Red1313

I may or may not have finally beaten the system here. I attached a piece of sponge over the intake on my tetra whisper filter. I figured that since I had to keep replacing the filter this would be the best way to not lost my entire bacteria filter. However I was curious as to how long it would take for the bacteria to establish themselves on it in a mature tank. It's 2.5 gal if that makes any difference.
Thanks in advance,
Red

Chief_waterchanger

A week or less, I believe.

Lucy

Why do you have to keep replacing your filter?

clinton1621

I use the same setup
It not only keeps your bacteria levels up when you do a filter change, it also saves your impeller by keeping large debris from being sucked in, good thinking!

pepetj

I have this same question.

As for time in newly introduced media to build up enough bacteria, I think it depends on the bio-load you have as well as other variables as dissolved oxygen, water temperature... However in several threads I have read here, two weeks are considered safe for seeding sponges.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

Red1313

Thanks everyone. to answer your questions about why I need to keep replacing the filter... I have a tetra whisper 1-3 gal air driven aquarium filter. It works great Coolie's happy, however every 3 weeks you need to replace your filter cartrige (which is the entirety of your filter). So b/c of that every three weeks my tank loses the bacteria in the filter system and I have to start all over again. I figured that if I just put a sponge over the intake I'd be able to save at least a little bit of bio filtration. The bio-load on the filter is really heavy, (1 betta).

clinton1621

They only say to replace the cartridge because the carbon stops working after a certain amount of time (usually about 48 hours and not 3 weeks) so it really isnt going to hurt anything to leave it in there longer as long as you rinse it lightly in dechlorinated water to get most of the waste off but not the bacteria. The carbon in the cartridges really doesnt do much unless youre removing meds or some type of metal from your water anyway, you would be better off getting a cartridge with bio-max balls or a even a sponge in the cartridge that will hold plenty of bacteria in it so you dont have to keep buying new carbon

pepetj

I don't consider a Betta to be a big biological load in a 2.5gal tank as far as the filter goes. The extra sponge should do the work. I undestand now that if you don't change the media -due to the activated charcoal, you are risking water stability (it is a really small volume of water), so I would keep changing the media every 3 weeks, and keep as much as possible extra sponge stuffed in there somehow. If for whatever reason you can't replace it so often, do as clinton suggests, and rinse it carefully to remove as much solids as you can, until you get a new cartridge.

Other option: remove the original media and place filter floss, fiber, or sponge instead, to have greater biological filtration and forget about chemical filtration -which I personally rather not do, I use charcoal all the time except when using meds- but that's my personal choice, no intention to re-ignite the long on-going debate on the pros and cons of charcoal use in filtering.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

Red1313

pepe, thanks I thought that there was a reason that you needed to remove the filter due to the activated charchol.

Thanks everyone for the help!