I have owned an Aqua Clear 500 for 1 and half years. it has the original sponge and charcoal and whitebag of ammonia remover. Today the charcoal bag and amonnia bag had biodegraded and broken so I chucked them away..
My question is can I just run the AC 500 with the sponge or should i buy the other media bags??? or is there anyhting else you can put in there instead of the original bags.
hey,
You can run th aquaclear 500 without carbon and ammonia remover , but i think it would be in your best interest to run them. If you dont want to purchase the aquaclear media can can buy carbon and some ammogon and put in a stocking or something.
Aquaman69
With my AC500 all I've ever run with the sponge is bio balls. I place the bio balls under the sponge and they sit there no problems.
If I ever feel the need to use carbon (suspected toxins or to rid medication from tank) I have a new carbon insert ready. It depends on you really as to whether you want to run carbon permenantly or not?
As far as the ammo rid thing goes, if you need one of them then something is wrong with your tank. A fully cycled tank doesn't need it :)
My best recommendation is try to stick clear of using sponges in filters. all they are good for is clogging them up. Just use bio balls or ceramic rings. This also filters the water better as there is usually more surface area for bacteria to grow on.
Also i'd stay away from carbon unless there is some sort of crap in the water. When carbon reaches it holding limit it will spew all the crap back into the water and start the cycle again.
Joff
[quote:1e51430b97]When carbon reaches it holding limit it will spew all the crap back into the water and start the cycle again.
[/quote:1e51430b97]
hmmm,
I have never heard of it [i:1e51430b97]releasing[/i:1e51430b97] what it has drawn from the water, and then starting the cycle again......
I thought it just got to its holding limit and once it was reached it was considered useless. :?
yeah once its reached capacity it releases the toxins thats why it has to be changed regularly.
Joff
Sounds like a good idea using the bio balls. I was just on the age of aquariums web site and I am not sure what size bio balls i need and how many.
Can somebody recommend the best size and quality ones from Ben and let me know how many I will need to run underneath the sponge as I will place the bio ball underneath and the sponge on top.
Thank you
These http://www.aquariumproducts.com.au/prod215.htm are the ones I use with a few of the larger 40mm balls as well. Without counting my guess at how many I'm using is around 20? maybe 30. Less if you get the larger ones.
I found these particular balls are better than the one with spikes because they don't clog up with the crap like the spikey ones do :wink:
I put ceramic noodles in with mine. This filter pushes close to 2000lph so not much drama with it clogging up using a sponge .
I use cermaic noodles in mine, you could also try matrix(seachem product.)
Frenchy :D