Does Prime Go Bad?

[ltrepeter2000]

Holly,

The Prime dechlorinates your water...so would bubbling for 24 hrs.

To prevent the spilling, why don't you run put a hose on a water pump and run it from the bucket to your tanks (or just use a Python)?

Matt

an alternative to the python is if you have an intake tube from an eheim or other canister filter, you can put that on the other end of the hose to hook it to the top of the tank so you don't necessarily have to hold it.

 

[dogofwar]

The main difference is that in reef tanks, many of the organisms will die or do poorly at nitrate (and/or dissolved nutrient) levels.

As changing large amounts of water is expensive and not necessarily good for other reasons, there's a much bigger focus on removing nitrate through other means and reduction of nitrate production in the first place...as well as de-nitrification via other means than water changes.

That's where protein skimmers and vigilant cleaning of mechanical filtration come in. Remove the waste before it becomes nitrate.

As reef tanks are generally lightly stocked with fish, the amount of fish food, poop and other stuff is also much lower. And the (relatively little) "detritus" that is produced in the tank is often food for the trillions of inverts and micro-organisms in the tank.

Now a saltwater tank full of big fish, that's another issue. I don't think you'll find too many folks who would argue that infrequent canister filter cleaning is a best-practice there, either...

Matt

That wasn't my point. My point is that canisters in a freshwater tank are used in part for biological filtration. My understanding is that this is not the case for canisters in salt water tanks. I've never had a salt water tank, so perhaps I am wrong, but that's what I've read.

 

[mchambers]

If it were me

Ok, so Matt raises an interesting point.

this is my water routine:

1. Fill 30 gallon plastic trash can with water
2. Dump in enough Prime to dechlorinate a swimming pool
3. Drop in two bubblers

Leave for 24 hours

Dip water change buckets directly into trash can, drip water all over the bathroom, carry to tanks and pour in.

I do not re-dechlorinate the water as I assumed the 24 hours of bubbling took out the chlorine and I just add the Prime for good measure.

From what I've read, 24 hours should be enough for the chlorine to gas off, but why not delay adding the Prime until just before you add the water to the tanks?

 

[mchambers]

Mattenfilters

Of course, detritus doesn't decompose or cause pollution in fresh water.

Matt

So, do you think that all the folks using Hamburg Mattenfilters should take the filter material out frequently and clean it? My understanding is that folks let those for as long as a year.

 

[dogofwar]

A key difference between reef tanks and your typical cichlid aquarium is the amount of detritus produced.

Dump excess nutrients into a reef tank and see what happens (or don't clean a canister on one for a few months). Same thing as in a freshwater tank... more nitrates...

Matt

From the same article: "Today more and more aquarists are finding that mechanical filters are unnecessary in the reef aquarium. This is mainly due to the fact that the surfaces in the aquarium where detritus settles is constantly being picked over by an enormous clean-up crew consisting of fish, crabs, shrimps, snails, polychaete worms, etc. all the way down to the bacteria. In fact, some aquarists believe that the absence of a mechanical filter is preferable because the free-floating debris helps to feed various filter feeding organisms."

I quit. Rock on.

 

[dogofwar]

More good discussion on the topic:

If your going to stick with canisters here's my opinion and recommendation. take it with a grain of salt:

- First, back off on feeding. (every other day is what i do, flake with brine or dry pellet, Frozen stuff like phytoplankton and mysis is more what i call an occasional "treat") It may not seem like you are overfeeding, but more times than not we are. Its fun to watch and fatten them up, but its more difficult to battle poor water chem in the long run. Most Detrius comes from you. and your feeding. If you limit the buffet, you limit the crap.

- Your going to have to water change often (maybe 10-12 days about 10%). Mix a batch of salted (RO/DI if you can) water up the night before and let it agitate over night with a spare powerhead or air stones/ bubbler. RO water will limit the phosphates you add to the tank. Phosphates = algae = nitrates and a vicious cycle of dying algae and new algae. Plus, detoxed tap water still has other impurities and metal. (Think about your plumbing? and what all that water is running through before it comes out your faucet)

-clean that canister a minimum of every 4-5 days. 2-3 days better. This becomes a pain... eventually, most canister operators break down and find something different (HOB or sump), not because they are all lazy, but mostly because every time you stop that canister, gunk flies out into the tank, you agitate the tank, fish are stressed = more poop, and you fire that thing back up and more gunk flies out.
** side note, im more convinced the majority of nitrate issues with canisters are from debris gunking up inside those ribbed tubes. and from operators not flushing them everytime they clean the canister. (Like me)

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2211338

 

[verbal]

I did a little research, although I forgot the source, and it is interesting that nitrite isn't much of an issue in saltwater tanks, but Nitrates are more of a problem.

 

[dogofwar]

After seeing the amount of stuff trapped in the ones I use, I clean mine regularly (siphon it weekly and/or pull out and dunk it in a bucket every couple of months).

The key for bio filtration (Poret, sponge filters, etc.) is slow flow, to keep them from becoming mechanical filtration.

I run lots of air through my boxes...and slow bubbling through my bio.

To be sure, all gunk in fish tanks (especially planted ones or tanks with use of Almond Leaves) isn't nitrogenous (i.e. poop, uneaten food, etc.) and important to remove right away...

For example, probably my "dirtiest" tank is the 150g with two big royal plecos... they eat and poop wood constantly. Wood poop, I've gotta believe, is a lot less ammonia producing than poop of say pikes eating red wigglers and pellets.

Matt

So, do you think that all the folks using Hamburg Mattenfilters should take the filter material out frequently and clean it? My understanding is that folks let those for as long as a year.

 

[mchambers]

After seeing the amount of stuff trapped in the ones I use, I clean mine regularly (siphon it weekly and/or pull out and dunk it in a bucket every couple of months).

The key for bio filtration (Poret, sponge filters, etc.) is slow flow, to keep them from becoming mechanical filtration.

Matt

But many or most of the Poret Mattenfilter advocates, including Dr. Tanner, say that they don't need to be cleaned often, say once a year. For example:

"Q: how often do you clean/rinse a Hamburg Mattenfilter(HMF), cube filters, or Poret® corner filter?
A: HMFs only once or twice every year or two, depending on the degree of clogging; as long as the water goes through, just leave it alone! This is a low maintenance filter media, and the larger the surface area, the longer it can run without clogging. In tanks with a heavy waste load, and for smaller corner or cube filters, you can rinse it more often if needed (bi-monthly, quarterly or so)."​

http://www.swisstropicals.com/Poret Filter Foam Q&A.html

I really don't know what you mean about keeping biofiltration from becoming mechanical filtration. I'm guess you mean not allowing the gunk to overwhelm the spaces where biofiltration occurs. But in a canister one typically has separate types of filter media, so that some serves as mechanical and others serve as biomedia. Also, according to the Mattenfilter folks, gunk is a great place for biofiltration to occur.

Anyway, always interesting to discuss these things.

Holly, sorry to derail your annual nitrite spike thread!

 

[ezrk]

Having had (and sort of continue to have) issues with Nitrates, I have done a fair amount of research and thinking about detritus, food, poop, etc. I think it is useful to compare salt water experience and practices with freshwater ones. While there are key differences, there are some basic things that have to be same.

From what I can tell the big salt water advantage is that they can protein skim relatively easily. It is possible, though difficult, to protein skim in freshwater. The koi people (and the koi world is a good one to occasionally look at - they keep very, very expensive and dirty fish so spend lots of time and money thinking about how to do it effectively) have figured out freshwater protein skimmers, they are big, loud and expensive so not terrible practical for in house aquariums.

Protein skimming combined with aggressive mechanical filtration (via filter socks) or biological filtration (via algae scrubbers) is likely pretty effective. I think the key on the mech side is that salt water folks change their socks aggressively like several times a week.

Lightly stocked tanks, skimming, mech filtration, and some amount of biological de-nitrification does the trick for them.

What can we learn?

Mechanical filtration accompanied by throwing out the detritus could matter in the freshwater world - but probably doesn't too much for us. Why? Well if you think about it detritus gets trapped in the filter. It does not immediately breakdown in NH3, it takes some time. For salt water people they are basically taking out a lot of detritus before it breaks down, by changing socks several times a week. Most freshwater people can't or won't do that (although I wish I could experiment with aggressive mech filtration and removal, would have to redo my sumps though). So virtually all detritus in a fresh water system eventually breaks down. This is why you don't need to clean mattenfilters, etc. You just plan for that to happen and fix it by changing water.

The point to me is that different processes are not happening, just that we are dealing with it differently. We do this as water changes are (relatively) cheap and simple in fresh water and most of our fish are not as lethally effected by NO3 as coral is so it makes sense to do so. It is not something fundamentally different that let's a mattenfilter go a year without cleaning, just a different approach.

 

[hollyfish2000]

yes, I can add the Prime right before I use the water. No harm in that except my fear of forgetting . .

I have a python. I never use it. I could stick one end in trash can sitting in a bathtub and run it into the next room and up over the edge of a tank and the water will run uphill?

I was a journalism major. I don't get how this would work. I do understand how it works when hooked to a tap as I assumed the pressure of the water coming out does something magical. But the water in the trash can is just sitting there, not pushing it's way anywhere . . .

Someone is about to get an invitation to my house to show me what the heck they are talking about! :unsure:

 

[ltrepeter2000]

yes, I can add the Prime right before I use the water. No harm in that except my fear of forgetting . .

I have a python. I never use it. I could stick one end in trash can sitting in a bathtub and run it into the next room and up over the edge of a tank and the water will run uphill?

Someone is about to get an invitation to my house to show me what the heck they are talking about! :unsure:

Holly,

Get a pump like this:
http://www.bigalspets.com/universal-pump-1046.html

Attach it to one end of the python hose, run the hose from the trash can to the tank, this way the pump pushes the water from the can through the hose into your tank.

 

[mchambers]

Gravity

Someone is about to get an invitation to my house to show me what the heck they are talking about! :unsure:

After a couple of glasses of wine, perhaps the water will flow uphill.

 

[hollyfish2000]

I like the little pump thingee. How do I use it????

 

[ltrepeter2000]

plug it in, attach to the hose to the output end and drop it in the water, it will do the rest. It has an intake and output just like a canister filter so it will draw the water in and pump it through your python hose into the tank.

 

[jonclark96]

Small submersable pumps are great to have for water changes. Instead of using a python to drain my tanks (and waste gallons and gallons of water in the process) I hook a hose up to a pump and pump the water out of my tanks. For the smaller tanks, I siphon into buckets and dump the buckets into a rubbermaid tub and pump out from there. I pump the waste water outside into flower beds. I can change all of the water in my tanks without putting more than a cup or two into my septic system.

Using the same system to pump water into the tanks would be easy if I were aging the water first. Luckily, I'm on a well so water goes straight from the tap into the tank. I haven't bought dechlor in years.

 

[mchambers]

My wife picked up a submersible pump for me at a local yard sale. It's a Maxi-Jet 1000, or something like that, but it works well. I've been using it when draining water from my lower tanks, so that I don't have attach the water changer to the faucet. (The drop from the tanks to the shower drain very slowly when gravity is the only force being applied.)

I hadn't thought about using it to fill tanks from buckets, since I usually just use the water changer and put the water directly into the tanks, but sometimes use rain water stored in buckets and using the pump is a good idea.

 

[chriscoli]

The key for bio filtration (Poret, sponge filters, etc.) is slow flow, to keep them from becoming mechanical filtration.
Matt

I am utterly confused by that statement. Filtration is nearly always both mechanical and biological. If you have no water movement, it will be biological, but not mechanical....if your filter media is sterile, it'll be mechanical but not biological (for a short time, until its colonized by microbes). But these two extremes are not the usual state of affairs in our tanks. Even slow flow is still mechanical.

I'm running twenty mattenfilters right now, and I guarantee you that they are mechanical as well as biological, and I've rarely needed to clean them since I first started using them. (Pleco wood poop is rough on them, I must admit). Unless they clog, they get left alone.

 

[dogofwar]

What I mean is that running a sponge filter with a lot of air will result in enough flow through the sponge filter to suck particulates into it (i.e. act as a mechanical filter). Running less air means that there is still flow through the sponge filter but less stuff gets trapped in it. I regularly squeeze out sponge filters and noticed that the ones with less flow collect less stuff in them...and thus need to be squeezed out less.

I couple sponge filters with air-driven box filters...with lots of flow...for primarily mechanical filtration. They are remarkably good at collecting poop, uneaten food, etc. And I change them frequently (it takes about 15 seconds).

Are my sponges 100% bio and boxes 100% mech? Nope...but this approach allows me to maximize the value and minimize the burden of each...

Matt

I am utterly confused by that statement. Filtration is nearly always both mechanical and biological. If you have no water movement, it will be biological, but not mechanical....if your filter media is sterile, it'll be mechanical but not biological (for a short time, until its colonized by microbes). But these two extremes are not the usual state of affairs in our tanks. Even slow flow is still mechanical.

I'm running twenty mattenfilters right now, and I guarantee you that they are mechanical as well as biological, and I've rarely needed to clean them since I first started using them. (Pleco wood poop is rough on them, I must admit). Unless they clog, they get left alone.

 

[dogofwar]

I dropped by AquariumOne (saltwater-focused LFS) after picking up my dry cleaning on the way home.

I asked the manager what his impressions of canister filters are.

"I don't touch them. Nitrate bombs - <poop> rots in them. Way to hard to keep clean. Those are antiques."

For their fish system they use big protein skimmers and sumps with filter fluff pre-filters for mechanical filtration. I asked him how frequently they clean or replace the fluff pre-filters? "All of the time. Need to keep the nitrates low."

Matt

Having had (and sort of continue to have) issues with Nitrates, I have done a fair amount of research and thinking about detritus, food, poop, etc. I think it is useful to compare salt water experience and practices with freshwater ones. While there are key differences, there are some basic things that have to be same.

From what I can tell the big salt water advantage is that they can protein skim relatively easily. It is possible, though difficult, to protein skim in freshwater. The koi people (and the koi world is a good one to occasionally look at - they keep very, very expensive and dirty fish so spend lots of time and money thinking about how to do it effectively) have figured out freshwater protein skimmers, they are big, loud and expensive so not terrible practical for in house aquariums.

Protein skimming combined with aggressive mechanical filtration (via filter socks) or biological filtration (via algae scrubbers) is likely pretty effective. I think the key on the mech side is that salt water folks change their socks aggressively like several times a week.

Lightly stocked tanks, skimming, mech filtration, and some amount of biological de-nitrification does the trick for them.

What can we learn?

Mechanical filtration accompanied by throwing out the detritus could matter in the freshwater world - but probably doesn't too much for us. Why? Well if you think about it detritus gets trapped in the filter. It does not immediately breakdown in NH3, it takes some time. For salt water people they are basically taking out a lot of detritus before it breaks down, by changing socks several times a week. Most freshwater people can't or won't do that (although I wish I could experiment with aggressive mech filtration and removal, would have to redo my sumps though). So virtually all detritus in a fresh water system eventually breaks down. This is why you don't need to clean mattenfilters, etc. You just plan for that to happen and fix it by changing water.

The point to me is that different processes are not happening, just that we are dealing with it differently. We do this as water changes are (relatively) cheap and simple in fresh water and most of our fish are not as lethally effected by NO3 as coral is so it makes sense to do so. It is not something fundamentally different that let's a mattenfilter go a year without cleaning, just a different approach.