My 55usg always seems to have more than average particles in the water,
When i Wc i wrap a pad of filter floss around my stream and it polishes the water nicely but obviously not a long term solution
I've got a brand spanking new fluval 205 here rated at 180usgph, I'm thinking of using it just for floss but i read that canister filters can be nitrate factories? I don't really understand that apart from if dirt builds up in the can or waht? If i changed the floss weekly can anyone see any problems with using it? I know a lot of peeps use can filters but i've read quite a bit that they are not really up for marine??
Any comments welcome about using the filter for polishing or what they mean about nitrates welcome
they are perfectly fine....................that is if you clean it out weekly and do not let waste build up..............if you let that happen then yes its a nitrate factory...........anything can become a nitrate factory if you let waste build up.........just a simple powerhead with a filter on the inlet can do the same.........its not the type of filter its the owners level of involvement
I bought a Magnum canister filter just for cleaning my sump and sucking up piles of debris in my display tank. Every once in a while I'll use it to polish the water overnight, then break everything down, clean it and put it away until the next time I use it.
"filter fluff" is spun polyester. Plastisizers are used to make it less sticky in the manufacturing process, and the plastisizer of choice is a phosphate ester.
When my tank was cycling i noticed a few white flat worms that from research was the harmless type but after 6 mths i started to notice the brown type, salifert FE seemed to be the answer as the wrong type of flatworms seem to sound like a PITA! I'm from the UK and flatworm exit was/still is hard to get ahold of,i waited a month for the FE but never used it as they dissapeared! The only reason i've got my can filter is that IF i had to use the FE i needed to run carbon to soak up some of the poison that dead Fw's give off after dying
All brown Fw's died without chemical and now i have a unused filter that possibly could help in another issue with my tank
I have a phosphate filter which is not fluidised but hopefully po4 is looked after
So would it be a good idea to run bags of carbon 24/7 instead of floss??
I need to research a bit more about carbon i think as i thought it was a measure to take contaminates out of the water and not for constant use???
I have run carbon 24/7 in the past. Just change every two weeks or so and keep up on the water changes. It will get saturated at some point so keep up on the changes. You dont have to run it 24/7. Its one of those preferance things.
"filter fluff" is spun polyester. Plastisizers are used to make it less sticky in the manufacturing process, and the plastisizer of choice is a phosphate ester.
Darn you and your abominable phosphates! So I'm guessing a good soak/rinse won't do anything to reduce the P concentration before use? I imagine they use the same plastisizer on the blue bonded filter pads that come with most canister filters...I just can win the fight against P. I guess I'm back to using air line tubing and siphoning everything out.
cannisters are not necessarily nitrate factories. i think i may have said this in the past, but i have learned differently. they are phosphate factories though. this hobby is full of off information and it takes a while to dig yourself through it all sometimes.
anywho. beside the great Spanky with his obnoxious morsel of bad news, man he is good at that. . they are also phosphate produces for a different reason. they are very good at traping detritus in them. this detritus will then decompose rapidly. what is released during this decomposition is bound phosphates. the leftover material is left as the detritus you see. this is why it is important to remove the cannister from operation after about an hour of polishing. any more than you will just be releasing phosphates back into the system to be used by other things, generally algae and cyano.
nitrate factories are devices that are high in O2 levels. like drip media. bio-balls are the most common example.
"filter fluff" is spun polyester. Plastisizers are used to make it less sticky in the manufacturing process, and the plastisizer of choice is a phosphate ester.
I only use floss for a few hours before a water change I scrape the tank and use a baster on the live rock and use the floss to catch the nastys. Then pull the floss when I add the new ASW . Is this limited use harmful?
kelli- it would be better to start the cannister right when you start cleaning the tank than run it for an hour also right after you are done with your WC. the least amount you use it the better, but using it for the purpose you described is ideal!!
kelli- it would be better to start the cannister right when you start cleaning the tank than run it for an hour also right after you are done with your WC. the least amount you use it the better, but using it for the purpose you described is ideal!!
Will the phosphate ester from the filter floss necessarily become soluable in the water column? Perhaps not - otherwise why would the majority of filter cartridges and replacement pads all be made of the stuff? I have clients who consistently use the stuff in various forms, and don't have phosphate issues.
IME a canister is a great way to polish the water. Don't run it all the time - the person who suggested running it overnight, then breaking it down, cleaning it and putting it away until next time has the right idea.
Running a canister for a few hours or a day or two isn't going to create a nitrate issue, a phosphate issue or whatnot. It's long term use of said canister, allowing it to go biological that creates issues. And if the whole phosphate thing bothers you now, pack the canister with some phosphate removal media.
"filter fluff" is spun polyester. Plastisizers are used to make it less sticky in the manufacturing process, and the plastisizer of choice is a phosphate ester.
I'm not sure of the science there spanky but since buying koi floss from ebay my diatoms have matured!?!?!?!?!?
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