How To Clean Sponge Filters The Right Way

No one can deny how important fish tank filters are to an aquarium set up. They provide the fish and other aquatic life with an environment that is healthy and clean, perfect for living and breeding. Together with an aquarium heater, they attempt to emulate the conditions that the fish originated from as much as possible.However, this is subject to the filters working well. Being dirty is one main reason why a filter will not function to its best capability. A filter that is dirty will eventually get clogged and therefore not allow a good flow of water to pass through its filter media.

Probably the one filter type that is most ignored by many fish breeders is the sponge filter. Generally considered a secondary filter and used mainly as a backup, sponge filters are in fact quite efficient, providing excellent mechanical filtration as well as biological. But because the debris gets trapped in the sponge, without proper cleaning they will eventually get clogged.

No matter what type of filter you will be cleaning, other than just getting the filter media unclogged, you must also do so without killing off beneficial bacteria colonies that inhabit the filter media. Therefore, never ever wash your sponge filter with direct tap water. The chlorine in the tap water is meant to kill any microrganisms and using it on the sponge will immediately destroy all bacterial colonies that you took so long to cultivate.

The correct way to clean the sponge is by using the aquarium water that it came from. How you do this is by arranging for your filter cleaning to coincide with your water change. After you have siphoned out some of the water from your fish tank, use it to wash the sponge in. By doing it this way, the colonies of bacteria will not be killed.

When cleaning the sponge, you do not need to scrub it. Too much scrubbing will spoil the outer layer of the sponge and over time will reduce its filtration capabilities. What you can do is just squeeze it a couple of times in the siphoned water to dislodge large debris from it. Then swirl it around the water a little to rid it off any debris that might still be clinging.

Sponge cleaning should be done no more than once in a month. If however you do notice that your sponge filters are getting clogged too often, you will have to check why this is happening as the cause of it may be detrimental to the fish health. Two major reasons why they could be clogging too much is because of overfeeding and too much fish waste. If it is due to overfeeding, then control the quantity of food that your give to your fish so that the excess food does not raise the nitrate level in your aquarium.

If however it is due to too much fish waste, then you might have too many fish for the volume of your aquarium to support and you should think about getting a larger tank or simply reducing the quantity of fish you have in that aquarium.

These are the proper ways to ensure that your sponge filter is cleaned and cared for properly. Practicing good cleaning methods will ensure not only that your fish tank water is always pristine and healthy but all that your sponge filter will last for a very long time.