Pods in my filter sock

zKRYt

New member
This may be a stupid question, but is just par for the course with using a filter sock?

I'm currently cycling my tank but I do have chaeto in the sump with amphypods and copepods. I rinsed my filter sock a few minutes ago, just to get some of the leftover sand silt out of the tank, and there were 10 of them in there. I feel bad having to flush them out with the waste and am not sure if there is a good way to remove them; I feel like I'd crush them with my tweezers.

I've also been going back and forth about whether I want to keep the sock or just run without it, and this just adds another reason for me not to keep it. I don't want to kill the things that are supposed to add to the whole system.

Any thoughts or suggestions about this?
 
Filter socks like everything else in this hobby will have its pluses and minuses. I'm going to stop using mine, as long as water clarity remains then I'll leave them out and if I have to will run them on an as needed basis.
 
Its par for the course..
and yes.. you really don't need a filter sock..

I'd only recommend using them as needed say if you just threw in a bunch of sand and need to filter it out quickly or during maintenance while blowing off rocks,etc..
 
I always use filter socks and they get full of pods. When I first started using socks I would put the pods back in the sump but as the months went on I noticed pod population growing exponentially and more and more getting caught in the socks. Now I just don't worry about putting the ones that get caught in the sock back in. Pod population has not decreased at all as far as I can tell.
As long as my Nitrates stay low I will keep running socks. This tank has been running 1.5 years and nitrates have never gotten past 10ppm(or at least not when I have tested).
 
I've taken it out for now. I have a finer 100 micron sock in the mail for collecting more of the silt...I feel like that is going to be all I'm doing outside of testing while this tank cycles; blasting the sump to remove the fine particles. In the meantime, there is nothing to collect other than what the skimmer will pick up, but at least the pods can live in peace for a bit :lmao:

Thanks for your help! Appreciate all the responses.
 
i run a filter sock, change it out every 5 days. I know it wont negatively affect your pod population, heck a manadrin eats more than your sock can catch any day and tanks with them still have pods.

reason i use the sock is every 5 days my sock goes from white to nasty brown.
so it has to be taking stuff out of the water, and isnt that what we want
yes its annoying to clean but i have like 20 and let the extra ones drip dry in garage over sink until i am ready to clean a bunch at once
 
Wait till you start finding brittle star fish in the socks. I try using a toothbrush to get them out but for some reason I think they smell terrible when I mess with them. That alone makes me just want to toss them in washer with the sock.
 
Huh, for like the first week of running a filter sock I found a dozen or so mini brittle stars in the sock.

Now I never find any, but I can still see them all over the place in the rockwork in the tank.

Any reason they'd stop wandering around and getting sucked into the intake?
 
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