How do you retain all the beneficial bacteria when cleaning filter media

iheartbettas

iheartbettas

AC Members
Sep 9, 2010
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Detroit Metro area, Michigan
Real Name
Bernie
First of all, I use an aquaclear HOB filter, but this question applies to all HOB filters I suppose. When doing water changes, i also either clean and/or replace filter media. If I do clean the filter media, I know that I'm losing a great deal of nitrifying bacteria in the process. How do i clean the filters without losing any bacteria? If I wanted to use filter floss, how would I incorporate that instead of the carbon filters that came with the aquaclears.

i also never clean or rinse the ceramic rings because I know that the bacteria collect specifically on those rings.

Any assistance and/or advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
I just rinse the sponges or cylinders in warm tap water (well supplied) or old tank water for some folks. Clogged filter floss, for me, just gets tossed and new material put in. Many folks run 2 filters, alternating the cleaning which will minimize any mini-cycle.
 
You don't lose that much beneficial bacteria rinsing off all the filter contents....unless you're going to rinse with really, really hot water, which no one does. While most people are afraid to clean their filter contents under fresh running tap water (not well supplied), I do it all the time. When I first started doing this I rinsed very little, but kept increasing the amount of rinsing I did when I kept seeing all was fine in the tank. There isn't enough chlorine coming out of the tap to kill off all the bacteria. If there was, we'd never need to use hot water to reduce bacteria on dishes and laundry. I rinse the ceramic media quickly, and....because I raise dirty little plecos and they get fed sinking, dissolving food, I rinse and rinse and rinse and rinse and rinse my sponges until they wring out with very little residue. Every week. Even on my 10G that has some young in it. I have done this for years, and years and it does not adversely affect the tank, and I believe the filter should be as clean as possible after a large water change, otherwise you're sending clean water through dirty parts. Just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. My discus tank HOB's do not have to be cleaned anywhere near as often and on that tank I do one filter completely at a time at a water change. The discus filters even after a couple of months are never as dirty as a pleco filter is in one week. I would suggest if your filter seems to always be very dirty, don't be afraid to give it a couple of extra rinses. You can go gentler on the filter if it's not so gunky. In my aquaclear's, I actually place extra sponge material so that the water has to pass through two layers of sponge before it goes through the ceramic rings and find this keeps the ceramic rings pretty clean. I wouldn't incorporate messy floss in there. With an extra sponge, the life of the sponge is extremely long too compared to the life of floss. Just what I do and my 2 cents.
 
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I put media in a large mouth half gallon container,
half fill it with cold water, close the lid,
shake vigorously for a moment to losen the mulm,
remove the media, dump the mulm water,
then back into the canister filter it goes.

I don't know why people bother with hot water,
that risks killing anything growing in there.
I mean if sudden temperature variances can kill
our fish or inverts, temp certainly does to microbes.
you just need to remove excess mulm.
water temperature does not do that,
agitation does.
 
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coach_z said:
I still rinse all media in water that I removed during a water change. I will also use this water to scrub some of the filter pieces and such. Since the water is being thrown out anyway I like to give it one last use instead of wasting fresh water.
Click to expand...
Me too.
 
coach_z said:
I still rinse all media in water that I removed during a water change. I will also use this water to scrub some of the filter pieces and such. Since the water is being thrown out anyway I like to give it one last use instead of wasting fresh water.
Click to expand...

same here, i never use tap water, just incase it kills any of my bacteria, i dont see the point in taking the risk so i re-use the tank water, saves on my water usage too so win win for me.
 
i rinse my sponges in a bucket of tank water and give them a good squeeze until it looks like all the mulm has been wrung out. biomax - i dump that into a big measuring cup and just fill it with water from the tank water bucket and let it sit while i'm rinsing sponges, since my biomax is loose in all my filters and sits on top of the sponges. polyester batting/filter floss i just replace. all plastic parts (tubes, baskets, the actual container area - hob or canister) get a hot tap water rinse and wipe down to release stuck on snail eggs (ramshorns in the planted tank and pond snails like to live in my canisters on the big boys' tank - yuck!).

been cleaning my filters that way for at least a couple years now and no issues whatsoever. the hobs on the planted tanks get cleaned about once a month and the canisters get done once every 2 months (on an alternating schedule with water changes).
 
spypet said:
I put media in a large mouth half gallon container,
half fill it with cold water, close the lid,
shake vigorously for a moment to losen the mulm,
remove the media, dump the mulm water,
then back into the canister filter it goes.

I don't know why people bother with hot water,
that risks killing anything growing in there.
I mean if sudden temperature variances can kill
our fish or inverts, temp certainly does to microbes.
you just need to remove excess mulm.
water temperature does not do that,
agitation does.
Click to expand...

Cold water can also harm bacteria, it's best to use water that came out of the tank during a w/c
 
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