About time for rinsing the filter?

[Troender]

OK. I probably should have done this a long time ago...

Here's the mud I took off the filter media by hand:


And this is my bath tub afterwards. It's obvious that here lives an insane fish keeper.

[RTR]

I rinse most mechanical filters weekly. Every other week at the outside. Why not? Mechanical filters capture particulates. It is wise and prudent to get them out of the water before they are fully digested. If left in the tank until the organics are fully digested/mineralized, then all the soluble materials are returned to the water column and polluting the water. Filters only capture particulates, hobbyists need to get them out of the system themselves.

If your system is set such that mechanical filters can be easily rinsed daily (as in overflows or easily reached pre-filters), you would be amazed at how much better your water stays.

[Troender]

If I did that, I would probably flush down some cory fry. Even though I have covered the filter intake in every cory tank, they still manage to get through it, and end up in the filter. If I rinsed the filter every week, they would be so small that I wouldn't see them in the dirt and water in the filter. Now, I often pick fry out of the filter, but they have grown large enough to be visible. It feels like a birthday present every time I find those small ones in the filter. And when I put them back into the tank, it's so fun to see how they react to their new life: sand, light, food and friends of the same species. Suddenly life became a lot more interesting! A bit more scary too, but a lot more interesting!

[Pufferpunk]

You have to pour the water at the bottom of the filter box through a net.

[Pufferpunk]

Save that for the April Fool's photo contest--I have an idea!

[Troender]

I know, but it doesn't work if they are newly hatched. You won't see them anyway. At least I haven't seen them. And I've also found fish on the filter media. When I take the baskets out of the filter, some of them get stuck on the filter media, when the water disappear. And I've found them on the bottom of my bath tub after rinsing the filter media. They are very good at being where they shouldn't be. But how they manage to get through the sponge I use to cover the filter intake in the first place, I really don't know.

[Pufferpunk]

Sneaky lil devils, aren't they? How about a sponge over the filter intake?

[purplecandle]

What do you do with all the fry?

[Troender]

Sneaky lil devils, aren't they? How about a sponge over the filter intake?

But how they manage to get through the sponge I use to cover the filter intake in the first place, I really don't know.

What do you do with all the fry?

The fry I find in the filter, I put into the tank again. There they grow up to adult cories. If the group of cories is small in the first place, I keep the fish. If the group is big, I sell them.

[RTR]

Cory fry are significantly larger than Rainbow fry. The mechanical filters in my Rainbow breeder tanks and first grow-out tanks are all rinsed weekly or more often. I need the best possible water quality. I'd have to partial a lot more than 50% weekly to keep my water quality up with dirty filters. NIMFT.

Perhaps the problem is the filter format and/or the filter media?

[kingkoopa]

Alright, you've convinced me to rinse my filter. Tomorrow. LOL

[RTR]

Good! Dirty filters are pollution sources. Filters trap debris so that hobbyists can remove it - preferably before it decays and pollutes the tank water.

[Pufferpunk]

Like dirt swept under the rug.