I had to replace the cartridge during my cycle. what's the Worst I should expect?

Question

I recently asked my local LFS store whether I could replace my nexx filter cartridge during my cycle, since It was in the very last stages but not absolutely done. More so I have provided many places for the bacteria to live, such as: two sponge filters and two bags of seachem de-nitrate in the nexx canister filter.Mind you I didn't change both modules because I feared losing too much bacteria. The reason I decided to change the filter was I had barely any ammonia, 0 nitrites and,plenty of nitrates showing up. The nitrates were rising a little too fast and I had noticed all the crap building up in the filter which was probably causing excess ammonia and therefore extra nitrates. So how badly was I misled and how bad will the reprecushions be?

Answer 1

http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm

After you read this you will understand that you can get rid of the carbon as most

on the forum only use it for removing medications from the water after using

them. Then as you have multiple bio arias you likely didn't hurt it much but just

slight. The cycle works off the ammonia so it's counterproductive to remove it.

The Nitrates are only removed by water changes. If you change 50% you will

drop the nitrates by 50% like from a 1 to a .5

Try Purigen instead of carbon if you feel you would like something like that in

your filter. Don't change all of those bio arias at the same time and like

sponges or pads should be rinsed in the water you took from the tank into

a bucket.

The readings you were getting were showing that the cycle is complete.

But now you need to add fish so the bacteria won't die from lack of what

they need (the ammonia from the fish waste).

Answer 2

Hi



OK did some poking around to see how I can help you. Many people have this issue. I did not. In all the tanks I have I don't have excess nitrates I actually have to dose them back in for my plants. :) Not sure how people have excess nitrates, but I guess you do and others do too. Here is what I came up with:



1. Take your bio/black stars located at the top of the canister and give them a swish in aquarium water. If you are afraid that you will take too much bacteria then only do 50% of them. Wait a few weeks or months and then do the other half. You might have spoiled toxins in there if you are getting really high readings.



2. If you have APIs testing kit make sure to shake it really well without loosing any. Apparently it clumps up and gives you over the head nitrates.



3. Keep doing water changes to keep them down; this is by far the most natural way to get rid of excess nitrates. Add a floating plant like duckweed or Frogbit or Salvinia C.



4. Check your tap water make sure your tap is not showing any nitrates right off the bat.



Do you have sand substrate by any chance? If you do swish it around and release the anaerobic pockets of gas (these can screw up your readings).



5. I am not sure, but other, more experienced hobbyists, say that if you make your water more "soft" more acidic, your high nitrates will stabilize? Not sure, but it is worth checking out.

I would prefer a constant PH and not a fluctuating one, however, you can give it a go depending on what kind of fish you have. Some people use lime stone to keep their water more soft. I don't know much about this, but you can poke around and see if there is any truth to this.



Sorry not much help. I never had this issue, therefore I don't know. It might be your tank size though. In a bigger tank nitrates would become stable (say to the 40pm range).



The filtration is not the issue because you have plenty of it. Nitrates are like the excess nutrients in the tank. No matter how much filtration you have you will have high nitrates.



Your cycle is there, your tank is processing ammonia, but you just have too much nutrients.



The cycling process is bacteria growing to eat/transform toxic elements such as ammonia and nitrite into a less harmful element nitrate right? But once nitrites are converted to nitrates, nitrates can't be further broken down thus called excess nutrients. This can only be fixed by constant water changes or upgrading to a bigger tank or re-homing some fish.



Can some one help me explain this better? Hopefully you guys understand what I am trying to say and can't re-word it to make it understandable. Sorry sometimes I just can't write what I want to say.



As for your filter pads that contain activated carbon. Do you know if your activated carbon pads absorb nitrates? Some do and some don't. I can send a letter to them (API) asking this as I am curious.

Answer 3

No big deal if you have other biomedia in there. You loose a few bacteria, but not a large percentage, the tank will still be cycled even if you only have 75% of them left. But just take cartridge out, rinse the snot out of it in old tank water, (or at least de-chlorinated tap water) and jam it back in.



Don't worry about high nitrate during the cycle process, it can go up to 100 if you have no fish in there, and nothing bad will happen. Then just water changes as needed to get the level down again. You can change 90% of the water after the cycle has finished and nothing bad happens.



Ian

Answer 4

The gunk that builds up in the filter media can easily be washed out in the old tank water during water changes. Unless the filter media is falling apart there is no reason to replace it as its only wasting money.



You may get a ammonia spike but it sounds like you have other places for bacteria too so you may not get one.

Answer 5

changing a pad in a filter with a lot of other biologic filter materials is not a problem.



stop overfeeding if the pad is getting dirty fast.



that's it, no repercussions



note: do proper water changes with a simple siphon cleaner to reduce nitrates, cleaning your pad had little to no effect on nitrates.