Do I rinse filter floss before putting in tank?

[cfeist]

Sure it works, but not all of us are reef nazis.....sad to say but 60% of the reefers out there are super lazy and have zero knowledge. I work at a LFS and see it all day. I get used to recommending not using it because of how many people just arent responsible enough to keep up with it.

 

As long as you are committed, it will not cause any problems. Forget once and you will have problems though.

 

Funny... I say that 75% of the people that work at LFS are the ones lacking the proper knowledge and are recommending things that aren't necessary or are simply wrong. If I would have listened to people at LFS I would have spent 100x more money and probably wouldn't be running as smoothly.

 

I hardly think people that use filter floss and change it one or two times per week are 'reef nazis'. It literally takes 2 minutes and with all of the crap that it catches and keeps out of the chambers, it's hard to argue not to use it and simply forgetting to do to any regular maintenance like water changes etc. will cause problems, filter floss changes are the least of your worries. JMO

[H20]

Filter Floss is great stuff. No need to rinse it first. Just change it every few days and you will have no problems.

[rhunter513]

I agree, but the problem with particles getting stuck in a sponge or floss is that they cannot be eaten and taken care of by the micro fauna in the system. Amphipods play the largest role in the CUC, in my opinion. They cant eat the small stuff once it becomes trapped in an inaccessable spot. Its up to you, the keeper, to remove it instead of your CUC. You might forget, they never do.

 

Point being is that a tank will run 100% fine with no floss or sponge, have crystal clear water, and will be one less thing you have to do to your tank. After you have tanks for a few years you start trying to simply stuff and get rid of the riff raff.....floss and filters on reef tanks are nothing more than than.

 

+1 I totally agree. Ask any long time reef keeping guru and they'll tell you mechanical and chemical media is not needed and will cause problems. Now nano's might be a different story. It does come down to what works for you but you need to be flexible and willing to try different things 6 months from now if there are problems. For my tank, 24g nanocube, I don't use any mechanical filter media but I do use two small bags of carbon(chamber two). Each week I vac out the rear filter chambers and pull out a bunch of crap (mostly uneaten food) and rinse out my carbon bags in old tank water. My water is also crystal clear. I have a very low bio-load right now and I have never read nitrates. I tried floss early on and just found it to be a PITA, it was clogging my return pump and hydor flo and getting into my display. So I swtiched to using one small sponge after water changes for 12 hours but now I don't do that anymore. I do use a crap load of floss and carbon in my freshwater planted and cichlid tanks.

 

Edit - sorry to rant here but... Most of us come from a freshwater backgrond where we use the 3 filter set-up, mechanical, chamical and biological. Its different in reef tanks - more natural. Our live rock is the main backgroup of our filtration being our biological filter, next comes chemical filtration in the form of a protein skimmer or in the case of nano's weekly water changes, then our cuc is our mechanical filter. The most important element in our reef filtration system aside from the live rock is the proper amount of water flow.

[SeeDemTails]

Funny... I say that 75% of the people that work at LFS are the ones lacking the proper knowledge and are recommending things that aren't necessary or are simply wrong.

 

Sadly I agree 100%.

 

And I am a reef nazi!...Meersalz en kalkwasser!...Sorry thats the only german I know.

 

Thats why I strive to only give proper advice and recommend necessary products. I feel filter floss is mainly unnecessary, thats why I usually don't recommend it!

[shiveley]

"Ask any long time reef keeping guru and they'll tell you mechanical and chemical media is not needed and will cause problems"

 

What??? That's just a ridiculous statement; even public aquariums use filtration (including protein skimmers) for their systems. I can't think of one respectable member of my local club that doesn't use some form of filtration, and I'm referring to some incredible tanks that have been maintained successfully for years upon years. I'm curious as to the "gurus" referred to, because as far as I know, true gurus such as Steve Tyree, Eric Bourneman, Sanjay Joshi, Charles Delbeek, and Julian Sprung all use either chemical or mechanical filtration of some sort.

[rhunter513]

Does anybody know what the "berlin method" is? Here check this out http://www.berlinmethod.com/overview.html The bottom line is that nutrients that you trap in a mechanical media in filtration system will get broken down to nitrates. Does anybody think that is a ridiculous statement? So if you are keeping that media clean then you probably won't have problems.

[SeeDemTails]

A nice skimmer and some good power heads are all you need for a successful reef.

 

K.I.S.S.!

 

We are putting a 175 gal reef display in the wall at the shop, we are thinking about calling it the Berlin Wall lol.

[StevieT]

A nice skimmer and some good power heads are all you need for a successful reef.

 

K.I.S.S.!

 

 

and nano-reef.com

[qbical]

good thing i read this thread lol

i was just looking at my filter pad yesterday and thinkin "man i prob really should change that" but didnt hahaha

i will do that today, i just forgot i already had a bunch cut out so it takes almost no effort at all. i really dont have any life in my tank other then a cpl corals and the CUC. i kind of trained myself to stop hawking the tank so i dont go overstock it since it is only a month old. lol

man damned if u do and damned if u dont