Reusing Ceramic Media?

Biglurr54 · May 12, 2019

So I have been very successful with qting lately. It's been a long road but I'm glad to finally have a program that seems to be working.

I start with seeded media. I've been using marine pure gems in media bags. My question is, can I reuse them. By that I mean sterilize them and the return them to the main system sump to be re seeded.

I dose copper power to 2.0 for 14 days exactly then I swap tanks and dose metro and prazi.

My concern is the copper. Will the ceramic media absorb the copper. It's getting expensive with one pack of Marine pure gems per fish.

If I soak them over night in bleach. The rinse, then bake in the over at 350 for a few hours, they will be sterilized and dry. Will the have copper in them though?

VB313 · May 12, 2019

Biglurr54 said:
So I have been very successful with qting lately. It's been a long road but I'm glad to finally have a program that seems to be working.

I start with seeded media. I've been using marine pure gems in media bags. My question is, can I reuse them. By that I mean sterilize them and the return them to the main system sump to be re seeded.

I dose copper power to 2.0 for 14 days exactly then I swap tanks and dose metro and prazi.

My concern is the copper. Will the ceramic media absorb the copper. It's getting expensive with one pack of Marine pure gems per fish.

If I soak them over night in bleach. The rinse, then bake in the over at 350 for a few hours, they will be sterilized and dry. Will the have copper in them though?

I’m sure you can but my personal opinion the whole bleach regeneration thing has always scared the crap out of me I rather just spend the 15$ and start over again no risks

Biglurr54 · May 12, 2019

What is bleach regeneration? I bleach a ton of things and never had a problem. My filter socks soak in bleach then a quick rinse and then air dry. Never had a problem. I was under the impression that once bleach dries it is no longer harmful.

Big G · May 12, 2019

Soaking and washing equipment that has been treated with copper with vinegar precipitates the copper into a harmless form.

That being said, I use Fluval BioMax ceramic media in my QT that has been soaking in my sump for at least a month. And I have reused it in a "Fish" QT.

But I would never reuse it in an invert or coral QT.

VB313 · May 12, 2019

Biglurr54 said:
What is bleach regeneration? I bleach a ton of things and never had a problem. My filter socks soak in bleach then a quick rinse and then air dry. Never had a problem. I was under the impression that once bleach dries it is no longer harmful.

Sorry i just said bleach regeneration cause that’s what they say can be done to reuse the purigen packs I use just personal opinion I never did it cause I just couldn’t imagine using bleach for my aquarium parts I know people do it all the time with a lot of different things just something I’ve never got comfortable doing to save 12$-15$

Cyricdark · May 12, 2019

Vinegar works from what I hear but I've never tried it. I 1 time converted a hundred gallon entire system from a copper quarantine into a coral tank and all I did was run a ton of carbon in reactors for about 4 months it was just a softy tank but I didn't have any unexplained Coral deaths or anything along those lines. So unless you're talking about a very small nano-tank I'm sure you would be fine. A lot of times people forget that copper is in fact a trace element present in seawater and in our salt mixes but like most other Trace elements it's toxic in large quantities. I even heard stories of people dosing minute amounts of copper to get different coloration in SPS corals.

Cyricdark · May 12, 2019

VB313 said:
Sorry i just said bleach regeneration cause that’s what they say can be done to reuse the purigen packs I use just personal opinion I never did it cause I just couldn’t imagine using bleach for my aquarium parts I know people do it all the time with a lot of different things just something I’ve never got comfortable doing to save 12$-15$

Yeah that's the nature of bleach if you let it completely dry it's pretty much completely gone it oxidizes and gases off. People have been curing live rock in Bleach for years and years with no issues as long as you let it dry out or add a dechlorinator to the water either way works.

VB313 · May 12, 2019

Cyricdark said:
Yeah that's the nature of bleach if you let it completely dry it's pretty much completely gone it oxidizes and gases off. People have been curing live rock in Bleach for years and years with no issues as long as you let it dry out or add a dechlorinator to the water either way works.

Yeah I use vinegar to clean certain things I totally agree to the science behind bleach I just don’t think ile ever do it lol