Safe as budget media?

**ameliaaahx** · 03-15-2013, 02:36 AM

I've recently purchased 4x new canisters, and I now need to fill them with media. Having just spent $600 I'm hesitant to spend a whole lot more on media. I see a few people on here save a good few bucks filling their canisters with media by using budget alternatives, such as pot scrubbies. So I went around some of my local cheapie junk stores to see what I could find. I couldn't find pot scrubbies like you guys seem to have, but I did find these things:

None of them have any information about what they're made of and I'm concerned about putting foreign things in my fish tanks incase they've been made with the use of or cleaned with harsh chemicals before being sold. Is there anything I should know here? I don't know if you can tell from the photo but the silver things are pot scrubbies, although obviously different than the ones I see people on here using. The white and orange things at the bottom are coarse sponges, the colourful things on the right are sponges with scouring pads on them which I thought might be useful as I thought it might function well as mechanical media. The things at the top are scouring pad things filled with sponge or foam -- I thought these were probably the closest related things I could find to the pot scrubbies I see some people using in their tanks.

I also found bulk sponges like THESE for cleaning cars and thought these might be a good alternative to the really expensive sponges at the LFS -- I'm looking at around $15 for a 12" squared bit of sponge, and only about 1" thick, vs. $2 for 8 car wash sponges. Also found lots of super cheap dish scrubbing pads like THESE -- would they be any good?

I will have a bit of sintered glass media in each canister, probably just in one tray. But I just thought it would then be nice (for my bank account) if I was able to bulk out the rest of the trays with cheaper alternatives. Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions.

**genocidex** · 03-15-2013, 03:47 AM

you cant find any cut to fit medias on ebay for a few bucks? im sure those would be better than risking your tank to those things. 1 you have no idea what those sponges have been exposed to and 2 you have no idea on the make up of the materials. personally id be worried about the color....

**ameliaaahx** · 03-15-2013, 04:01 AM

I'm in New Zealand, so no. Fishkeeping is insanely expensive here. What I said about the 12" by 12" IS the cheapest I can find on NZ's alternative of eBay. For me to fill one canister with LFS media and sponges will cost me upward of $100, and that's getting the bottom-of-the-line products.

Let me put it into perspective. The Fluval FX5 which I know many people like retails for around $800 here. The average price for a 5g aquarium -- brand new -- is about $120. I just paid $800 for a 120g tank -- it was $3,999 new.

**genocidex** · 03-15-2013, 04:23 AM

well tbh if you find a cheap porous and inert rock, gravel, you can use that as a sithered glass type media, and the sponges... hmmm... i would look for something that says all natural or something like it... just my 2 cents...
ive also heard of people using pillow stuffing type stuff as a water polisher...

**genocidex** · 03-15-2013, 04:29 AM

just looking at the sponges again and id say the best ones would be the middle bottom ones. to be specific the top (white) one... but again not sure what they have come in contact with...

**ameliaaahx** · 03-15-2013, 04:33 AM

Thanks Genocide. I'm definitely planning on looking into pillow stuffing, I just keep forgetting to look for it every time I'm at the dept. store.

The problem with the sponges is that most of them are just a whole lot of Engrish Fail so it's hard to tell whether they're safe or not. One of them I read said "pot cleanings, bringing reality back to your life". And another simply said, "Sponge -- Enjoy the pleasure with me," which I thought was an interesting caption to put on a sponge packet...

I was having a look at these two threads for inspiration --
http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aqua...ad.php?t=65720
http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aqua...ht=cheap+media

EDIT: Yes, I'd probably agree about the middle/lower sponges. Hard to tell from the picture but they look nearly identical to the regular coarse sponge you get in a lot of filters -- like THIS, just not blue.

**genocidex** · 03-15-2013, 04:43 AM

ye it looks similar to my aquaclear sponges.

**talldutchie** · 03-15-2013, 08:18 AM

The metal ones, don't. Chance of rust and you have no idea what those will leak. The ones on the right are probably safe, they're too cheap to be impregnated with anything.

**LionelC** · 03-17-2013, 07:57 PM

A cheap substitue for 'bio balls or creamic rings is LAVA ROCK. It is very pourous and you can breal it up to the needed sized fairly easily. Just clean well before use. Might be worth doing a quick boil.

LionelC