Replacing Filter?

[123justin]

Hi, I have one of those "Penguin" brand bio-wheel filters with the sponge/carbon bits in it.

I'm wondering, when/how you would change the filter without getting rid of hte beneficial bacteria?


Do I let the new filter soak in the tank water while the old filter is running? Then throw out the old filter and put in the new one?

 

[freddyk]

I would just run both for a couple of weeks, then you can safely remove the old one.

 

[gadazobe]

I'm not familiar with these filters, but why do you want to change the sponges?

 

[123justin]

After a long period of time, wouldn't you want to replace the sponges? Even though u clean them out in emptied tank water, I would assume the sponge would slowly become clogged or extremely dirty.

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

If it's anything like my sponge filter with two main sponges, a carbon sponge and a top floss sponge doodah then you are recommended to change one on the main sponges when need be but not at the same time as the other or you'll send the tank into a lovely cycle. So long as you don't change both at the same time all will be well. Preferably three months apart.
You can also 'clean' them if they get real mucky by washing them in some tank water after a water change (use the water you've removed). If you just rinse them in it as opposed to scrubbing, the good bacteria in them won't be lost and they can go back in the tank as before for a while longer.
Hope this helped a bit.
Hugs,
P.

 

[gadazobe]

The only time I change my filter sponges is when they get very old and start to disintegrate. I clean them whenever they get clogged up and the water flow isn't as good as it should be. One of my tanks is heavily planted and I find that the filters on that one stay clean for a long time and I only clean them about every 4 months. My fish are fine and so are the plants. My other tank has big dirty fish (plec, oscar and some other giants) and the filters on that tank get cleaned every 2 months. The large tank was set up in January this year and I haven't had to change the sponges yet and the smaller tank - well I can't remember when they were changed it was such a long time ago.

The reason that manufacturers recommend changing sponges is so they can earn more money out of you.

 

[freddyk]

Oohhh you want to change the sponge - duh. Listen: The whole purpose of the bio-wheel is to hold most of the bacteria, so there is no reason at all you shouldn't be able to just swap the sponge! I agree, you can rinse and re-use it a number of times, but it does break down and become less affective over time so you don't want to push it too long.

 

[123justin]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

My bio-wheel should hold some beneficial bacteria just like the sponge. So as long as I don't change both the sponge AND the bio-wheel at the same time, I'm ok.

So in the future, I'll just switch the bio-wheel or sponge at different times so that at any given switch, beneficial bacteria will be present in my filteration system.

 

[Greener]

The only time you have to get a new bio-wheel is if the old one stops turning. I have the same filter and I change the sponge whenever the water seems to get dirty which I've only done once and that was after about 3 months of the tank running and what I did was I put the new sponge in and the old one behind it but raised a little so that the bacteria would be able to still transfer off the old one and so that the new one could start filtering. Which I'm still in the process of doing that and I just slowly keep raising my old sponge out.