I use them but going to stop. Just don’t have time to pay attention to them with a new baby. Forget to change them and what not. I will probably just run a cup with floss for a day after a water change and call it good.
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I have two 7” and change every three days.How many of you run filter socks, if YES - what is your opinion? Does it help? Is it a pain? For those saying NO - why do you not run them and what type of alternatives (if any) are you running?
FULL DISCLOSURE: I hate filter socks.
I have room but don't use them either about every 4 months or so I might clean my sump if I am not in a hurry.I have never used a filter sock or similar on my tank. I don’t use them because I don’t have room in my undersized diy sump for them. All of my nutrient export is from a skimmer, fuge, and my rock and sand bed.
I usually have a lot of mulm in my sump, but my phosphates and nitrates stay low so I don’t worry about it and rarely clean it out.
No one has mentioned filter cups. Maybe I missed it. Anyone? We are going all in on them for almost all of our aio tanks. With poly matrix balls. Reusable. Excellent results. Comments?
Interesting. Thank you for your feedback. The response we normally get is the profound simplicity of maintaining the Floss. Take it out. Squeeze it a few times in non chlorine water and put it back in place. You don't want or need to completely clean them. Better to leave some colonies in place.I have looked into these. Honestly, I don't see where they are any better than socks. You need to dump the old floss and refill with new, which to me, seems more of a hassle than just R&R a sock. Perhaps I have a very simple sock holder that makes this process nearly effortless? Seriously, it takes me less than a minute to swap socks out. It takes longer to program the washing machine on wash day than it does to replace the socks....
Hmmmm... So in my system, I have a single sock. It hangs in a U shaped holder. I simply pull it out, wring out the water and drop it in a half gallon pitcher, then replace with a clean one.Interesting. Thank you for your feedback. The response we normally get is the profound simplicity of maintaining the Floss. Take it out. Squeeze it a few times in non chlorine water and put it back in place. You don't want or need to completely clean them. Better to leave some colonies in place.
Depends.I think anything a filter sock does is better done by a roller and I also think both are unnecessary.
How many of you run filter socks, if YES - what is your opinion? Does it help? Is it a pain? For those saying NO - why do you not run them and what type of alternatives (if any) are you running?
FULL DISCLOSURE: I hate filter socks.
I use tubes in sock holders with floss. It’s better than washing funky socks and I can replace the floss daily with little effort .How many of you run filter socks, if YES - what is your opinion? Does it help? Is it a pain? For those saying NO - why do you not run them and what type of alternatives (if any) are you running?
FULL DISCLOSURE: I hate filter socks.
What are poly matrix balls?No one has mentioned filter cups. Maybe I missed it. Anyone? We are going all in on them for almost all of our aio tanks. With poly matrix balls. Reusable. Excellent results. Comments?
My tank has only been up and running since last fall, so my experience is relatively limited so far, but I have a Clarisea roller filter and absolutely love it. When I do tank maintenance that stirs up stuff a lot, I will sometime redirect to a filter sock, but I can't say that I really have any issues with blowing through rolls quickly and the last couple of tank cleaning sessions I haven't bothered with switching to a sock. I am getting close to two months out of one roll (larger Clarisea model and a 170 gallon fowlr). When I look at how filthy the spent filter roll is (see photo), I am really glad that crap (literally) is not sitting in the sump and having water continually running over it so that it can further contaminate the tank. It is continuously removed and I only have to do maintenance on it once every two months (to swap out the roll).I use filter socks because they are simple, cheap, and can not really brake unless you are really trying. They are simple to clean; mine just go straight from the sump into a bucket with bleach water in it, when the bucket is full they go in the wash. They might take me 15 minutes a month of actual work to clean them. I do only run one sock on the main drain of the system and let the secondary and emergency go right into the sump.
If you run a filter roller and you do maintenance in you tank, you have to take your filter roller offline unless you want to waste $30 of reef tank toilet paper. There are so many stories about those things blowing through multiple rolls in a single month or even a week and having motors and sensors failing on them. That doesn't sound like easy maintenance to me.
Refugiums and ATS are both A+ in my book too. Easy filtering that can not really brake.
There's one on the 2 inch outlet into the sump on my largest tank. It's never been cleaned. Course woven sock. It's purpose is to try to generate nitrate to avoid 0s.How many of you run filter socks, if YES - what is your opinion? Does it help? Is it a pain? For those saying NO - why do you not run them and what type of alternatives (if any) are you running?
FULL DISCLOSURE: I hate filter socks.