Question about Whisper Filter

[Limi310]

I have Whisper filters on all my tanks and they come with the disposable bio-bag (floss with carbon inside) and a bio-sponge. These slide into slots in front of the 'waterfall' area.
In reading this forum I have heard people talk about adding things to their filter - like peat. Just wondering how you would go about this with the Whisper filters.....just cram it in there....put it inside of the bio-bag, etc.

Also, say I didn't want to buy the bio-bags anymore - could I just fill the filter with floss and would it still work properly? Does anyone use the Whisper filters and use 'homemade' media?

Just curious because it's I'm always looking to save a few bucks *BOUNCINGS

 

[Pure]

I've never used it with the floss like you are thinking, but my guess would be it would clog and backup on you faster. For adding peat you want to remove the carbon. The carbon would be counter productive with peat. Replace the carbon with the peat. If you use peat from a DIY store like home depot, you want to make sure to get pure peat. You don't want anything with any kind of additive or ferts. You then want to make sure to boil it for 5 minutes or so. If you don't you risk getting fungus and bacteria in your tank. I myself found that out the hard way. Major bad fungus out break in my tank.

Why are you wanting to add peat to the tank?

 

[Limi310]

I actually don't want to add it at this point but was just curious as to how to go about it - if I ever decide to restock any of my tanks with an 'Amazon' setting for instance. I was just using peat as an example - probably a bad example because I don't think I would even need to use it because the tap water in Charlotte is natually soft and on the acidic side of the PH scale. I've also heard there are things you could add inside the filter to provide buffering capacity and/or raise the PH.

I need to get the water in one of my tanks set up for puffers and need to change the water to hard (adding salt to make brackish) and something to buffer and raise Ph. Is there something I could put inside the bio-bag that will do this?

When I test my tap water it hardly registers anything on the alkalinity scale. I would prefer to do this naturally rather then add that buffering stuff that looks like baking soda or Ph raising chemicals (because I assume these things are only temporary and you have to keep adding the stuff...resulting in possibly Ph swings (bad for fishies). Does all that make sense?

 

[Pure]

probably a bad example because I don't think I would even need to use it because the tap water in Charlotte is natually soft and on the acidic side of the PH scale.

Rub it in why don't ya.

Adding the salt should up it pretty good. What is he PH in your other brackish tank?? If you need to raise it a little more you can fill the bags up with crushed coral. How much to use is going to have to be a little trial and error on your part.

 

[Limi310]

Well I used this black sandy substrate from Seachem, can't remember the name, Onyx Sand I think - and that did the trick......it added alkalinity to buffer and raised the Ph.
I didn't want to do that with the new puffer tank because I wanted to try sand (and that black stuff is like $25 a bag).

 

[Limi310]

Rub it in why don't ya.

Ha ha, I know - I probably should have just gone with the Amazon theme from the start......

 

[Limi310]

What is he PH in your other brackish tank??

I have this crappy Ph test kit.....need to get a better one. It only measures up to 7.6 and I think it's higher then that - according to the 'colormatch' the blue is darker then the 7.6 blue on the chart..

But if I test my tap water it is probably somewhere between 6.4 - 6.8. Big range, I know.....but like I said, it's a crappy test kit....hard to tell. I have the same Seachem stuff in my 46 and 10 (I 'borrowed' some from the 46 and 37 when I decided to go planted in the 10)

 

[seastaar88]

i have a whipser 10 and a whisper 20 on my 20g tank and i've never used the whisper cartridges. i just use a wad of filter floss. sometimes if my tank is really icky, i might add some carbon in a mesh baggie.

 

[lordroad]

Seastaar, how much floss do you use? A couple handfuls?

I recently modified my whisper to hold ceramic bionoodles and took out the "bio" foam and replaced it with polyester padded sheets, like in the actual cartridge bags.

 

[Limi310]

When you say 'modified' what did you actually do? So you are using the bionoodles as the biofilter media and the polyester as mechanical?

Does it matter in what order the water flows through first? Usually I thought it would go through the mechanical filter part, then biological or doesn't it matter? Just wondering if your bionoodles get clogged w/ debris?

 

[lordroad]

Modified as in not just using the filter bags and sponges.

My tank is highly stocked so I don't notice a difference in clogging... bags need to be rinsed once every month or month and a half. I've actually found by using the ceramic noodles, the rings that are designed to be biofilters for canister filters, seems to keep the flow a little bit better, though it's noisy.

I have about twenty stuffed in the back behind the bags.

Main filtration is a Rena XP2.

If I had more outlets to spare, I'd use my second Whisper and have that do the pure mechanical stuff while the one I use now will do only biofiltration with more rings, with maybe a sponge or padding for added mech filtration. The noodles do a bit of mechanical filtering but not that much.

 

[seastaar88]

i guess i'd say a handfull.. just enough to loosly fill the area.

 

[Limi310]

If I pick up another filter, I may try it that way. I am somewhat reluctant to try it now because the Whipser 60 is the only filter I am using on that tank (46gal) and I don't want to mess it up. Probably wouldn't hurt to try adding some bionoodles though.
Gives me confidence to know there are other people using it that way with success.

 

[seastaar88]

there have been discussions on filter floss etc on a thread a few months ago in a topic on whether people use carbon or not. you can do a search on carbon to try to find that thread. filter floss is really inexpensive (a HUGE bag for $6.00 (i'm not even a quarter of the way through it and i bought the bag last summer...!). you can always add carbon or any other media in mesh baggies (or the foot end of pantyhose, knotted off) into your filter as well. you get teh same effect without having to pay for whipser brand replacement cartridges.

 

[Orion]

I've not bought pre-made filter inserts in a very long time.

I buy the polyester that comes in a roll instead of the loose batting. For HOB filters, I take some eggcrate and cut it to fit where the inserts go, and wrap the polyester around it four times. This seemingly allows me to still get effecent filtration without any loss in water flow. For my canisters I just cut it to fit down inside the media baskets. I normaly use 6-8 sheets in my canisters.

It's taken me about a year to go though one bag of polyester @ around $4 per bag. Takes a little more forethought and trail and error, but I've saved a lot of money doing this.

 

[Limi310]

Thanks guys (and gals),
I will definitely try it with homemade media and see how it works out for me.

The $2.50 or so for one replacement filter cartridge adds up, especially when you have 4 tanks and 3 tanks take 2 cartriges.............. Since there are 2 'sections' inside the filter, maybe I can start slowly and remove one filter cartridge, add floss...wait a month then do the other side. Sound good?