Time for a cleaning

Its been a month plus now in my tank and its time for filter changes in my mechanical filter but after reading a good bit it seems that there might be a problem with that. Couldn't getting rid of this filter be detrimental to my system since its possible that denitrifying bacteria might have made their home in it?

If my system had all LS which is supposed to be packed with denitifying bacteria and other stuff should I be more confident in switching filters. As a matter a fact I just went to the website of LFS and looked up my substrate which states and I quote "Cycle your tank of ammonia and add fish on the same day with Bio-Activ Live Aragonite substrate. Collected directly from the ocean bottom, this natural substrate contains live bacteria for controlling nitrate. Aragonite also provides essential inorganic elements like strontium, cobalt, and zinc, and helps to maintain tank pH. Digger friendly, and completely safe for sand-sifting organisms. No waiting..just add fish!" Is this real could I add one hardy Damsel to test this? And again am I cleared to switch out filters?

 

Rynoskim46

do you have any fish or corals in the tank now?

do you have/ did you use live rock in the set up

did you use some other method to cycle the tank - dead shrimp etc?

if you had fish or used a prawn etc , then yes, some bacteria will have colonised your filter, some will have colonised your rock, some will have colonised your existing sand or crushed coral bed

Live sand on its own would not form the best basis for a biological filter system (OK if we still used UGs maybe it might be)

live rock on the other hand or base rock thats been in a tank for a while, coupled with good flow, water circulation to keep bringing new water and thus new nurtients to the bacteria on and in the rock - is a good basis for a filtration system

but you do need a high rock to water ratio to achieve this properly

if you wish to continue using the mechanical filter, many people still do use these, rinse the filter medium in tank water when you do water change and that prevents all the bacteria being killed off

hope I understood the post correctly?
Steve

 

do you have any fish or corals in the tank now?
No fish or corals just a couple hermits, couple turbo snails, and a serpent star.

do you have/ did you use live rock in the set up
Yes, I set the tank up late last month, around the 27th with the LS. The LR was introduced on the first of this month.

did you use some other method to cycle the tank - dead shrimp etc?
I didn't but I see them floating around dead all the time, there has been all types of "little life" (worms, little live shrimps and other stuff I can't even begin to try and explain in there since week#2) floating around that only show themselves at night.

"if you wish to continue using the mechanical filter, many people still do use these, rinse the filter medium in tank water when you do water change and that prevents all the bacteria being killed off"
I'm not completely sure if I understand this step...you mean when i'm ready to replace my filter put it in my tank and rinse out the detritus into my system??! I'll wait for your responce before I do anything.

 

When you change your water change (10%,20%), keep the old water that you take out (5gal buckets work wonderfully for this). Use this water to rinse out your filter.

 

What size tank/filter? In all honesty when I ran my AC70 on my 38 gallon, I would change out all the elements and media at the same time and never noticed anything. IMHO 99.9999% of your bacteria is in your rocks and sand (assuming you have proper amounts of both), and the filter really isn't going to do much.

 

Hi Ryanskim

jonjonwells -explained the way to clean the media perfectly - dont rinse it on your tank, remove water from the tank at water change time and use that water to clean your filter

now that you have explained that you have live rock in the system and as yet very little bioload (no fish) I totally agree with Packleader and say you could remove and replace your filter as you will have adequate bacteria in other locations (rocks, sand,water, etc)


Steve

 

Thanx guys!!! BTW my tank is a 12 gallon, with 14 lbs. of LR and 20 lbs. of LS.

A last question on cleaning with my Ammo and NO2 out of the way the last thing left is NO3, is it true the way to bring down those levels is by water changes if not, how?

 

You can bring them down with water changes
but prevention is better than cure

good maintenance of the filter , weekly to remove collected detrius, coupled with 10% water change,
feeding once per day only, reducing the inputs and thus fishes outputs
test weekly that way you will notice a trend of increase

when doing water change try and get the water you take out as dirty as possible, by syphoning on/ under around the rock work - the trick for me is to get as much sludge/ slurry out if the system at same time as the old water - this for me maximises the benefit of the water change I am doing

Steve

 

so for my tank if i have 100lbs of LR and 50lbs of LS then i dont even need my filter?

 

How big is your tank? what have you got in there?

Many succesful reefs in the past and present have been run using the principles established at the Berlin Aquarium and thus named the Berlin system

the system relies on very efficient protien skimming coupled with live rock ratio of about 1.5 - 2.0 lb per gallon of water (base rock thats been in the system a while is also classified as live rock)

this combined with good water flow / circulation so that the water is being continually delivered to the bacteria in on and the rock - forms the basis of the biological filter


but - if you have a tank set up using a cannister filter, it would not be advisable to remove that from your system in one step
bacteria can only be developed to match the amount of waste produced

you cant have surplus bacteria in the system

so some of your bacteria are on your rock work and some are in your filter
if you just remove your filter, there is a chance that the bacteria on your rock work would not be able to cope with all the waste

what you can do, what I have done in the past is - remove part of your filter system - and allow the bacteria on the rock time to develop to compensate ( checking parameters ) and then removing a bit more, until your left with an empty cannister filter and all the biological activity has been "Put on the rocks"

Steve