my poor little fish died last night, of some horrible disease i've been treating for the past few days.
i threw out my net, it was tainted, and the filter cartridge for my penguin mini.
because my last two fish have died, is there a possibility the bio wheel is tainted with whatever they had? should i try to replace it? they always say there's no reason to, but i'm afraid it may be filled with something that will taint any future tanks i may have. i had to run the filter without the cartridge in it while medicating, so the water wasn't being filtered out before it hit the bio wheel.
i have no idea if they even sell replacements, i might have to buy a whole new filter. does anyone have any idea?

I'm sorry you lost your fish.

They do sell replacements. If it were me I'd toss the biowheel. The risk with keeping the old biowheel isn't huge, but the risk is there, esp. if you don't allow it to dry out in an effort to keep the good biobugs around (which would be the only reason *not* to replace it). Better safe than sorry.

Bio wheels are easy to find and replace.

HOWEVER, if you are "nuking" the tank anyway - PP or other such treatment- just drop the biowheel into the sterilizing agent. Nets, tubes, airstones, clips, filter media, filters, tank edges, rocks, decorations, algae scrub sponges, buckets, testing equipment, etc. -all are salvagable if you sterilize them. Just take it slow and treat EACH item fully. You are killing all the bacteria (good, bad or otherwise) so the bio-wheel just becomes a plastic and paper thing, not a living entity to be preserved. It will populate again.

After sterilizing and rinsing the heck out of everything, lay it all out in the sun for a day. UV is wonderful at finishing the job.

i think i'm just going to replace it...i don't want the risk, i just wasn't sure if they were sold separately, but if they are, no problems. i'm going to the petstore tonight, i'll grab one then.
thanks guys!

I never try to disinfect sponges or any other sort of filter material. Since they are so populated with bacteria, that is where a lot of the action is taking place...I've had bad experiences with them breaking down in the disinfection process and find it easier to replace.

I will never try to disinfect sponges or filter material EXCEPT for the ceramic tubes and lava rock. These do need multiple passes through the disinfecting agent to make sure that ALL the surfaces are throughly soaked and done. Biowheels are very cheap and should be replaced, but, since they are very open, it is also very easy to access all the surfaces well for disinfection.

You are right - a truly serious problem definately dictates replacement of as much of the media as possible.