Sooo..filter socks

[Brittany Marie]

I see people are changing them about every 3 days. Are you putting something in them like activated carbon? Or nothing? Just seems like a lot of carbon to throw out...

 

[JoshH]

Generally people don't put any thing in there filter socks. As you mentioned it would be an incredible waste of media.

 

[Brittany Marie]

Generally people don't put any thing in there filter socks. As you mentioned it would be an incredible waste of media.

And what about these cups? Better than the socks?

 

[JoshH]

And what about these cups? Better than the socks?

A very debatable topic, cups are definately more flexible media wise. It all depends on your goals with filtration as well as your desire to clean filter socks regularly.

 

[scurvy dawg]

And what about these cups? Better than the socks?

I tried this in my never ending quest to rid myself of the socks. The problem I had was my skimmer over flowing because of the new floss. I rinsed and rinsed prior to putting in new floss, but did not help much. Turned out to be just as much work as the socks.

 

[Brittany Marie]

A very debatable topic, cups are definately more flexible media wise. It all depends on your goals with filtration as well as your desire to clean filter socks regularly.

I honestly didn’t know how often you were supposed to change them. I’ve just been rinsing them with super hot water, and they’ve been getting pretty clean. I wouldn’t mind more extensive cleaning though. I just want the cleanest water I can get

 

[Jeff Willetts]

I change out both of my filter socks every 48 hours and run carbon / gfo in a reactor, ran my tank for 2 months with no socks just to experiment and had so much crap in my sump it drove me nuts. Right back to filter socks I went!

 

[ca1ore]

Depends on your approach I suppose. I’ve not used purpose mechanical media in decades (though things like reactors end up being incidental mechanical filters). If you are going to use socks to catch stuff that is not fully mineralized, then absent frequent changing, the stuff just mineralizes in the socks and largely mitigates effectiveness. Detritus is not the offender it is often made out to be, and is home to a variety of detritivores ..... but as I said, depends on your goals for the tank.

 

[theMeat]

Haven’t run socks, gfo, or carbon in years.
Just say no to socks

 

[Bayareareefer18]

And what about these cups? Better than the socks?

I just switched over to the cups. I ordered some foam sheets and cut to fit into the cups. 3 layers of foam. Coarse, medium and fine. Had to put a piece of LR in the bottom of the cups because they wanted to float