Washing Your Bio
- Thread starter benzjamin13
- Start date
You want to taste my wife's coffee. I'm beginning to think that she uses this very recipe!
The only argument I could see for using established tank water would be if you are changing locations and your Source water has very different chemistry than your old location and the fish will need some time to acclimate
Hello; I clean bio-media because it gets gunked up and needs a good cleaning. I can take care of all these concerns you list with a dip for a while in some PRIME solution, right? Or put the cleaned bio-media back in during a WC when PRIME (SAFE) is used anyway.
Same as a few years ago when I had to break down all my tanks one at a time and treat everything with a Clorox solution. Used PRIME in the newly set up tanks to deal with the residue.
The logic is PRIME (SAFE) or other treatment is good enough to deal with new tap water during a WC then it ought to be fine for any residue after I rinse my bio-media with a hose.
Your posts about water plant chemical residues in pipes are informative and I am not quibbling about these things. I figure you are right on top of these things. I am glad you exist and have been willing to learn about such things. Also that you are willing to spend time and energy typing out the information on this forum.
What you are asking about is residue after the fact, what I am discussing is disinfectant residual prior to the act of hosing it down. Prime is a reducing agent, so yes it will reduce any disinfectant residual after the fact.
All I am saying is this, unless one owns a crystal ball, they should not be attempting to give others advice on their tap water. Otherwise we are back to the same old question where someone asks how much Prime/Safe they should be using to treat their 100 gallon tank when performing a 50% water change. I can only answer what is reasonably safe to do in my neck of the woods.
Considering the global membership of MFK it only makes sense that not all of us would have identical tap water, and/or use identical methods to clean our bio-media.
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I commented on that in the recent following thread.
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...fish-that-was-delayed-during-shipping.712330/
I think that the biggest thing one has to pay attention to with water parameter changes is a sudden change in TDS values, some species of fish can be very sensitive to a major shift in TDS, especially when going from high TDS to low TDS. Doing so can cause osmoregulatory stress, often referred in the past as pH shock. Outside of that I wouldn't worry about source water either.
Thanks RD.My first pet fish was also 50+ years ago, I have made a lot of mistakes over the years, but I try to never repeat the same mistake twice.
Water from an established tank is little more than dirty water. The "good" bacteria would be in such a small quantity that it's contribution to a new cycle would be next to nothing. Many times over the years I have set up new tanks with 100% de-chorinated tap water, and a well seasoned established filter. (or borrowed media from my various filters) In some cases this was on new tanks, with no decor, and no substrate, (qt tanks, or temp holding tank) so 100% of the bacteria was in the filter itself. As long as the bio-media is large enough in quantity or sq footage, and established enough to handle the incoming bio-load of new fish & food, no problems. The result is an instantly cycled tank. It wasn't that many years ago that people would jump all over me on forums when I described this method of instantly cycling a tank. Many people felt that I should be using dirty water from an established tank. Many probably still do.
Unless I have some kind of specific reason for doing so, I don't take readings of any kind on my tanks.
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Jeff, I have no idea what you are referring to? The topic is regarding cleaning bio-media, to which disinfectant type, residual levels of that disinfectant, and contact time all come into play. No one has said that what you personally do, at your location, with your tanks, is wrong. I can only assume that you are seeing things that aren't there.
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Amy - it appears that your seasonal average is approx. 1 ppm of chlorine, with a seasonal range of .6 - 2.05 ppm. In my books, 1 ppm chlorine is pretty low, but personally I would test at my taps on a regular basis just to follow the high/low swings at user end. I would assume that during heavy rains/storms is when the disinfectant residuals climb to the max of 2 ppm. So that gives you an idea of where to start, but with chlorine how far away you are from where those numbers are being taken, could vary the chlorine residual at your taps quite a bit. At your taps, you could have a much lower residual. Impossible to say without testing. Again, this explains why some folks can get away with rinsing under the tap without any noticeable difference in their nitrification cycle. As long as nothing changes in disinfectant type or quantity, you are good to go.
Hello; Ok let me try one more time to differentiate how what you keep referring to from my point. Wherever in the world a member may be I figure they can dose their source water with the proper amount of something such as prime for a WC or for any other reason. What ever that dose may be ought to work on any small residue that remains in a batch of recently hose washed bio-media.
I get that you are dead set against using a hose to rinse bio-media with tap water. I am actually a bit pleased to learn there are several of us that do it that very way. I do not think there is any real way what I have been posting can be considered to have been giving others advice on their tap water.
Jeff, again, I have no idea WTF you are talking about. I am not dead set against anything, except people offering one size fits all type advice. It has nothing to do with using a hose to rinse bio-media. Perhaps instead of fixating on hoses, go back and re-read what has been posted. The BIG picture here seems to have zoomed right over your head.
Hello; Interesting that you state the issue well enough in post 8037672 but have later lost the gist by post 8037777. As you stated there can be some chlorine or chloramine in the tap water before and during the time it is coming out of a water hose. After such a rinse I imagine the small amount of water still clinging to the bio-media can have a residue of the chlorine and or chloramine. The WTF I am talking about is that any concerns about such a residue can be fixed with a bit of something such as PRIME.
Seems incredible that this is so confusing. Seems so simple.
