What's involved in filter maintenance??

[Caliban07]

uhmmm, you obviously failed to understand
the reason why chlorine/chloramine concentrations vary is because chlorine readily dissipates into the atmosphere, that is why they developed chloramine, the sunlight can't break the bond as fast so it stays in solution longer.
The uncertainty comes because of that propensity to dissipate AND water municipalities working to counter that by regularly adding more to the system, so without dynamic testing, you never know the exact concentrations in your tap water.

+1...I think I mentioned variables in municipalities in my first response...post #24

This post explains it.



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[aqua_holic]

Aqua holic, I don't think that we are too dissimilar. I also know that there are a lot of myths out there well maybe not just myths but more over exaggerations. If I fully support something to the point of debate i would have to be pretty **** certain that what I was saying was correct for everyone. I don't feel that you have provided me with enough for me to change my mind at all. Not that that's what you are aiming to do. I'm sure I haven't provided you with enough to make you think twice about rinsing your sponge under the tap.

Parrot fashioning does hinder this hobby and I can't stand it as much as the Next person but if you are going to change be an exception to the rule then you're gonna have to provide some solid reasons other than 'well it works for me so everyone else must be exaggerating'

I have an open mind. I can admit when I am wrong but you are going to be hard pressed to change the practices of decades of fish keeping with what you have so far.

As for the bacteria in the system, lots of people, websites, channels believe that most of the bacteria is in the filter. I lean towards the system. Having said that, there are lots of cubic feet of surface area available to bacteria on one sponge filter same and biomedia. A mature system with sufficient media may not become unbalanced by rinsing in tap water, but that doesn't mean it's not killing the bacteria.

Well we can talk about this all day till we are blue in the face but I don't think we will agree. Perhaps I will look in to this or perhaps I will just continue rinsing in tap water. It's easy enough to do and it gives me piece of mind.


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Haha it's an exercise in futility to change another persons mind. Only you can change your mind. That's definitely not my aim! But what IS my aim is to provoke thought and challenge ideas and assumptions to see what holds water and what doesn't.

Yes, we are certainly still battling remnants of the the past decades of fish keeping experience. Unfortunately the indiscriminate use of salt is still has it's claws in the hobby. The idea that large water changes kill fish is still alive and well in many corners of the Internet. Many of the myths and over exaggerations stem directly from the decades of fish keeping you're referencing, and many others are born out of the Information Age. Changes happen in baby steps - incrementalism. All it takes is for curious people to want to find out for themselves.

I hope I didn't give the impression that I thought no bacteria would die. That's not my position at all. What I'm saying is that the losses are negligible and have no practical impact. I'm looking at the bigger picture. Any time one person is coming from a theoretical point of view and another from a practical point of view, they will rarely see eye to eye because there is always a gap between theory and practice.

 

[aqua_holic]

uhmmm, you obviously failed to understand
the reason why chlorine/chloramine concentrations vary is because chlorine readily dissipates into the atmosphere, that is why they developed chloramine, the sunlight can't break the bond as fast so it stays in solution longer.
The uncertainty comes because of that propensity to dissipate AND water municipalities working to counter that by regularly adding more to the system, so without dynamic testing, you never know the exact concentrations in your tap water.

the whole bit about swimming pool chlorine is just silly and ludicrous.

What I fail to understand is what makes your assumptions any more legitimate than mine. I'm not disputing anything you said - I'm well aware of the differences and variations of which you (and others) speak. But you speak of them like you know something about it and you do not - as you said you have no way of knowing what the levels are day to day, so if you don't even know the levels how can you possibly know what kind of an impact they will have?

I fully understand the "better safe than sorry" mentality, but such thinking is not satisfying for everyone. And there's nothing to be learned from that. Most people are content to just accept what they're told without question. And that's fine. Thank god not everyone is like that though.

 

[PB_Smith]

What I fail to understand is what makes your assumptions any more legitimate than mine. I'm not disputing anything you said - I'm well aware of the differences and variations of which you (and others) speak. But you speak of them like you know something about it and you do not - as you said you have no way of knowing what the levels are day to day, so if you don't even know the levels how can you possibly know what kind of an impact they will have?

I fully understand the "better safe than sorry" mentality, but such thinking is not satisfying for everyone. And there's nothing to be learned from that. Most people are content to just accept what they're told without question. And that's fine. Thank god not everyone is like that though.

I'm not making any assumptions, I'm stating facts regarding water treatments and how/why chlorine/chloramine levels are not consistent and the assumption can't be made that it is generally safe to use untreated, as you have put forth.

I do agree with you that a large number of folks overreact and some of the horrible things guaranteed top kill everything in your tank in microseconds is baloney.
High nitrates being an example. I honestly think folks end up doing more harm than good chasing numbers and trying to keep them within the "accepted perfect parameters".

But as a person who has been doing this for about four decades, I will say that there is a lot of sound wisdom in some of those old ideas and they are not all "myths".


as far as assumptions go, how do you know I don't work for a water processing plant, or similar organization, so a little premature for you to state that I don't know anything about it, now isn't it?

 

[aqua_holic]

I'm not making any assumptions, I'm stating facts regarding water treatments and how/why chlorine/chloramine levels are not consistent and the assumption can't be made that it is generally safe to use untreated, as you have put forth.

I do agree with you that a large number of folks overreact and some of the horrible things guaranteed top kill everything in your tank in microseconds is baloney.
High nitrates being an example. I honestly think folks end up doing more harm than good chasing numbers and trying to keep them within the "accepted perfect parameters".

But as a person who has been doing this for about four decades, I will say that there is a lot of sound wisdom in some of those old ideas and they are not all "myths".


as far as assumptions go, how do you know I don't work for a water processing plant, or similar organization, so a little premature for you to state that I don't know anything about it, now isn't it?

I think you surely would have said you work for a water processing plant if you had, a long time ago. But you misunderstood what I meant. You yourself have said that you have no idea what the levels are - I'm only agreeing with you.

You saying the levels are harmful is no different than me saying that they are not, considering that neither of us can quantify them. Both are assumptions. The only difference is that I'm saying they aren't because I've actually experienced it firsthand, along with many other people. Not having done it yourself, I'm not sure what you base your assumption on. Yes I'm assuming you never have because again, I think you would have said so if you had.

I am in agreement about the nitrates. How many times have you seen people are afraid their fish will die if they get "high"? I've seen it more times than I can count. There is a lot of fear in this hobby, created both intentionally and unintentionally. Some people (no one here) have an "ends justify the means" mentality and are quick to make cause and effect relationships that don't always exist in an effort to essentially scare newbies straight. And there are unsuspecting newbies that propagate that information because they don't know any better.

 

[Brookster123]

Op has run into the woods with their filter and buried it with a warning... "Ye Olde filter lies below.. beaten into the ground by a bunch of overzealous aquarist" dudes.. we get it.......

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[Fatboyfish]

Op has run into the woods with their filter and buried it with a warning... "Ye Olde filter lies below.. beaten into the ground by a bunch of overzealous aquarist" dudes.. we get it.......

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lol ^^^

Safe than sorry is way better than reckless. True unless we personally examine each square inch of filter media we won't know the impact of our actions. Whynot just not do things that have the potential to harm the bacteria in the first place and call it a day.

ewps I just kept it going

 

[aqua_holic]

Hahaha there is a TON of space between über safe and reckless, since they are opposite extremes. There are many practices that probably seem dangerous and reckless to those entrenched in the safety camp. Some people are afraid of putting water in the tank directly from a the tap. Some people are afraid their fish will die if they don't feed them for a few days. There are a TON of different things people are afraid of in this hobby, many of which others don't think twice about.