The Puffer Forum

I had 3 sap and they were all fine earlier today, i did a water change and lightly cleaned 1/2 of my filters

about 2 hours later i find one dead on the bottom, not even floating.

why would it just die like that? water is perfect with no ammonia, nitrite or nitrate

I'm really sorry to hear that, how sad! Strange only one was effected (so far?) is there any possibility something may have been contaminated (cleaner?) did you move decor? (maybe hit him by accident, or squished him somehow? internal injury?) Maybe it was nothing you did - just coincidental - maybe he had something wrong you couldn't prevent?

No nitrate? How did you clean the filter? I hope not with tap water Bc that can destroy the biological bacteria....

Yes, can you elaborate a bit more about how you cleaned your filter? And why only half?

i cleaned the filter in a bucket of water that i extracted out of the tank.

i didnt clean half the filter, i cleaned 1 of 2.

i have two 30 gallon filters running on my 30 gallon tank and one week i clean one, the next week i clean the other

I have been cleaning my filters (FW & BW) with tap water for over 30 years.

I thought that by rinsing filters in tap water it killed any beneficial bacteria in the filter media?

A quick rinse won't kill much. Sponge filters are for mechanical filtration & should be becked up with biological filtration.

when you say filter, are we talking about the whole plastic filter or a disposable Filter Cartridges

I'm feeling a bit stupid here .... does that mean that any filter with a "sponge" inside (internal filter) is a mechanical filter?
If that is so, what is a good example of biological filtration?

i cleaned out the sponge part

im pretty sure sponge acts as bio filter too

Most filters try to do all 3. Aquaclears have customizable stacks, the ceramic rings or rocks at the top are biological, and you don't need to clean them much at all, but the sponges on the bottom of the stack are mechanical filters, and if you don't mess with the biomedia on top, washing the sponge out in the sink is no big deal. I usually do that myself. Typically something like carbon goes in between, but you can double up on sponges or biomedia instead for everyday use.

im my aqua clears i run 2 sponges on bottom, one of those white bio media things and carbon on top

On my bigger tanks I have external filters with the ceramic rings, but on most of my other tanks I just have internal filters with basically only sponges inside. Is this a bad thing?

You might want to rinse them in tank water to preserve more bacteria, but it's a common thing for internals to have minimal media, for some reason.