Biological filter cleaning

Hi,
My bilogocal filter seems to soon fill up with a greeny brown muddy sludge.
Should I clean it or will cleaning it destroy the bacteria I'm trying to
encourage?

I clean mine about every 3 months.

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Don
"david williams" wrote in message
...
Hi,
My bilogocal filter seems to soon fill up with a greeny brown muddy
sludge.
Should I clean it or will cleaning it destroy the bacteria I'm trying to
encourage?

If you clean it, do so with pond water. Do NOT user tap water or the
chlorine (which almost every one has now) will kill the bacteria you want to
flourish. Personally I mix the use of a bio and a veggie filter which works
very well and I only clean either if at all about once a year. I put my
pump (waterfall pump that happily takes large particles) in a 5 Gallon
bucket then fill it with lava rock. This sits bottom of the main pond.
Pump the water into anything that will hold a decent amount of plants with
lots of roots (water hyacinths for example) and that will pour back into the
main pond. You can even use a barrel liner but your GPH has to be low
enough that it doesn't overflow the lip.

--
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"david williams" wrote in message
...
Hi,
My bilogocal filter seems to soon fill up with a greeny brown muddy
sludge.
Should I clean it or will cleaning it destroy the bacteria I'm trying to
encourage?

david williams wrote:

Hi,
My bilogocal filter seems to soon fill up with a greeny brown muddy sludge.
Should I clean it or will cleaning it destroy the bacteria I'm trying to
encourage?




Hi, I am new to this ng and what a really nice place this seems to be!
Congrats to the moderator!
Filter cleaning. I clean mine once each season. Our season here in
Colorado Springs only last about 6 months before it gets too cold to
keep things running. Because I installed a faucet in the bottom of the
bio filter tank (a rubber maid stock tank) I just open it up, let flow
for a bit, and the sludge is gone. I do not scrub or sanitize my filters.
And I agree with the not using tap water. Use pond water and slowly
replace the water in the pond with tap water. I don't use a declor or
anything, just use a fine mist or spray. That seems to take care of my
chlorine.
Hope that helps.
W. Dale