Don't bleach sponges!

[Daniel Morrow]

I learned something today (stan and kyle ring in) - don't bleach sponges! I
had my sponge prefilter sitting in 10 parts water to 1 part bleach for a few
(3 or 4) days and now I discovered that the sponge has disintegrated! I
thought I would keep it in longer to make sure it would not be clogged
anymore. I probably would have had to buy a new one anyways as it kept
getting really clogged up towards the end here anyways so maybe I didn't
really lose anything from the sponge disintegrating. The sponge was around a
year and a half old and I had never used bleach for this purpose before.
Next time I will literally stomp on the sponge to break whatever clogging
there is. Even after a long while of squeezing the debris out of the sponge
prefilter while it is under running water the sponge would clog again a day
later. Anyone have any ideas on how I can unclog deep debris in sponges so
they last more than a year and a half or so? Thanks, and remember - never
use bleach on sponges! Later, I just thought I could prevent someone else
from making this mistake I made and improve things a bit.

[Billy]

"Daniel Morrow" > wrote in message
...
>I learned something today (stan and kyle ring in) - don't bleach
>sponges! I
> had my sponge prefilter sitting in 10 parts water to 1 part bleach
> for a few
> (3 or 4) days and now I discovered that the sponge has
> disintegrated! I
> thought I would keep it in longer to make sure it would not be
> clogged
> anymore. I probably would have had to buy a new one anyways as it
> kept
> getting really clogged up towards the end here anyways so maybe I
> didn't
> really lose anything from the sponge disintegrating. The sponge was
> around a
> year and a half old and I had never used bleach for this purpose
> before.
> Next time I will literally stomp on the sponge to break whatever
> clogging
> there is. Even after a long while of squeezing the debris out of
> the sponge
> prefilter while it is under running water the sponge would clog
> again a day
> later. Anyone have any ideas on how I can unclog deep debris in
> sponges so
> they last more than a year and a half or so? Thanks, and remember -
> never
> use bleach on sponges! Later, I just thought I could prevent
> someone else
> from making this mistake I made and improve things a bit.


Depends heavily on the type and age of the sponge. <g> I use a
vinigar solution, this seems to work alright.

billy

[John...]

"Daniel Morrow" > wrote in message
...

> Next time I will literally stomp on the sponge to break whatever clogging
> there is.

Filter sponges should only be gently squeezed when cleaning.
Also they should not be cleaned under running water,only with
water you have removed from your tank when changing water.
Both the above actions will kill the good bacteria living on them.
If your filter is getting as clogged as you say,perhaps you are
overfeeding your fish or you have too many fish,which the filter cannot cope
with.Or you need more or better filtration.
I would never use bleach to clean anything in my tank,you just
can't be too careful,no matter how well you rinse things off.
How often do you clean your filter sponges? I clean mine every
15 days or so.I run a fluval 4plus along with a UGF with none of the
clogging problems.

John

[Daniel Morrow]

"John..." > wrote in message
...
>
> "Daniel Morrow" > wrote in message
> ...
>
> > Next time I will literally stomp on the sponge to break whatever
clogging
> > there is.
>
> Filter sponges should only be gently squeezed when cleaning.
> Also they should not be cleaned under running water,only with
> water you have removed from your tank when changing water.
> Both the above actions will kill the good bacteria living on them.

I clean it in tap water because in my case it doesn't matter. I use
biowheels (which I never clean) in all of my tanks and I don't need the
sponges to hold the bacteria in my case, but with what you had to go on you
are right.


> If your filter is getting as clogged as you say,perhaps you are
> overfeeding your fish or you have too many fish,which the filter cannot
cope
> with.Or you need more or better filtration.
> I would never use bleach to clean anything in my tank,you just
> can't be too careful,no matter how well you rinse things off.
> How often do you clean your filter sponges? I clean mine every
> 15 days or so.

I clean all of my sponge prefilters every 4 days and I use a aquareminder to
make sure I never miss a cleaning.

I run a fluval 4plus along with a UGF with none of the
> clogging problems.

Those fluval 404's (and the other models of this filter) msf canister
filters are great aren't they? I love mine. Novices have a lot of trouble
(I'm no novice in my opinion) with canister filters trying to prime them. I
have learned on the web that the filstar series uses a funnel on the end of
the input hose which the user pours in water into it until water gets up the
hose a bit in order to prime it and then start it. A simple solution but
doubles with gravity in demand of resources. The new eheim push to prime
system simply is a pump based primer that supposedly sucks because you have
to press the push to prime button repeatedly until the canister is filled
with water which can take some time. The fluval 404's have a push to prime
much in the same way as the new eheims but I prefer to use a $10.00 vortex
siphon starter to start the siphon by using the siphon starter to pull water
into the canister until it starts coming out the output which would be lower
than the water surface in the tank and then I can either dump the water that
came out either into a drain or back into the aquarium to maintain the water
as aged. Very easy but seemingly unorthodox as I am not sure but you might
have to push the water out of the fluval first with the other end of the
siphon starter (push not pull) for %100 reliability (I am fine tuning the
method a little) and the people I have seen complaining on the web forums
about not having a simple answer like this could very well use this method.
Good luck and later!


>
> John
>
>
>