Question: How often do you change your filter pads, if at all?

[sheena22]

Canister filters are great, give them a brief clean 2-3times a year and she's all good :smile:

WOW! im so glad you can get away with that long, I have a sera canister filter for koi carps and goldfish, and i cant get away with not cleaning it for 6 months lol! What brand of filter do you have? x

 

[Colinna]

Sheena, koi & goldfish have a huge dumpage rate so it's normal to have to clean the filter quite often, more often in fact than any normal tropical tank.

I rinse my filter media in tank water and only replace "parts" of it when it gets too shabby to clean. Your filter is a prime source of good bacteria so if you replace all the media every month you are getting rid of that good bacteria and could severely reduce water quality.

Things like carbon only have a short lifespan, hence you have to replace it if you want it to continue removing toxins efficiently. I don't use carbon in some of my tanks. If my tank is heavily planted with live plants I don't use carbon.

Good luck!!

 

[yellowpebble]

i know axolotls are dirty animals too, but how does their dumpage rate compare to a koi or goldfish?

 

[sheena22]

I know kois and goldfish are dirty buggers, id have to have the biggest filter in the world to sort them out!

Its weird though you always think to begin with tropical would be harder but goldfish are in terms of water quality

When i buy my filters they always come with lots of carbon , so i use it then chuck it really, you only really need it to cope with some extreme changes in chemistry before your tank is very established x

And I use plants in all my tanks, the plants dont last 1 day with the goldfish and koi they get eaten really quickly but atleast they enjoy them!

And yellowpebble, axies are nowhere as near as dirty as goldfish and koi at all i think axolotls are extremely clean compared to them, my tanks get a state if i dont clean them for 1 week but the axies tank doesnt get dirty at all, but i still clean it xx

 

[scooty16]

I haven't changed anything in my filter, but I do give it a good rinse and a little scrub with a clean toothbrush I put by for axie cleaning. My axie has always been fine and happy.

Pet shops do need to get more information when selling animals. I didn't know what an axolotl was until I saw one in the pet shop and bought it ona whim. I was told that an axolotl should be kept just like a goldfish by my pet store when I got Mr Bojangles. Being the trusting person I am I trusted them about this. So what did I do when I got it home? I treated it like a goldfish of course! I put it on GRAVEL, mixed the water so it was WARMISH and god knows what else.

It wasn't until I came across this forum and it's extreeemely helpful sites on how to actually look after axolotls. Since that day, I try not to take any advice off of any pet store owners.

My axie is now 10inches, living in a 5ft tank, on sand, with a filter and air stone, with loads of hides and plants, and in a nice controlled temperature, munching on a vareity of foods. Thank goodness for caudata.org!

My advice to anyone would be : RESEARCH BEFORE YOU BUY! wish I had of!

 

[sheena22]

Yeah see, were naturally trusting as humans but we cant be always, i had stones too and then saw she had eaten some and researched about it then ! Weve all made mistakes, the shop i got mine from tells me what axolotls are and everything with a sheet of paper but not so much USE SAND or anything else, pretty much goldfish but with sand x

 

[iChris]

I have no experience keeping goldfish and the only koi I have is the one tattooed on my right shoulder, but they are supposed to be messy. Not the one on my shoulder though. That one is very clean.

I change my filter pads when needed. Ie, when they clog up and no amount of squeezing and shaking them into buckets of tank water will unclog them. I do only change half at a time though.

I have a HOB filter on one of my tanks and the cartridges in that filter always clog completely up very fast.

 

[peter5930]

I change my filter pads when needed. Ie, when they clog up and no amount of squeezing and shaking them into buckets of tank water will unclog them. I do only change half at a time though.

When hand-washing doesn't work for me, I use a garden hose with a high pressure spray nozzle to clean my filter media. Letting it dry out and sit for a few weeks also helps to disintegrate the biofilm that's clogging it up.

 

[scooty16]

When hand-washing doesn't work for me, I use a garden hose with a high pressure spray nozzle to clean my filter media. Letting it dry out and sit for a few weeks also helps to disintegrate the biofilm that's clogging it up.

My dad used to do that all the time with our pond filters! Works a treat, and you see all the muck fly off!

 

[sheena22]

Not dechlorinated if its coming straight from a hose, so killing the bacteria living in the sponges, with a pond i can see how hard it is lol x

 

[scooty16]

When my ma and pa used to clean out the pond, they would put the hose in the sunlight whilst it filled the pond back up. I dont know why though. I was always too busy nosing at all the fish in 2 paddling pools they set to store them in while they cleaned it roud:

 

[peter5930]

Not dechlorinated if its coming straight from a hose, so killing the bacteria living in the sponges, with a pond i can see how hard it is lol x

The bacteria are also lost when old sponges are thrown away and replaced with new ones, and hosing them is just a last resort for when the only other option would be to throw them away.

 

[Jennewt]

I see a major problem with this entire conversation: we are talking about a variety of different kinds of filters and different kinds of sponges, pads, floss, etc. My original interpretation was that we were talking about the hang-on-back waterfall type filter with replacement pads. But we are also venturing on to canister filters, ponds, etc. There aren't any generalizations about cleaning/replacement that fit all types of filters. It now occurs to me (rather late in the game!) that we should have asked the person with the initial question what kind of filter they were talking about. No wonder we have so many different opinions!

 

[sheena22]

The bacteria are also lost when old sponges are thrown away and replaced with new ones, and hosing them is just a last resort for when the only other option would be to throw them away.

I have done this peter to my friends pond, i wasnt saying if it was a last resort just saying you shold try and avoid it if you can. Ponds are better than tanks anyways

 

[hacelepues]

Hey thanks everyone for your great answers. I was gone for the weekend so I hadn't been able to check the thread, but was surprised to see all the responses I got!
And I'm sorry I didn't clarify. I use a Top Fin, which hangs over the back of my tank.
It seems like buying a new one isn't necessary unless it's falling apart! This is good to know.
When I do get a new one, what measures do I have to take in order to not crash the tank?
This is what I'm most worried about as axis are quite sensitive little beings

Edit: I'm also going to add plant filtration into my system after I move in a few weeks. Just a fun fact. I'm excited!

 

[sheena22]

Ive had to google the filter, hangs on back one bit of sponge? x

 

[sheena22]

If it is just one piece of sponge, when it starts looking like its breaking down to avoid a nightmare situation which im sure wont happen you could cut the sponge up and put parts in with the new sponge to transfer bacteria, and tada! When you need to take the old stuff out you can, but no worries of a tank crash!

You can always add live bacteria to the tank, and there are various 'homing solutions' for bacteria to thrive in, they are like polymers you put on your sponge allow to dry and add bacteria, it gives more surface area for bacteria than your normal media/sponge.

Sorry if ive been too vague there if you need any more info post on here or PM me. who thought a filter could be SO confusing lol