Eheim 2215 medias?

[714pedro]

hi guys.. newbie here...sorry if i'm in the wrong thread but just like to get some advise..
when i bought my eheim2215 canister, and is running for almost 2 months now, the other day i did a thorough cleaning by opening the cannister head, and planing of rinsing the medias inside, thats when i found out it consist only of 5 layers of blue pads and 1 layer of white pad, which i think i did not notice the 1st time i used it,
anyway, i was able to find eheim "efimech" and Substrat pro". my question are:
- should i just put the new medias in the canister and let it run again?
- would it affect the filtration?
- would it do any harm to my discus?

BTW i forgot to mention that i still have another HOB running in the 40gal tank w/ 7 juvies

sorry for the long post..
thanks guys

[tcyiu]

Firstly, don't worry. The fact that you have a HOB already running will give you back up insurance. But you don't even need that since your fish seem to be doing fine with the existing media.

If you really insist on using the new media, here's what I would do:

- Get two buckets of clean water siphoned from the tank.
- Pull existing media out of canister and place into one bucket
- Clean the media in this one bucket. Whatever you do, do not rinse media under tap water.
- Clean the canister. You can use a jet of tap water to clean out the gunk. The bacteria on the walls will die, but their numbers are negligible.
- Rinse the new media in tap water, and then in the clean aquarium water. Put the media in the canister.
- Do a final rinse of the old media in the second bucket of clean water, and re-install the white and only enough blue media to fill the canister.
- Reconnect everything and you're good to go.

Tim

[714pedro]

@tim, thanks for the quick response and help...

[tcyiu]

You're welcomed. Good luck
Tim