cichfrk
12-28-2010, 01:54 PM
My question is about recycled filter media but let me tell you my story first.
I came down late one night and heard some "clicking sound" from my tank. I know the sound are from the loaches but decided to turn on my tank lights to see what’s going on anyway. Lo and behold, I saw snails for the first time in my big tank. Good thing I have a colony of "excited" clown loaches. I actually saw them devour some snails that were clinging on the side of my tank. Some of them were sweeping the substrate to get the crawling mollusk. It was fun to see those loaches munching on those pesky snails.
While it was nice to have snacks for my loaches, I asked myself, where I got them in the first place. The only thing I did some weeks back was utilized some old ceramic rings that I got last summer when I bought an old canister filter from craigslist. I thought they were safe to use since they were dry and have not seen water for a long time. I didn’t use them right away when I got them. They were in a plastic container with no lid.
No rocks or décor was introduced so I’m sure that I got those snails from the recycled ceramic rings but any idea of where else I got them snails? Another question is, do you use someone else’s filter media in the first place? in case you use them, do you boil/sterilize them first?
I came down late one night and heard some "clicking sound" from my tank. I know the sound are from the loaches but decided to turn on my tank lights to see what’s going on anyway. Lo and behold, I saw snails for the first time in my big tank. Good thing I have a colony of "excited" clown loaches. I actually saw them devour some snails that were clinging on the side of my tank. Some of them were sweeping the substrate to get the crawling mollusk. It was fun to see those loaches munching on those pesky snails.
While it was nice to have snacks for my loaches, I asked myself, where I got them in the first place. The only thing I did some weeks back was utilized some old ceramic rings that I got last summer when I bought an old canister filter from craigslist. I thought they were safe to use since they were dry and have not seen water for a long time. I didn’t use them right away when I got them. They were in a plastic container with no lid.
No rocks or décor was introduced so I’m sure that I got those snails from the recycled ceramic rings but any idea of where else I got them snails? Another question is, do you use someone else’s filter media in the first place? in case you use them, do you boil/sterilize them first?