Carbon fish tank filter - replacement

silkyuk9

I have a 62 litre fish tank with 4 small fish im using an interpet filter with the pf2 carbon filter sponges. I generally clean the sponges every 2 or 3 weeks in tank water but how often should I replace the carbon filter sponge?

Froglet

I wouldn't bother replacing the carbon filter,use a normal pad instead.The carbon is really only useful when removing treatments after using medications.I hope you have tropicals in there and not goldfish or you will very soon find they are overcrowded and will become stunted and sick.

If they ARE common goldfish then the best you can do is find someone willing to let you put them in their pond,but only next spring,it's way too cold now.Then you could find some nice small tropicals,add a heater and away you go.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

carbon only lasts about 3-5 weeks depending on flow of filter (fast or medium slow) your cleaning the filters too often aswell even though in tank water your loosing the best part of effective good bacteria in the pads. if you pads are blocking up so quickly your overfeeding or you filter isnt good enough for the size of tank and my advice if this is the case of the latter is to double the amount water flow capacity to what you have now, for e.g 60 litrs per min to 160 per min you can always adjust the flow output of many filters to you likeing so the current isnt too strong for the fish so upgrading your filter maybe a option to investigate..

my prefured set up was (in an external filter)noodles in the first baskets beads in the second baskets normal pads in the top baskets and a polishing pad ontop for crystal clear water.

many internal filters will have just pads, and this didnt cut it for me although i always had one intank for back up, it was mainly a power head to flow water round the tank and stop silt sinking and sticking to the bottom of the tank.

fish are fine to be fed every other day not every morning and every night this is what i always did with my fish although i had a MBU (pronounce maboo) puffer, he required a daily feed of something like cockle in shell, prawn, shrimp etc and always took out carcuss after he fed.