ToddBigEasy

wow thanks for the replies, they are insightful. I did not realize that the black "gunk" that comes out of sponges was actually bacteria. I always assumed that bacteria basically was "clear" and stuck to surfaces. any more enlightenment? Maybe I should start a new posts about that! Thanks again, have a good weekend. Todd

the part I underlined makes a lot of sense and the rest of your response response makes sense too! Thanks for the reply! Yes, for my 110 setup I have 2 Aquaclear 110's ready to go and will have the sponge too.

Hi! I've got a 70 planted set up for almost a year now. Anyway I have experience for over 50 years and have had my share of all types of filtration over that time, at the moment I have amongst other things, 2 sponge filters in the 70. I added the 2nd one a couple months ago a to "seed" for my new 110 I'm setting up soon. I took them out to maintain the other night and noticed the original one had lots of black gunk squeeze out as per normal, the Coop one has literally nothing come out. The original one is smaller pore size for sure, it has an air stone that goes all the way to the bottom of the sponge, the coop one has the air "collar" with the uplift tube. Would there be any reason why the coop one did not seem to pull anything out? is it working? Is the larger pore size not pulling small particulates? would the lack of air stone limit the function? The original sponge was cleaned when I put the coop one in too. thanks for any ideas. I just want to make sure I have it working properly before I move it to the 110. Thanks, Todd