What would happen if...

MermaidTail · Nov 17, 2016

Folks were so helpful on my post about cleaning my 6g nano and I wanted your thoughts. What do you think would happen if I removed the sponge and the ceramic bioballs from my filter and just ran chemipure-elite? I have the Fluval edge, about nine months old, and have always run the filter as is... sponge, ceramic bioballs, chemipure-elite.

I'm still battling some nitrates and phosphates, causing some algae...even though corals are looking good, fish happy. I'm wondering...

- could the sponge/ceramic is causing a build up that's going back into the tank water?

- Will removing these cause the tank to cycle?

- Can I JUST run a bag of chemipure-elite in the filter media basket?

Any thoughts?

Thank you!

Coastie Reefer · Nov 17, 2016

Removing the sponge and ceramic might be full of detritus and that may be causing a slight issue. You can remove them and run chemipure on its own no problem.

saltyfilmfolks · Nov 17, 2016

MermaidTail said:
could the sponge/ceramic is causing a build up that's going back into the tank water?

yes.
in my jbj cube(30g) all the gunk built up in the back. The last 8 months of that tank I only did WC's from the back just to keep the gunk down. I never run chems except carbon personally, you may want to depending on your nutrients. You may see a little change from removing the bio media, but not likely imo. Id keep the mech(sponge or floss) and just keep cleaning it very regularly.

ahiggins · Nov 17, 2016

If it were me, I would run a sponge only. Unless youre overloaded on bioload (I did that with my 25 LOL). If youre on the heavy side, chemipure elite works good.
I eventually took out the chemipure elite from my 25 because it was messing with my corals. I think that was it anyway lol they were fine after I removed it.

Rjramos · Nov 17, 2016

If the ceramic bioballs are in trickle mode(dry with water trickling through),I would. The aerobic bacterias break down nutrients to nitrates. I replaced the factory stuff in the back of my BC29 with a media basket and refugium. Tank is doing great this way. Are you skimming this 6g nano?

lake985 · Nov 17, 2016

How often do you change/clean your sponge? You may want to consider switching to poly filter floss so that you can easily (and cheaply) change it every couple of days.

BTW, I'm running an inTank media basket with filter floss and chemipure blue on my Edge. I get some green hair algae every now and then, but my hermits usually take care of it.

MermaidTail · Nov 17, 2016

Thanks everyone. I've been reading about folks removing the sponge/bioballs and wanted opinions. I'm rinsing the media in the water I've removed from the tank during my twice-weekly water changes but not sure that's effective? I also removed the filter today during WC and noticed a TON of gnarly detritus in/on the ACTUAL filter basket. So cleaned that off real good and going to go slow....

thinking about cut my sponge in half and removing the ceramic to see what happens over the next few days.

ahiggins · Nov 17, 2016

I used a very loose "cut to size" filter floss with my 10 gallon. Changed it 1x per 2 weeks.
I switched to a very tight knit filter pad and Ive been having to change it every 3-4 days.
Its a pain but it catches all the particulates, which is the only "filtration" I use on the 10 gallon.