im curious...when you clean the fiter wouldnt it clean away all the good bacteria too so the tank would start cycling again?

thanks

As far as I am aware, when you clean the filter media you just swoosh it about in old tank water and the benificial bacteria will be ok as it is pretty stuck on to the media. Dont clean the media in tap water as that will kill them off and then the tank will have to re-cycle.

thankyou so what happens when you buy new filter foam then?

Well, then you don't toss out the old one just yet - squeeze all or part of it in any empty space in your filter for about a week or so, until the new media has colonized with the beneficial bacteria.

Why do you want to buy new filter foam anyway? Is the old one really battered up?

thanks for the info i dont need one yet i just thought it was best to know because i'll need one eventually