Can You Clean Aquarium Filters In Tap Water?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- #aquarium #nature #science
Tap water. Aquarium Filters. What's true and what's false? Let Bob Moss sort through the mess and tell you the no nonsense answer to this often asked question.
There is a myth on social media that you need to clean filters in tank water to prevent the chlorine in tap water from removing and killing all the beneficial bacteria. Well, the idea that cleaning a filter in chlorinated water destroys the beneficial bacteria was tested. The test proved beyond any doubt that chlorine levels even two to four times what is found in tap water have no effect on the beneficial bacteria.
From Swiss Tropicals, the supplier of Poret Foam:
“It does not matter if you use cold or chlorine-treated water! The often repeated notion that this process would kill all the filter organisms is nonsense, because the residual chlorine concentration in drinking water is too low to kill them all. The microorganisms are quite well-protected in the slime of the biofilm.”
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Sources that prove me right:
aquariumscience.org/index.php/6-9-tap-water-rinsing/
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0043135402001690
www.researchgate.net/publication/21373491_Bacterial_nitrification_in_chloraminated_water_supplies
I can find more if you don't believe any of those as well.
I'm so glad people can be real about the concentrations of chlorine in the water.
now can we live in a society that acknowledges letting water sit instead of dumping dechlorinates in them
Oh that's another thing I could make fun of. Thanks for the idea haha
@ZaneofAustin I am going to be real about my response to your comment and I will take a guess and hopefully the need to leave tap water in a bucket for a day or more is that chlorine will gas off over time to be safe without dumping PRIME , SAFE or any dechlorinator with or w/out aloe vera . Pretty sure that was a long but accurate statement to make . So the reason for my addressing it is if you have a water supply that uses chloramine which in your supply may not be applied, but it will chloramine gas off or will it still be in the bucket as long as. Thanks Bob Moss for everything you and @ZaneoAustin
I just found your channel! I love the aesthetic of your tanks. I will have to go look around your videos for content! thanks, Todd
Welcome and thanks so much! I have a pretty large library of older videos and even MORE if you become a channel member hahaha
Nice one, this one was great! I've always cleaned all of my filters just under warmish tap water, never had any issues. Just treat the tank when returning them. Plus our tanks have millions of bacteria colonized all over our aquarium's and not just in the filters. Swap in a brand new sponge on your filter that hasn't been cycled yet, and as long as the tank is healthy the bacteria will colonize the new sponge quickly. Science Rules!
The only other channel I see making any sense about this topic is KGTropicals.
I use both methods to rinse the filter media. If I use tap water I usually had some extra bacteria just to be safe. I know I really don’t need to but my OCD tells me otherwise 😂 Great video!
I know the feeling. I usually dose stability no matter what incase I did something bad lol
Excellent video. I've long been amused by the notion that rinsing filter media under tap water would kill off the bacteria. And I've wondered whether those would believe this would allow a surgeon to reuse the same sponges on them that he had used on the last patient on the theory that rinsing the sponges under tap water would sterilize them.
it's kind of crazy how far this myth has proliferated.
Great video...when I started keeping fish and shrimp again I was rinsing my filter off in a bucket of dechlorinated water...now I just rinse them off in my sink...I tested my tap for chlorine and chloramine and found very lil amounts of either one so no more buckets and haven't had any problems since
Saves a good bit of effort and the pressure from the tap really helps knock the crap out of the sponges.
@@BobMossNanoTanks work smart not hard
Goodness. Thank you. I hate when people act bright and tell us nonsense... thank you!!!
My pleasure. it's also one of my pet peeves. Some people see subscriber count as a sign of knowledge.
Finally, someone is talking about it. Honestly, even if I know this, I still feel uncomfortable to do it, even if I do it. I'm always scared that my shrimps will die haha
Thx for the information. It helps
Glad it helped!
I'm a bit relieved to hear this. I'm not an expert Fish owner, but I love my little Betta fish. I feel terrible because I have rinsed my filters every week with the sink hose and I rinse it intensely until the filter looks clear. If it looks really dirty I've even used hot water. :( I didn't know I wasn't supposed to and I feel like I've been messing up the bacteria all this time. I thought doing so made the filter more effective and would keep the water cleaner. I feel like such a dummy now. My poor Fish Thanks for your video.
You're not a dummy, it's good you're learning and it's never too late to change your routine!
Sponge filters get cleaned while i do a water change every 6 months like clock work. The sponges we use today are garbage. The sponges we used 20 years ago where supreme. And older fish keepers still are using it today. Talk about cheap sponge 😂. But its always a safe practice to clean 1 sponge of 2 every 6 months or bio load in the tank. Always re use tank water if you can.
every 6 months like clockwork made me lol! I do mine probably once a month because the snail poo starts to clog up the pores.
You better watch those snails. Its one of the reasons smaller tanks with less water can fail. Over populated snail colony’s. Now i switched to Malaysian snails, they syphon through dirt keeping it turned over for me. Rams horns snails will be getting there own container to breed and multiply and easy to catch and sell. Also good food for assassins , loaches etc. cheers bob
Just found this channel. You are very informative and funny.
Thanks so much! Hope you like the older stuff as well haha
Maybe I'm thinking into this too much, but say I've got my aquarium(s) set to 78-80 degrees Fahrenheit, would it be best to get the tap water to around roughly the same temperature to rinse?
I was one of the ones who thought tap definitely couldn't be used, but glad to learn otherwise! I generally always rinsed in old tank water but I felt like the tank water was so disgusting it didn't seem like I was "rinsing" anything. I had rinsed my sponges that attached to my HOB intake in tap water before, but did that rarely and was always worried about it. Definitely going to be changing some things up now and keeping in mind *contact time!!* ! :- )
Great job on the video Bob Moss! You also got me dying for some cheetos right now.
Yes, you want the tap water as close in temperature to the tank as you can manage. A couple degrees isn't a big deal but using only the cold or only the hot tap will probably cause issues.
I also want some more Cheetos.
I used to be meticulous about tank water only until I did a bit of thinking and reading and came to the same conclusions. If I need to keep filter media wet, it goes into tank water otherwise I am happy to rinse it in tap water. 11 tanks and 2 years later, no issues.
The pressure from the tap is the only way to actually get sponges clean sometimes!
The only time you gotta worry is if you live right next to a pump station.. Often time the water filtration plant is miles away from the actual location it services. So they pump it high with chlorine there and by the time it flows down hill to you the chlorine has reached a much lower dose. But if you live near a pump house this location may add an additional dose of chlorine because they dont want you to have such low chlorine that you might get sick. If youre wondering you can call your municipality and ask for your locations chlorine residual.
Even then, it's probably not a high enough concentration to do anything. If you can drink it out of the tap, you can rinse your filter media in it.
Granted I have a spring fed well but have always rinsed my filter media at the tap. No issues yet. I think you’re onto something there with people maybe using water that’s too hot.
I can crash a cycle really quick with my steaming water hahaha
Did you check the pudding? That's where they hide the proof.
i has no pudding
Does the left over tap water in the filter harm the fish
Since I do this during water changes, I am dosing dechlorinator anyway for the new water. I don't think it's enough to do anything but I always dose dechlorinator when doing this
I rinse my filters in Toronto tap water, haven't had any issues.
oh goodness. if the bacteria survives that, it can survive anything!
same measures 0 with discus and 397 dirty fish :P i also guess they just establis more in other stuff to make up for it if it does remove some
Most of the bacteria actually lives in the substrate, anyway.
FF is comin for ya!!!!!🤣😂🤣 all kidding aside spot on the contact time and i would bet extreme temps would hurt it. 🙂👍EDIT -been rinsing in tap water since the 70s all my tanks have done great over these years, thats all the proof i need.
Lol bring it on. I read more studies in my sleep than that guy has ever done in his entire life haha.
Great video...did you eat the whole bag lmao
It was gone by the next day lol
@@BobMossNanoTanks it was hilarious...very good touch
@@zoltan303stackin gotta keep things light hearted!
It’s not possible and all my fish are magically fine cause there’s a ton of bacteria in the substrate.
I was given a murky water in aquarium set up…. Ugh. I have got 2 beautiful sucker fish, I aquatic white frog and some guppies. I have no idea how to go about cleaning up this mess of a tank? I declorinated the water I add to the tank due to evaporation, netting and removing this terrible bloom I also inherited with this tank, there is still muck that is laying on top of the rocks here and there, have changed the filter with new filter twice now after a quick rinse, and believe me the filters have been used and ick both times, I just stumped on how to make this tank look like a beautiful normal looking aquarium.?.?.? My frog used to dance a lot daily and now she’s barely active, it’s very sad, the sucker fish are very active and they seem to be showing concern to the frogs recent behavior of low activity. Serious, they are besties and this is also sad. Can anyone help with the issues I’ve mentioned in my post today, please. P.H.
I hope I am understanding this properly. Murky water is usually a bacteria bloom because the filter cannot process the bioload. The best advice I have is to dose Prime every other day and let your filter work. Are you actually swapping the filter media completely? If so, this is slowing down the process.
Are you getting any ammonia, nitrite or nitrate readings?
@@BobMossNanoTanks
Hi, thanks so much for your reply, I’m really appreciative of you taking time out, means a lot😊
So there was a bad bloom going on when I received this tank, I was about to go insane trying to figure this out, I kept cleaning the bloom off plants, large rocks, boiled these, ended up eventually throwing all the plants away, I did not know anything about ammonia or nitrate stuff, ugh, so probably be a good idea to go pick up testers for this? Sounds important for sure. Can I ask you another question real quick? I would like to know if I take enough of the water in this tank after I test it, can I then transfer the frog and sucker fish into the original water and just start fresh with a complete tank clean and clean with water only, then dechlorinate the new water that will go in this cleaned tank and re- introduce the frog and sucker fish back in after the water comes to temperature? I’m so worried about the fish and frog that I just can’t sit still with the thought of losing them, again I truly do appreciate your time and advice you’ve sent already.
@@BobMossNanoTanks
P.S. my filter system went out so I ordered new set up and got it next day, new system and I have plenty of filters as well,
@pennyhughes513 I hope they were fake plants! and yes, the API master test kit is a must have when starting out. After a few years you don't need it as much but for beginners, it provides a lot of useful information.
So, this is actually an interesting topic. Short answer is no, not really. You can get away with it if you plan to dose Prime every other day for the first month while your cycle establishes itself. I suggest you take a look at my aquarium cycling video for more on that. Aquarium co-op has a great video where he explains it using M&Ms as well.
Basically, the nitrifying bacteria lives on surfaces, not in the water. The water is semi-important because the animals will be used to the pH and TDS (water hardness) but for a lot of fish, you can actually get away with 80-100% water changes as long as you match the temperature, pH and TDS to not shock them. The best thing for you to do when you have a bloom like this is to leave things alone. There is not enough bacteria to process the bioload, so you need to let that bacteria establish itself. Constantly cleaning everything and swapping filters actually makes it worse. I would also suggest looking up some stuff on "fish-in cycling" as that is essentially what you are going to be doing here. You can help the cycling along if you have old, dirty, used filters already. Just squeeze all the crap from the older sponges into your tank and you will get a lot of the good bacteria as well. Or you could just put the old filter in and let it help you out.
Hopefully this helps you, don't hesitate to ask more. I'm always happy to help. (Sometimes it just takes me longer to reply!)
@@BobMossNanoTanks
Your amazing and I am so grateful I found someone that will actually help me that knows what there talking about! It’s hard to find good help anywhere these days, not kidding either. The people who do think they know what there talking about seem young, but believe they know it all, funny. I’m just going to move forward with testing and is plastic plants the way to go? These were live and provided? Anyway. Thanks again to much k.
Lol...awesome stream...prime time aquatics says the same thing. I do it all the time..
Ty! Yes I've seen their videos, I think they're the only other channel saying the truth about this.
Keep keeping it real.
Always trying!
Nice! Not much more needs to be said!
thank you! This took way too long to edit considering what it is. Hopefully I can get back on track now that I'm feeling a bit better.
I’m just here for the shrimp
what about the funnies?! lol
😅 snack time!
they were good, but the cheeto dust really does bug me.
izat a apple snail?1:39
I believe so. It's the only one I have of that type.
You are incorrect !
I am ME and YOU are YOU !!!!!!!
I am always right!
😂
mission accomplished
Lol
This is all I need
i got proof.
link or shenanigans!
huh, i was definitely a believer and perpetuator of the myth. i suppose the only benefit of reusing ur water change water is in order to conserve water. good to know!
Happy to help! I'm fighting the good fight out here lol