My filter media doesn't hold bacteria?

Hey.

I got a new filter for my tank (10 gallon, cycled for a year) a few months ago, and it came filled with this black sponge stuff. It looked like the filter media for that particular filter ( a Dophin kf350 internal filter) as it had a hole where the water stream would go through.

The filter does circulate the water, however I noticed a sharp increase in nitrates after installing it, and the rise continued even after months of using it.

Then when I replaced the black sponge with the same type of filter media I used in my old filter- the regular white cotton wool stuff- within a couple of weeks the water quality was already way better and nitrates were within the normal range.

The problem is that this annoying filter keeps sucking up the wool and getting stuck, and I had to improvise something to get it to work (filled it with the white wool media and topped it with a slice of the black sponge).

Did anyone here encounter this problem before? Are there any good solutions?

 

Do you mean nitrites or nitrates? In a well cycled system with ammonia getting introduced, your nitrates will constantly go up unless you do water changes (or have a really good amount of plants).

what are your parameters overall for ammonia, nitrite and nitrates during these processes?

 

Do you mean nitrites or nitrates? In a well cycled system with ammonia getting introduced, your nitrates will constantly go up unless you do water changes (or have a really good amount of plants).

what are your parameters overall for ammonia, nitrite and nitrates during these processes?

I'm talking about nitrates. Zero nitrites and ammonia during this. The problem is that nitrates were getting so high!

In a normal week the nitrates would go up to 25~30 max before the weekly water change, during the process it was going up as far as 50~100.

 

I'm talking about nitrates. Zero nitrites and ammonia during this. The problem is that nitrates were getting so high!

In a normal week the nitrates would go up to 25~30 max before the weekly water change, during the process it was going up as far as 50~100.

Then the new filter even does a better job than the old.one. Filterbacteria put ammonia / nitrites into nitrates.

So those dropping using the old filter doesn't make sense.

 

I'm talking about nitrates. Zero nitrites and ammonia during this. The problem is that nitrates were getting so high!

In a normal week the nitrates would go up to 25~30 max before the weekly water change, during the process it was going up as far as 50~100.

If your ammonia/nitrite stay at 0, I'm not sure what could be introducing more nitrates with one type of media than another.