Ok will do, could this have slowed anything down ?
And are all the other sponges ok ?
Its what came with the filter.
Cheers LP
I don't like to use phrases like "release back" with carbon because I feel it is misleading to beginners. It is referring to the fact that carbon, via charge, will collect as much as it can and then do a little bit of "equilibrium" balancing out at the edge. It is not really significant. Bignose did a pretty full discussion of this in the scientific section a long time ago and my take from it was that the carbon with stuff collected in it can just sit there safely, more or less forever just holding stuff until you throw it out (it collects as much as it's going to hold typically within 3 days.) The carbon surfaces will still be ok as a mediocre biomedia. One of our most common scenerios is for beginners to be pretty far in to cycling (either fishless or fish-in) before they ever hear the info that most experienced aquarists don't bother to use carbon on a regular basis (only for special short-term uses.) At that point in their cycling it is usually actually worse for them to change out the carbon (no matter what form, loose or sponge-attached) because they still don't have big enough colonies and removing the colonies will remove a significant percentage of their bacteria. (apologies if you were only referring to later after cycling, I didn't go back and re-read the flow.)My only thoughts were, with the black carbon sponge, if they are a temp measure to remove nasties, but after a few weeks then release them back into the water, then the surface area for bio bacteria to build on, in theory, would be poor. i dont fully understand how the sponges are contructed, im just a neat freak![]()
LP, you are fine either way. Your nitrates are getting higher, but that hasn't dropped your pH yet, so there's no real need to water change really. On the other hand we sometimes get beginners who are sitting around home for the weekend itching to -do- something to their tank as it's their new found hobby and they have some time. If that's the case I always think no harm done it doing the typical "reset" where you gravel clean all the water our (until the siphon breaks at the substrate level) and then recharge the return water with conditioner, temp-match and correct ammonia dosing (and bicarb if you are doing that to get it to 8.0 to 8.4 range.) It's just not one of those things where we can say whether it might really help your particular fishless cycle or not, so it's better left to your own judgement about your own time and interest (it's often good -practice- for beginners to do a few of these gravel-clean-water-change session during the latter part of fishless cycling because they will then have the logistics down better for when they have fish and a normally running tank (when it will be easier because the amount changed will be less.) (I usually assume most people with big 200+ liter tanks have discovered "Python" type water changing so that it's not much of a big deal to change water.)Day 20, 22nd April 2011 - 18:30: Ammonia: 0ppm, PH: 7.6, Nitrite: Off the Scale, Nitrates: 80 - 160ppm, Redosed ammonia to 3ppm
Still ok ? just continue as normal ?
Cheers LP