Time for a filter change?

[Lauren B.]

I was wondering if I should change my filter cartridge. Everyone knows I am having trouble cycling and I'm on my 4th week. My filter cartridge (the disposable kind that looks like a blue scrub-pad with carbon inside) looks a little gunky on the top surface. The water from the intake kinda skims over the cartridge, and doesn't seem like it's going through it (the water level in the cartridge chamber looks high and just spills over into the BioWheel).

I'm afraid that the water isn't filtering properly, but I'm also afraid to touch it because of my cycling problems. I've never changed the filter yet...it's been cycling for 4 weeks.

[Chrona]

I was wondering if I should change my filter cartridge. Everyone knows I am having trouble cycling and I'm on my 4th week. My filter cartridge (the disposable kind that looks like a blue scrub-pad with carbon inside) looks a little gunky on the top surface. The water from the intake kinda skims over the cartridge, and doesn't seem like it's going through it (the water level in the cartridge chamber looks high and just spills over into the BioWheel).

I'm afraid that the water isn't filtering properly, but I'm also afraid to touch it because of my cycling problems. I've never changed the filter yet...it's been cycling for 4 weeks.

Rinse it out in tank water (just the filter cartridge, not the biowheel)

EDIT: come to think of it, you could just pour the dirty water right back into the tank, heh.

[Lauren B.]

EDIT: come to think of it, you could just pour the dirty water right back into the tank, heh.

Are you kidding? (Sometimes it's hard to tell!)

Why would I pour the dirty water back into the tank?...Do I want to have gunk swimming through the water? I can see foreign gunky particles atop the filter cartridge.

Can I do like you originally stated and take a few cups of tank water out and rinse the filter in that?....then dispose of the dirty rinse water? That actually, makes a lot of sense to me.

[Chrona]

Well, you needed more waste right? So I figured.....lol

But yeah, either way is fine. Most of the bacteria is on your biowheel/gravel anyways, so just dump the water out.

[Lauren B.]

I just rinsed it and there was a lot of garbage in there! The rinse water had bits of.....something....in there that looked like dirt from the ground outside and tiny pieces of wood or twigs or something! Yuck! I wonder where all that weird crap came from!

There's gunky stuff still on the cartridge's surface, but I figured if it didn't come off during the rinse it's not going to come off during filtering. Actually, the water level in the cartridge chamber looks better already. The cartridge's surface must have been pretty gunked up.

Thanks for your answer Chrona. See, you give good advice....I never would have thought of rinsing it in tank water! :malelovies: By helping me today, you made up for yesterday's salt boo-boo and you will not go to hell.