Filter Floss: Use and Change Schedule

[dmw913]

Ok, now that the Apex is on order, I am wondering if you all use/love filter floss as much as I do? I think I love it because it's easy maintenance and you can see the junk in it which makes me feel like I'm doing something active to clean my tank, same as the gunk in my skimmer cup - oddly satisfying. My questions:

1. Do you use floss? If so, just cheapo stuff from the craft store or something made specifically for aquatics?
2. Where in your tank do you employ said floss?
3. How often do you change it?

My answers:

1. As stated above - I love filter floss. I use the cheap craft store version.
2. I put in the top section of the filter caddy so that the overflow hits it first.
3. I change one of the floss sections each day so they are in the tank 48 hours each.

Looking forward to responses! :fish2:

 

[Cincyreef]

I use the polyfilter from Walmart, that you can find in the crafts section. I was using the polyfilter from the LFS, but it gets expensive. I change it out twice a week, and I'm running it in the top section of an intank media basket in the second section of the rear chambers of a biocube.

 

[homer1475]

I change mine twice a week. El cheapo stuff from the craft store, for a throw away item like this, you could spend quite a lot with the expensive stuff from the LFS in very little time. Top chamber of the media basket where it gets all the water coming in.

 

[soulpatch]

use cheap stuff from craft store as well and it resides top of my media rack both to clean water and to keep my skimmer return silent. I change it out about once or twice a week

 

[12_egg_Omelett]

I change mine three times a day right now. But I'm dosing hydrogen peroxide and manually pulling bryoposis and dinos.

 

[dmw913]

Ug, Omelett. Sounds like a pain for you right now. I'm going to read up on peroxide dosing. Sounds interesting and a little scary to be honest!

 

[12_egg_Omelett]

You know in a 12 gallon it's not bad. I think doing that three times a day takes me 10 minutes total. From what I read shows 1ml/10 gallons but I've been seeing great growth doing it as often as I have, been targeting stuff and also pulling stuff out at the same time. PE is still great on higher end acros color is still kick *** and I've even seen some growth on some LPS throwing new heads.

 

[soulpatch]

peroxide is like a miracle cure for our tanks. I have used it to beat back bryopsis with great success. It IS harmful to some creatures in our tanks like fancy shrimp so if you have those you need to use small doses like 1ml/10gal. If you either do not care about those shrimp or you do not have them then you can go higher dose . I am currently dosing 2ml/10gal with no ill effects on my cleaner shrimp.

The best method though is to take the rock out and dip. It has no ill effects on 99% of corals though you would not want to dip a clam and a few other things. The dip eradicates the algae almost instantly and is awesome.

Though you will need to step up the skimmer and the floss exchanges but totally worth it. If you look at my build thread a couple pages from the end is a walkthrough on the dipping and you can see in the pics the difference it made.

 

[dmw913]

Totally fascinating!!! I will check out the build thread to further educate myself. Do you primarily use this method as a way to deal with current problem or as a preventative?

 

[12_egg_Omelett]

I haven't seen any ill effect yet. I would use it to spot treat problem areas that a cuc isn't doing a good job dealing with.

 

[soulpatch]

The peroxide attacks the algae but not the cause for it. IE if your phosphates are high it wont do anything about that.

Preventative would be more like running GFO or having a refugium set up to get the food the algae needs before it can start to grow.

 

[dmw913]

So, preventative is simply good tank husbandry and peroxide if you get into trouble.

 

[12_egg_Omelett]

You could also try feeding sps live food. I've noticed when I feed live food I don't have an issue or anything however when I feed oyster feast and dose Aqua vitro fuel I can start to see a reappearance of cyno/Dino/algae.

 

[soulpatch]

You could also try feeding sps live food. I've noticed when I feed live food I don't have an issue or anything however when I feed oyster feast and dose Aqua vitro fuel I can start to see a reappearance of cyno/Dino/algae.

The binding agents in a lot of frozen foods have phosphates though you would have to really feed quite a bit for it to have an impact.

 

[12_egg_Omelett]

I have a little 12 gallon haha

 

[12_egg_Omelett]

Here she is.

 

[dmw913]

Woot for the JBJ with the hood taken off! My husband made me sell mine when I moved up to the Nuvo Fusion. Booooo!

 

[12_egg_Omelett]

How's the tank doing these days?

 

[dmw913]

@12, thanks for asking. I'll go put a new post on my build thread now.