they want! Just be creative and make sure theres something in there for bacteria to live on and you are good to go.

 

[This Old Spouse]

In most of my tanks I have a base of ceramic media that's permanent, then a layer of floss that can be changed out. Even if I were to replace the floss completely, the bacteria still have the ceramic that they thrive on, so no worries.

 

[Cricketfish]

Ceramic media?? Like a piece of a plate?

 

[Zikofski]

yep pretty much for me i have an external canister with is broken into parts, at the bottom i have ceramic rings exceticly someone could use broken plates all this is to clean out large parts of stuff aka food and plants stuff, then i have a single layer of filter floss then a compartment of plastic balls for the bacteria to grow in then sponge then in one of my canisters i have a full layer of filter floss and in my other filter i have carbon and filter floss

considering i have 330L tank you won't be needed half of that but thats the general idea if you understood that

 

[This Old Spouse]

Ceramic media?? Like a piece of a plate?

Erm, not quite. It looks like this (can come in other shapes and sizes). Buy it from your LFS.