Sorry for the long post – and I know it's important not to change everything at once, don't come for me 😅
Okay so when I got my 30L tank, I cycled it and got 5 neon tetras, which all unfortunately got ill and died within 14 days. I noticed I had (a pH of about 8 out of the tap and) some higher nitrites, so did 30-50% water changes every 1-2 days but it still wasn't clearing the nitrites. After 2 weeks of no improvement, I added plants, driftwood and capatta leaves (trying to lower the pH and stabilise the nitrites) and went on holiday for a week.
When I got back off holiday (now 3 weeks of trying to correct it), it was the same. I noticed the sponge in the HOB was holding a lot of gunk and water was pooling despite 2 weekly squeezing in tank water during changes. I bought a polyfilter sponge, replaced half of the HOB sponge and it did the trick. We've been fine since and now I have 4 platys and 3 amano shrimp, all very happy.
It's 4 weeks later. I have noticed the sponges are starting to hold water again, am I safe to replace the older original sponge half with the new poly filter sponge now? (pH 8.0, Ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 10 ppm)
Also, what upkeep should I be doing on the ceramic rings? I've only rinsed them in tank water once when changing the sponge and they look grimy, but I assume it's good bacteria (and again understand I shouldn't do everything at once)
All advice appreciated, thank you for reading 🙂
Posted by Impossible_Depth08
2 Comments
You can replace the original sponge if you want to. In general I barely replace sponges and just clean them in tank water when I do water changes. Same with the ceramic rings, do not change them as they have the good stuff in it as you mentuoned.
I have literally replaced all sponges to sera crystal clear professional polyester balls. Sponges constantly were clogged within 1month to zero flow. Now i keep a very rough one and they are placed in a way that flow can bypass them. Sera balls also packed in a way that between them were placed ceramic hollow cylinders to bypass flow. Now i do filter maintenance every 6month, instead of 2weeks -1month. Brown stuff is good bacteria.