Juan colin Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 Is it normal for my filter cartridge to turn brown with a slime coat a few days after doing a water change and changing the cartridge? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colu Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 Yes it depends of how much suspended material in the water column Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenman Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 It's not unheard of. If you want to extend the life of your filter cartridges you can cut some lengths of quilt batting and wrap them around the cartridges to intercept the dirt before it hits the cartridge. Then swap out the quilt batting instead of the whole cartridge when it gets soiled. You can double or triple the life of the filter cartridges doing that and quilt batting is very inexpensive. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrozenFins Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 that happend to me, but not that soon. It was about a few months before it turned that brownish color. When was the last time your did filter matnience, you should be doing it with your waterchanges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Streetwise Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 (edited) Replace consumable cartridges with Co-Op or AquaClear foam, or other DIY media. Edited December 9, 2020 by Streetwise 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marnol D Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 This is normal and if it was soon soon after a water change there was a ton of debris in the water column so the filter filtered them out and bacteria fed on them. You could leave the filter off longer after water changes to let the debris settle but run the risk of hurting your cycle if left off too long. If you want to save a dollar or two you can swap those out to sponges and quilt batting. I got rid of my replaceable cartridges and used quilt batting (dont use the flame retardant one) and sponges and tossed the batting once it got dirty and would squeeze out the sponges when they got dingy. (you could see the buildup within them) But this is normal in a tank after its been setup a while , when i was using quilt batting as it creates a good breeding ground for things it did this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted December 9, 2020 Share Posted December 9, 2020 (edited) Do yourself a favor get some coarse sponge and polishing pads you’ll save money and your filter will work better. Just cut the fabric and sponge to fit behind the blue plastic frame and run the filter as usual. Putting a sponge on the intake will reduce the number of times you’ll need to clean the filtration media. Edited December 9, 2020 by Paul 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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