The Puffer Forum

hi, im baggos girl...
so, i shouldnt be swapping out the filter media??? just rinse it and put it back into the filter?? all gross like that?

If you rinse it out well, it won't be gross anymore . I rinse mine out under the sprayer of the sink until the water runs clear, but I have well water with no chlorine or anything. If you have city water with chlorine or chloromines in it, you'd want to use tank water.

No sense in buying new cartridges over and over, you don't need the carbon and if you just keep rinsing it until it starts to get in really rough shape, they last a lot longer.

The carbon is mainly for removing medications, if you aren't medicating the tank and need to remove the meds afterwords, its not really doing you any good.

When you do a water change, put the filter media in your bucket of old water and swish it around and rub it until the water is dark brown. When you pull out the media it should look relatively spotless.

A good idea is to split mechanical filter media from biological filter media. It's more effective and much cheaper.

For instance.. using course foam blocks for mechanical filtration. They can be rinsed in the sink and will last forever. You can then use something like bio max for biological filtration, which never needs to be replaced and only rinsed lightly in tank water every few months. You can then also use filter floss to polish the water. It can be rinsed many times before needing to be replaced.