TASHANCRAIG
Aquarium Advice Regular
can i put a new filter in my tank that has cycled and the filter be ok and cycle itself without putting toxins back in the water lke ammonia and nitrites ????
can i put a new filter in my tank that has cycled and the filter be ok and cycle itself without putting toxins back in the water lke ammonia and nitrites ????
Real zebra plecos? I'm jealous.
Two filter on one tank is fine if the fish can handle the water flow.
Why do you want to change your filter media? There's really no need unless it's completely falling apart. Just rinse it out in a bucket of old tank water every once in a while.
If you do need to replace media, replacing only part of it at a time as you suggested is a good idea. You may experience a mini-cycle, but not a full cycle.
Regarding, just rinsing it off.....If you rinse it in a bucket of aquarium water, how do you get the stuff off since you dont have a water stream? use your fingers to loosen the gunk from the filter media?
One last thing...forgot to add that one of my filters came with a sponge-type thing which sits in with the filter media to collect the bacteria so that when you take out the filter media the bacteria is not all gone. The other filter did not come with a sponge (though I've noticed the newer ones do), so I added one myself. This may have been why I had no issues when changing out the filters one at a time before. Not sure if the sponges collect as much bacteria as the filter media, though. Anyone know?