Now that I have a python ....

[Roach182]

How do I rinse my filter. I used to swish them around in a bucket of aquarium water from my gravel vac/siphon, this would clean them and preserve the beneficial bacteria. But now with the python all my aquarium water goes down the sink drain. I have a fluval 304 which has 4 filter pads, maybe I should just rinse two off under the tap, or can I rinse all four under the tap because I have some kind of bio media in two of the baskets. What do you python owners do?

TIA

 

[dskidmore]

I do one of two things depending on my mood:

A) Siphon out a gallon of water just for the purpose of cleaning, and clean everything while the python is doing it's job.

B) Start the python with tap pressure, then turn off the tap and let the python just act as a long siphon. The water pouring out at that point is pure tank water, so I can rinse out my filters under the stream. When I'm done washing filters, I can turn the tap back on to speed up the flow.

 

[severum mama]

I just syphon out a bucket of tankwater when it's time to clean my filters. I had never thought of the other idea, that sounds easy too.

 

[newfound77951]

I have always rinsed out my filters in tank-temp tap water, but I would only recommend this if you have well water, as city water will have chlorine in it that will do nasty things to your bacterial colony. With well water, I've never had a problem.

 

[Roach182]

Thanks for the input people. newfound77951, I was always under the impression that even rinsing in tap water from a well would destroy good bacteria that resides on the filter. But perhaps that might be more trouble to tanks with very little substrate or no biological media. If I rinse mine off I should still have lots of bacteria in the substrate as well as the two baskets of ceramic biological media.

 

[dskidmore]

I was always under the impression that even rinsing in tap water from a well would destroy good bacteria that resides on the filter.

Do some people treat thier well water?

 

[TwoHobbies]

I always gravel vac into a bucket so there is no sand going down the drain, and then use that water to clean filters if i'm cleaning filters (not to ofen tho), then use that bucket to water the indoor plants.

 

[GlitcH]

I have well water...........I've always just washed the filter with water from the tap.

Never had a problem.

I would assume that the smaller the tank the more likely that my way of doing things could cause a problem.
I've never done this with smaller than a 29G

 

[newfound77951]

I would think that washing your filters in well water would not be much different from doing a large water change in the tank itself. I've done it for years (not knowing any other way, really, I knew to keep the temps similar to not kill the bacteria) with no problems with tanks from 5-55 gal, never saw any ammonia spikes etc.

As for treating well water, some houses do have a water softener system (as mine does) which can add some salt and lower the hardness and pH. Unless you live in a large apartment building (in which case you're probably on city water anyway) you should know what treatment your water goes through. Because of the softener I don't use my tap water for water changes (because I never know what the pH is going to be!) but it should be fine for rinsing. Bacteria are pretty adaptable little bugs, you probably wash more off by rinsing that you'd kill with slightly different water.

 

[Roach182]

Thanks for the replies, I think I will just rinse them off in my tap water, it is from a well and there is no water softeners on it.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

I have the XP3 and use the water that's in the cannister when I pull out the baskets. Then after I'm done rinsing, will dump the cannister in the sink, rinse the cannister out, put the baskets back in, and close the top and hook back up.

 

[Mazdaman]

As far as the python goes... ...don't know 'cause I don' have one. I am pretty sure though that you should never rinse your filter media in tap water. All you need to do when you are "cleaning" the filter media (excluding bio-media like ceramic rings) is rinse the large debris off of it. A little water from the tank is the best. You don't want to clean all of them each week either. Maybe one section a month is all I do. why take the risk with tap water when you don't have to.
The rinsing off under the python output in the sink soundest like the easiest method.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

As far as the python goes... ...don't know 'cause I don' have one. I am pretty sure though that you should never rinse your filter media in tap water. All you need to do when you are "cleaning" the filter media (excluding bio-media like ceramic rings) is rinse the large debris off of it. A little water from the tank is the best. You don't want to clean all of them each week either. Maybe one section a month is all I do. why take the risk with tap water when you don't have to.
The rinsing off under the python output in the sink soundest like the easiest method.

I couldn't have said it better. You should never rinse your media in tap water, unless it's well water and you know there's no chlorine or chloramine. Just get a small bucket or pan and put some water in it before you do the PWC and use that for your filter maintenance. Or, since you have a cannister, could rinse it in the cannister water, then empty the gunk out of the cannister and rinse it out, and put the media back in.