sponge filter media

[avandss]

hey guys, the sponge filter media we use in our qt, can we reuse them?

i am talking about sponges i use in my aquaclears,

i am running 3 qt's and its starting to get wasteful and costly to discard of them every time, since i need to seed them in my display

granted they are exposed to copper, prazi, meds and disease, but if i was to dip them in a concentrated bleach bath for one hour and run them for 2 cycles in the washing machine with hot water would they not be clean/inert at that point?

it would be nice to have a few and when i get maybe 20 of them i recycle them!

 

[HumbleFish]

Personally, I would be paranoid about putting even a "cleaned" sponge back in the DT to re-seed. But why not just keep using them in QT as is?

 

[avandss]

Every time I start a new batch of qt I like to have a cycled tank, less ammonia problems and my usual praziq and copper don't really destroy the beneficial bacteria, however I always need new sponges in order to seed

I can't think of any other way to have a quick cycled tank

 

[HumbleFish]

What I'm saying is, why not just keep re-using the sponges you already have on the HOB in QT? The medications do not decimate the bacteria substantially. You can even clean out the QT, fill with freshly mixed SW if you like... just keep the sponge(s) wet and they'll still be "cycled". If you need to keep the sponges out of the tank for a few days to clean, just make sure they're in a bucket with circulating water. A tiny pinch of flake every 2-3 days will "feed" the bacteria in the absence of fish waste.

 

[avandss]

Ok i see what you mean, however the quality of livestock here is bad, and almost all the fish i get have brook, ich, flukes.... So i usually want to nuke the qt before reusing them

 

[Newsmyrna80]

I wouldn't bleach them. IME the bleach smell is really hard to get out of the sponge. You could just run them through a hot cycle in the washing machine as you suggested then thoroughly dry them.