Hob media

[Westoncase]

I’ve never thought about until now but is a filter sponge really necessary? I’m running 2 aquaclear 50s. One has liverock rubble and chemipure blue and the other has a sponge and filter floss. I’ve only ever changed the filterfloss and chemipure. I’m getting the feeling the sponge is a place for detritus collect. Any input?
-Tank is 6 months

 

[Peace River]

I’ve never thought about until now but is a filter sponge really necessary? I’m running 2 aquaclear 50s. One has liverock rubble and chemipure blue and the other has a sponge and filter floss. I’ve only ever changed the filterfloss and chemipure. I’m getting the feeling the sponge is a place for detritus collect. Any input?
-Tank is 6 months

HOB sponges can provide biological filtration, but IMO that is better left for the live rock and live sand in the system and then you can use the sponge and filter floss primarily for mechanical filtration. As a side note, the rubble can collect a lot of stuff so you may also want to lightly rinse that in RO water occasionally. The sponge will filter out the large piece of particulates in the water and the filter floss will filter both large and small particulates. Therefore as the water flows through the filter then you can have the sponge first and then the filter floss (or you can remove the sponge and just change the filter floss more often). If you are not worried about the sponge acting as a biological filtration then you can rinse the sponge and change the filter floss on a regular basis.