Polyester Filter Fiber. Anyone ever use this kind (see pic)

[Sandra the fish rookie]

Someone gave this to me. I am worried about it because it looks more like what you would use to stuff a pillow. I have the ACO filter floss but not sure what to do with this.. (besides stuff a pillow with it..LOL). 

If anyone uses it.. how do you use it??? 

[Patrick_G]

Mine has a different label but looks the same. I top off my filters with it. It’s great for a little extra polishing if you have some particulate in the water. 

[Sandra the fish rookie]

@Patrick_G Okay so do you put it just "fluffy" or do you mold it? Does any fibers fly off at all...I am so paranoid about that... 

[Patrick_G]

I mold it a bit and I’ve never had any fall in the tank. Since it’s something that gets replaced regularly it’s great to use when cycling a new tank too. 
It’s not something you absolutely have to use, but it’s effective and cheap. 
As a kid in the 80s I had a few corner filters that were full of the stuff. 
 

[Griznatch]

As long as it doesn't have any chemicals like fire retardant in it and is just pure poly floss, then is should be safe to use.

 I used the stuff from Walmart for pillow stuffing. Cost me 3 dollars and I still have a 3rd of a bag left. That's after two re-scapes. Used it to help with the mulm tornadoes when swapping out substrate in the 55 and 75.

It's effective and you can reuse it if you can rinse out all the gunk good enough.  One word of caution though, if you have it in a HOB filter make sure you  keep an eye on it, because it can clog up and then overflow your filter.
 

[CT_]

Another alternative is the cheap polyester quilt batting.  Its got a little more structure but is the same thing otherwise.  The other end of the spectrum is the co-op filter floss (or any brand i think).  I'm 99% sure its the same material but it holds it's shape better and I like it a lot more.  But, i have 6$ worth of quilt batting, which is a lifetime supply, so while I'll eventually go back to the co-op floss it'll be a while.

 

I'm also skeptical that the "fire retardant" kind has anything in it other than words on the bag that they can use to charge more.  Polyester is inherently fire resistant.  But that maybe a moot point because the cheapest ones don't say fire retardant any way and why spend more?

 

 

[ARMYVET]

It is perfectly fin for a fish tank.  The one you were given was even marketed for aquariums because of the fish on the packaging. It has no chemicals...is inert in the tank and will filter out very fine particles almost polishing the water.  I put it in my filters as a final step before the water goes back to the tank.   It relatively inexpensive and it works well.

[Guppysnail]

Yup I have it I do the same as @lefty o but I’m to lazy to mold it. I just stuff it in on top and make sure it’s in pretty tight. 

[Tedrock]

My only cautionary word of experience is don’t pack in the filter too tight. No water will move through it.  I speak from experience.  You can just see me packing it down there, stuffing it tight.  Keep it loose, it will fill up soon enough.

[Sandra the fish rookie]

OK Great!

I used another brand that is finer between my coarse sponge and my bag of biomatrix and it works REALLY well but like most of you said if I use it on the top it makes my filter water look like it will over flow at least my aqueon anyways.. that filter box is SO narrow so it has zero room for anything else. My tidal is awesome and I never have an issue adding anything addition because there is so much room in it.

The finer one is what I use below and also have ACO as another option.  I know.. I have WAY to much stuff.. I just can't decide what works best yet.. I am sure it will all get used 

[Scott C]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003SBK5SU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've used this successfully for years now, cheep, nothing special works great, i have a diy sump and use this as the fist stage of mechanical filtration to catch the large debris before the water enters the biological filtration (Floss mat, Lava Rock, Bio Blocks). I will usually cut a couple layers to fit and change them out when they start to get debris build up or restrict flow at all.

mine comes in a sheet, difficult to tell if the one you show is a sheet or just fill, in which case you may need a container or mesh to direct flow through it, hope this helps

[ARMYVET]

On 6/17/2021 at 7:56 AM, Sandra the fish rookie said:

OK Great!

I used another brand that is finer between my coarse sponge and my bag of biomatrix and it works REALLY well but like most of you said if I use it on the top it makes my filter water look like it will over flow at least my aqueon anyways.. that filter box is SO narrow so it has zero room for anything else. My tidal is awesome and I never have an issue adding anything addition because there is so much room in it.

The finer one is what I use below and also have ACO as another option.  I know.. I have WAY to much stuff.. I just can't decide what works best yet.. I am sure it will all get used 

This is the one I too am currently using.  It definitely clears up all of the fine particles from the water column.