Filter + Cycling = Question

[Bit.Fishy]

Seen a few posts today mentioning that sometimes it's best to leave certain things out of filters while cycling,Couldnt really find a definitive answer...
below is a picture i took of my diagram/filter setup instruction,is there anything in there that will need removing for the cycling prosess?

 

[backtotropical]

I personally would remove the black carbon sponge and the green nitrate sponge as they aren't necessary, and are just an extra expense to replace them periodically.

Replace them with more blue sponges (available from your LFS).

BTT

 

[Bit.Fishy]

thanks,would it be ok to remove them now? cant get to the lfs for a couple of days.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, you'll probably want to remind BTT and the others whether you're fishless or fish-in and how many days into it etc.

It might be fine to just leave it until you get the new sponges since it won't be long...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Bit.Fishy]

Oh yeah sorry,its a fishless cycle,only been cycling for 2 days now

 

[OldMan47]

If you have a thing that is called a nitrate sponge, it may be a zeolite or similar material. In that case it would inhibit the bacterial development. Do your instructions tell you what each piece is for or do they just give a picture of how to stack things? It would help some of us who have never seen that model filter understand what we are working with.

 

[Bit.Fishy]

it is indeed a nitrate sponge,cant find any info on it being zeolite tho,and the black is a carbon. i will remove them both and replace them with more of the blue as backtotropics said. should i try and replace them with sponges of similar densities?

thanks

 

[waterdrop]

It looks like that bottom white thing is a container of ceramic rings that slides down into the blue box. Is that right? Are there any other hidden boxes like that or are the other things all sponges? The possibilites, I would think, would be ceramic gravel, sponges of various densities (matching or more coarse, depending on positioning in the water flow relative to existing sponges) and possibly more polyfloss up there under the thin layer shown as the last thing.

The flow direction looks to be bottom to top (?) which would take it through the ceramic rings first (thing with largest mechanical pores would be first.) Generally then if there were more than one sponge density, the larger pores would come first in the flow, the finer ones next (finest mechanical filtration, polyfloss, would come last and is sometimes called a water polisher.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Bit.Fishy]

The white container contains something called cirax,thats actually not a blue box,its 2 thick blue sponges,but the picture doesnt really show that, theres nothing else in filter ofther than the sponges and the box of cirax.
Dont have a clue which way the water flows but you're probably right about it being bottom to top. to be honest so far,(for me anyway )the instructions from juwel for both tank and cabinate are extreamly poor . i was going to be upgrading the filter in the future, i think it will be sooner lol.
Thanks WD,ill take the sponges i remove with me tomorrow and try to get as close a match as i can

thanks

 

[waterdrop]

Yeah, you're going to ok with adding any kind of traditional biomedia like sponges. I tend to be overly slow and detailed, lol. Now you've got me wondering what the Cirax is and whether you can describe what its like as a substance/shape and also whether one of our many juwel experts will notice this and help us!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Bit.Fishy]

to be honest i didnt open the plastic cage/container,but to me it looks alot like m&ms,the peanut ones,looked smooth and shiny, i think tomorrow im just going to try and find an external filter, ive got £70 spare after i buy a few more bits for my tank.dont know if £70 will be enough (shops around here are rippoffs) lol

 

[waterdrop]

Well unless you're in a big rush I'd wait and see if some other members come along and comment. This filter might be just fine. Just those of us commenting don't know it in detail. Well, ok, now you've got me searching it and what do you know, Cirax is really just juwel's proprietary word for "ceramic pebbles" it looks like, so they should actually be an excellent biomedia for you. Unless someone else comes along and really puts this filter down is some way then the sponge addition might go just fine for you.. either way, re-doing this one or getting a new one, you'll be getting off to a better start after this.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Essjay]

Just so that people outside the UK know, here is what Juwel say about the green nitrate sponge:


The Sponge contains micro-organisms, which will, once developed, reside inside the
sponges and in the water. These micro-organisms feed of nitrates and will reduce them
significantly. The JUWEL Filtration system provides the optimum housing for these
micro-organisms.

 

[Truck]

ditch the bottom 2 sponges, and use ceramic media in a netted bag

 

[backtotropical]

ditch the bottom 2 sponges, and use ceramic media in a netted bag

Why?

The bottom 2 sponges will perform perfectly good biological and mechanical filtration.