Will removing my filter remove all of the beneficial bacteria?

[ally199]

Hi, I have a 40 gallon tank started in Feb, at the moment it only has guppies and loaches.
Water parameters have been stable for the last few months, but I have an infestation of mini ramshorn snails. We have tried just picking them out, lettuce, cucumber, bottle traps, taking everything out and washing with very mild bleach solution.
They seem to be coming from the filter/sponges, after initially being brought as eggs on a plant (lesson learnt!).

If I were to remove the sponges and replace them completely, would this negatively impact the beneficial bacteria in the tank? I’d be keeping the water, but want to bleach the gravel, rocks and driftwood again. They went away for a while after the first attempt, but obviously came back because I left the filter as it was.

Many thanks for any advice!

 

[HoldenOn]

Probably, bleach kills everything. So by that logic, if you do everything the bacteria would also die. I'd get a second opinion though.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Yes, it would most definitely.

You see, bb (beneficial bacteria) lives i the filter pads/cartridges, as well as on the substrate, rocks, and wood.

If you remove them and replace them, you will loose your cycle.

(Edit: If you want to reduce the number of snails you have in your tank, reduce the feeding. Snails breed like crazy when they are well fed.)

 

[Essjay]

If the tank is heavily planted you could replace the media but you would need to have more than the odd couple of slow growing plants.

Bleaching wood is not advisable as the bleach will penetrate into the wood then leach out when ot's put back in the tank. The same applies to porous rocks.

Snails are actually good in a tank, just not when they threaten to take over. The best way to deal with snails is by not over feeding the tank which will limit their food supply, and cleaning the gravel at every water change to remove any uneaten food hidden in there.

 

[James7]

Having also learnt the hard way (with tadpole snails) overfeeding is the biggest issue, once I reduced the feeding I was able to get the numbers under control, then you can start using lettuce etc to start removing them. They’ll also eat algae so make sure you don’t keep the lights on too long.

If you remove everything from the tank to clean it you will lose all of your B.B. it doesn’t stay suspended in the water column.

As a last resort (and I would say absolute last resort) you could dose with a de-wormer. There are suggestions out there of using it to kill off hydra and planaria (other pests that will hitch-hike on your plants) but it will also kill snails. I use it when I quarantine new plants before adding them to my tank if there are any signs of hitch-hikers after the first week in QT. Beware though, I say it’s a last resort because killing all of the snails in one go will lead to an ammonia spike.

 

[Ch4rlie]

First, removing all your filter media and replacing with new media will not kill all of your beneficial bacteria.

This bacteria lives on all of the available surfaces within the water column and filter, means on all surface inside the filter casing, media, substrate, plants, decor, wood and tank glass etc etc

However it’s not really advisable to do this, only do that as a last resort. You may end up having a mini cycle in which you have to keep a close eye on water parameters and do large water changes if needs be for a short while.

By the way, keeping the water makes no difference whatsoever to the bacteria, they don’t really live in the water column, as said, they live on the surfaces protected by a invisible thin but tough membrane.