- Location
- Deer Park,Long Island,11729
I'm afraid of soap resedoo with the washer and how much Clorox do you use?
I'm afraid of soap resedoo with the washer and how much Clorox do you use?
I'm too lazy to wash them by hand... Why do that when I have a perfectly good washing machine and clorox is cheap?
I have increased how often I swap filter socks and I am seeing a BIG difference. Now that I have been doing it every day things actually look better!
Alfred
You wash the mesh or the fabric ones?
Strangely, I would much rather plan for a longer, more tedious task that I only have to do once in a while instead of sticking to a very rigorous regimen of doing something every 2-3 days. If I'm off by a couple of days on the sump cleaning, it's only a fraction of the total time span that has passed. However, if I'm supposed to change my filter socks every 3 days, and skip until the 4th, well, I've just gone 33% past the "service interval".
I take my socks and let them soak for a couple of hours in about a gallon of water with 1/2 cup bleach, then I wash them with water and add tap water conditioner to remove chlorine, then I let them air dry for a day or 2.
I see that there are several proponents of filter socks, and I understand that it's probably because it's really not that big a deal to actually take them out. Even for me, it only takes me a few seconds to gradually pull them out of the round cutouts in my sump. However, it's not all about just taking them out. They have to be cleaned too. What I usually do is take them outside, lay them on the cement patio (which I spray clean first for a few seconds) then I blast the socks with a hose until they are clean. Next, I swing them around to dry them out as much as possible, finally I leave them out in the sun and a few days later I do the same thing to the other ones that are in the sump.
The above operation takes a lot more than a few seconds.
As far as the rotation thing goes, I only have 2 sets. I thought about getting another set but then I thought - how does that benefit me? Say I had 7 sets and bothered to change them every day. I'd still have to clean the ones that just came out, right? That chore doesn't go away. You still have to clean out the ones you just took out right away, whether it's one of 2 pair or one of 7 you can't just leave them somewhere to fester.
I understand that the above may seem like a rationalization for getting rid of socks. In other words, "it's too much trouble, so I'm not going to do it". That's not really my reasoning behind my decision. I just wanted to set the record straight that it's not as quick as it may seem.
Now back to the "no sock thing":
I actually yanked them out this morning .
Home from work about an hour ago, and nothing seems amiss. Water just as clean as it was yesterday. However, I noticed that my skimmate is already a little darker than usual. I'm going to monitor things for a while and see how it goes. If it doesn't work for me - and, as is the case in many hobbies what works for one may not work for another - I'll commit to socks. We'll see.
-John
Just curios,
by using plain water supply from city threw copper pipes, full of PO4 ,Cu,Clorine,Cloramine,Amonia etc, we may import some bad minerals for Reef Tanks ?!
How do you use filter floss in a sump?